Warriors arena to be named Chase Center — bank buys naming rights

The 18,000-seat Chase Center in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood is scheduled to open in time for the 2019-20 NBA season. Besides Warriors games, the arena is expected to host events including concerts and conventions. less The 18,000-seat Chase Center in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood is scheduled to open in time for the 2019-20 NBA season. Besides Warriors games, the arena is expected to host events including ... more Photo: Images Rendered By Steelblue., Courtesy Of MANICA Architecture. Photo: Images Rendered By Steelblue., Courtesy Of MANICA Architecture. Image 1 of / 42 Caption Close Warriors arena to be named Chase Center — bank buys naming rights 1 / 42 Back to Gallery

More than three years before their new arena is set to open in Mission Bay, the Golden State Warriors have reached a naming-rights deal with financial powerhouse JPMorgan Chase.

The 18,000-seat arena, set to open in time for the 2019-20 basketball season, will be called the Chase Center. Financial terms were not released, but naming-rights experts said the deal probably exceeds the high-water mark for basketball arenas, the $200 million that Barclays paid to put its name on the home of New York’s Brooklyn Nets.

While naming deals are not typically struck until a venue is well under construction, the fact that the Warriors are financing the arena privately gave the team incentive to strike the agreement sooner. Guaranteed revenue from the naming rights should give potential lenders confidence as the Warriors seek financing for the $1 billion arena.

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“To do this now was incredibly important to financing the project, an absolute cornerstone,” Warriors President Rick Welts said. “It won’t be the last deal we announce, but it will be the biggest and most important deal we’ll announce. It sets the right tone for the other discussions.”

The naming-rights agreement comes as the Mission Bay Alliance, a group of donors to UCSF, pursues two lawsuits against the arena development project. The Warriors said this month that the litigation would delay the opening of the facility for a year, from 2018 to 2019. The alliance argues that the arena will have a negative impact on the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, which opened in November 2014.

Project called inevitable

That a sponsor willing to invest in the project has been lined up shows the “inevitability” of the project, Welts said. “We are just one lawsuit away from being able to put a shovel in the ground.”

The JPMorgan Chase investment is the latest win for the league-leading Warriors. The team, which has the best record in the National Basketball Association this season, has a once-in-a-generation franchise superstar in league Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry. Forbes magazine valued the Warriors this month at $1.9 billion, sixth in the NBA and more than four times the $450 million the franchise was valued at four years ago.

Chase Chief Marketing Officer Kristin Lemkau called the Warriors the “hottest team and one of the hottest brands in sports.”

“Our strategy is to have big arena assets that can work for both sports and entertainment in key markets,” she said. “If ever there were a city and a team we would aspire to, it would be San Francisco and the Warriors.”

Others with Chase name

Chase already has the naming rights to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ baseball field, Madison Square Garden (home to the New York Knicks and New York Rangers) and the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Flushing Meadows neighborhood of Queens in New York City.

The financial services company also committed $25 million over the next three years for Bay Area projects including building and renovating sports and entertainment facilities in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Welts said the philanthropic commitment was a key part of the deal and showed that the two organizations are compatible in both business and community involvement.

“It’s as if it’s your house and somebody is moving into it for the next 20 years — that is the way we approached it,” said Welts. “We wanted a partner that not only was a great name brand, but a company that was going to be additive not only to the economics of the building but the experience people were going to have there.”

Bay Area market

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was scheduled to attend Wednesday’s Warriors game at Oracle Arena against the Dallas Mavericks. In a statement, Dimon said the naming-rights deal “is a great example of our commitment to the Bay Area and how important this market is to us.”

“The Bay Area is a beacon for technology, innovation and education, and we expect that the Chase Center will become a beacon of great art, culture, sports and entertainment for this great community,” he said.

In addition to Warriors games, there are plans to have more than 200 other events, including concerts and conventions, at the Chase Center each year. The arena will be the anchor for 11 acres of restaurants, cafes, offices and plazas, along with a new 51/2-acre public waterfront park.

Lemkau said the Bay Area is an increasingly important part of all of Chase’s lines of businesses: consumer banking, commercial banking, credit cards, investment banking and wealth management.

Chase didn’t have a West Coast presence until it acquired Washington Mutual in 2008 in a deal brokered by the federal government. The company now has 1,050 branches in California, including 250 in the Bay Area. Still, the brand is not as well known on the West Coast as competitors with San Francisco roots such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo, she said.

The selection of Chase might be something of a surprise in Bay Area business circles — in recent months there had been speculation the arena would be named after a San Francisco tech company like Salesforce or Uber or a legacy Bay Area name like Wells Fargo.

Chase does have a corporate presence in San Francisco: It is the anchor tenant at 560 Mission St. in the south Financial District and two years ago moved its technology division from New York to San Francisco, leasing space at 600 Harrison St.

Chase Center will be built on a vacant lot that has been slated for development since 1998. The team purchased the property at Third and 16th streets in 2014 and has spent two years participating in a public planning process. The project won unanimous approval from the Planning Commission and San Francisco Board of Supervisors last month.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer. E-mail: jdineen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @sfjkdineen