To some residents of southwest Florida, TECO Energy Inc. may be best known for its sign on TECO Arena, the sports and entertainment complex along Interstate 75 in Estero, between Fort Myers and Naples.
Now the Tampa utility is mulling the sale of its naming rights only about five years into a 20-year, $7-million sponsorship deal.
TECO secured the naming rights to the arena in 1999 to lend a marketing boost to the expansion of its natural-gas subsidiary Peoples Gas into Lee and Collier counties, according to Peoples Gas spokesman Lance Horton.
In February, TECO received an unsolicited bid for the naming rights, Horton said, declining to identify the bidder. The Naples Daily News reported this month that Germain Motor Co. of Naples, which owns 14 car dealerships in southwest Florida and Ohio, is interested in acquiring the naming rights.
Representatives for TECO Arena and Germain Motor did not return phone calls.
Horton said TECO's deliberations about a possible sale of its naming rights aren't related to the utility's recent financial difficulties. A potential sale is "not a high priority for us since that's not something we had on our radar screen," he said.
