Tweeter Pulls Music Venue Sponsorships
By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 6/4/2007
CANTON, MASS. — Tweeter Home Entertainment Group is dropping its sponsorship of four concert halls in a cost-cutting measure that will save the cash-strapped company $7 million.
The chain expects to finalize agreements within the next two weeks with arena owner and concert promoter Live Nation to terminate its name-in-title sponsorships, a Tweeter spokesperson told TWICE.
Sponsorship of the Tweeter Center at the Waterfront in Camden, N.J.; Sound Advice Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Fla.; and HiFi Buys Amphitheater in Atlanta will end with the conclusion of the 2007 music season. Tweeter will continue to support its hometown music center, the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Mass., through the 2008 concert calendar.
Tweeter is scrambling to cut costs amid a cash crunch caused by early lease terminations associated with its closure of 49 stores. The beleaguered A/V specialty chain is attempting to raise working capital by selling its 19 percent stake in Tivoli, through equity financing, or by taking on additional debt, but warned this month that it may be forced to file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code.
Tweeter began sponsoring music venues in 1999 with the renaming of Mansfield's Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts. According to a report in the Boston Herald, naming rights to that venue cost the company about $800,000 a year under terms of an 11-year deal, well below the projected going rate of about $2 million.
