PORTLAND -- The Rose Garden Arena will now be known as The Moda Center, the Portland Trail Blazers announced Tuesday morning.
The Blazers and Moda Health signed a ten-year naming rights agreement, effective August 13. President and CEO Chris McGowan said he had to sell the naming rights to the arena, in order to revitalize the entire Rose Quarter and take the Blazers organization to a new level. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Moda makes sense for us for a number of reasons, McGowan said. What I like about the fact that we were able to accomplish this with Moda is it's a local company, one that's based right here in Portland, it's got roughly 1,400 employees. That's ideal for us.
The new logo was not revealed yet, but McGowan said a rose will be incorporated into it, to pay tribute to the building's history and heritage as the Rose Garden.
Changes to the arena, including new signs, will be be added gradually, with the goal of completing the work in time for Portland's regular season home opener against the San Antonio Spurs on November 2. The property surrounding the arena will continue to be known as the Rose Quarter.
The team said they understand that many fans feel a special connection to the Rose Garden name and promised they will work to sustain that.
But on Monday, some fans went online to voice their frustration, creating a Facebook page and an online petition calling for the Rose Garden to keep its name.
The Rose Garden isn't going away, ensured McGowan. It's very much a part of our history and heritage and we're a part of that, and so is Moda. The Rose Garden, I would say, put us on the map and Moda Center is going to take us into the future.
Moda Health serves almost 2-million members in Oregon, Washington and Alaska with a wide range of medical, dental, pharmacy and vision health plans and services. Until May, they were ODS Health, a provider of dental services dating to 1955, when the company first provided benefits to longshore union workers. More: Moda/ODS annual report
According to its website, the Moda name derives from the Latin term modus or, the way.
