PORTLAND, Maine — The trustees for Portland’s Cross Insurance Arena — the new name for the Cumberland County Civic Center — have approved hiring as a manager the same firm that runs Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center.
The trustees announced Monday that they approved the terms of a five-year management contract with Global Spectrum in a unanimous vote of the seven-member board last week.
Global Spectrum is affiliated with Comcast-Spectacor, which in addition to the Bangor arena operates more than 125 arenas, stadiums and convention centers globally and brings in more than $699 million in gross annual revenues.
“We look forward to the synergies we can create with the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor and our many other New England facilities,” John Page, president of Global Spectrum, said in a news release. “We also have a terrific working relationship with the Cross family and we are excited to extend that relationship to benefit the residents of the Portland area.”
Global Spectrum is also a sister company of Front Row Marketing, the firm in charge of promoting both arenas and handling commercial rights and premium seating sales. The trustees announced in September that they had decided to outsource management of the former Cumberland County Civic Center and sought to negotiate a contract with Global Spectrum.
The contract stipulates that employees at the arena will become employees of Global Spectrum when the document is signed, which the arena’s event services manager Robert Wright said is expected next week. The arena has about 11 full-time employees.
With the contract, the trustees agreed to pay Global Spectrum an annual fee of $110,000 and three possible bonuses tied to any increases in total operating revenue, food and beverage sales and quality-based metrics.
The deal would allow Global Spectrum to receive 15 percent of any annual increase in food and beverage sales and 20 percent of the total operating revenue increase, based on certain benchmarks. The contract would also allow up to a 20 percent increase of its fixed payment if Global Spectrum meets all of the quality criteria.