The previous 20-year naming rights arrangement was negotiated by former Wizards and Capitals owner Abe Pollin, and current owner Ted Leonsis has said repeatedly that he was seeking a more team-friendly deal. The Verizon deal was set to expire in 2018, but Capital One’s involvement accelerated the schedule.

Financial details were not released, but the deal is worth $100 million over 10 years, according to a source familiar with the arrangement, who confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report. That’s believed to be a significant jump over what Monumental received per year from the previous deal.

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Monumental will also announce a separate $40 million investment in the privately owned arena, with the money going toward projects such as Monumental360 — a data-based effort to analyze fan preferences — and a new point-of sale system, meant to create more efficient lines. That system will likely offer discounts to Capital One cardholders.

The 20,000-seat downtown venue became Verizon Center in 2006, and was acquired by Leonsis in 2010. He had been searching for a new naming-rights deal for more than two years, telling Post reporters and editors last year that the mortgage costs about $36 million a year, and that he has “the worst building deal in professional sports.” Those concerns could be ameliorated by the new deal, significant as the Wizards are set to go over the NBA’s luxury-tax line for the first time.

Capital One, headquartered in McLean, has already been a significant sponsor for the Wizards and Caps. Richard Fairbank — the company’s founder, chairman and chief executive — is a partner in Monumental, although he was not part of this negotiation, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.

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Aside from hosting Caps and Wizards games and a variety of concerts and events, the arena is also home to Leonsis’s new Arena Football League team and Georgetown basketball. The Mystics have long played downtown but are scheduled to move to a new facility in Southeast in 2018.

Some fans had already imagined a return to the “Cap Centre,” the nickname of the old Prince George’s County home for the Wizards and Capitals. But the decision to instead use the Capital One Arena moniker means the venue’s nickname has yet to be decided. Will it be Cap One? Cap Arena? The Caipirinha? The C-O-A? The Cap Centre? The Wallet?

“Capital One Arena,” Leonsis wrote in a Wednesday blog post, “sounds fantastic,” adding that the bank “shares our commitment to economic growth, philanthropy and community here in the DMV.”

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“Capital One Arena is one of the few privately owned arenas in the country, and throughout its ownership, MSE has made over $100 million in investments to ensure the arena remains a best-in-class facility,” he also wrote. “I’m pleased to say we are making a further down payment on that commitment with this announcement today.”

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