In the out of the blue department, the Predators announced that the Sommet Group was behind on their payments on arena naming rights and they they have had to take them to court in an attempt to recover past due payments and formally terminate the agreement.
The Arena will now have another new name in the near future. After being the GEC, The Nashville Arena, and the Sommet Center, I can't imagine folks are standing in line, in this economy, to stick their name the building.
Here is the official release from the Predators...
NASHVILLE HOCKEY CLUB TERMINATES NAMING RIGHTS AGREEMENT WITH SOMMET GROUP AND FILES BREACH OF CONTRACT SUIT AGAINST SOMMET GROUP
Nashville, Tenn. (November 25, 2009) – Nashville Hockey Club Limited Partnership today announced that it has terminated its naming rights agreement with Sommet Group of Tennessee f/k/a Sommet Group, LLC (“Sommet”), and has filed suit in the Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tennessee, against Sommet stemming from Sommet’s failure to fulfil its naming rights payment obligations under that agreement. This is the last year of a three year naming rights agreement that the two companies entered into in 2007.
“We have reluctantly terminated our relationship with Sommet Group,” Nashville Predators President of Business Operations, Ed Lang said. “For months, Sommet Group has not met its payment obligations under our naming rights agreement. We repeatedly reached out to Sommet Group and sought its compliance with these obligations. Unfortunately, Sommet Group did not do so, or give us any indication that it would. We regret that Sommet Group left us no alternative but to terminate the agreement and seek legal redress.”
Our intention is to present a proposal for a new name to the Sports Authority in the coming weeks.
More Later...
Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass
The Sommet Group responded to the Preds Press Release with this from Nashville Is Talking...
First and foremost, we at the Sommet Group hope to resolve this amicably, in the best interests of all concerned. But the reason we have withheld payments is because our supposed partner in naming rights is not acting like one. We entered into the agreement with the understanding that in partial exchange for our payments, our business units would be the preferred provider of certain products and services. This is in keeping with the Hockey Club’s expressed desire to do business with local companies. Instead, the club has chosen arbitrarily to use our competitors, and the most recent straw that broke the camel’s back was their order of thousands of T-shirts from out of state instead of from Sommet’s BrandCentrik business unit. That in our view is not being a good partner as was promised.
End of statement
John Van Mol CEO
dye, van mol & lawrence
209 7th Avenue North
Nashville, Tennessee 37219
www.dvl.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Brian Whitfield asked me to pass this along to you:
Statement of Brian Whitfield, managing partner, Sommet Group:
First and foremost, we at the Sommet Group hope to resolve this amicably, in the best interests of all concerned. But the reason we have withheld payments is because our supposed partner in naming rights is not acting like one. We entered into the agreement with the understanding that in partial exchange for our payments, our business units would be the preferred provider of certain products and services. This is in keeping with the Hockey Club’s expressed desire to do business with local companies. Instead, the club has chosen arbitrarily to use our competitors, and the most recent straw that broke the camel’s back was their order of thousands of T-shirts from out of state instead of from Sommet’s BrandCentrik business unit. That in our view is not being a good partner as was promised.
End of statement
Post a Comment