Lease extension will keep Sharks at SAP Center through 2025 with potential for further renewal

As expected, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and the Sharks announced today the sides have come to an agreement on an extension to the team’s lease with SAP Center. The current deal was set to expire on June 30th, 2018 but the extension ensures the Sharks will play their home games at the downtown San Jose arena through the conclusion of the 2024-25 NHL season, with the potential to renew the lease on an annual basis through 2040. From the press release:

The Sharks have called SAP Center home since the building’s inception in 1993. The current lease agreement between the City and the Sharks, amended in 2001, runs through June 30, 2018. The newly-negotiated extension states that Sharks Sports & Entertainment will continue to manage and operate the City-owned SAP Center and that the Sharks will play their home games at the facility on a fixed-term through 2025 – ten calendar years from today’s date. Beginning in 2026, the lease will renew on an annual basis through the year 2040.

Despite only having been built in 1993, SAP Center is already one of the oldest arenas in the NHL. Apart from Madison Square Garden, which recently underwent a significant renovation, only Rexall Place in Edmonton, Joe Louis Arena in Detroit and the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary have housed their respective clubs for longer than the Shark Tank. Construction has already begun on new arenas in Edmonton and Detroit. It was reported yesterday that upgrades to SAP Center will be a part of the new contract, the details of which will become available in a public hearing at the San Jose City Council Chambers on Tuesday.

This agreement should quiet speculation surrounding a potential move by the team for the near future, although the club’s dreadful television contract with Comcast SportsNet remains a point of concern for the ownership group. Hasso Plattner announced earlier in the offseason that efforts to renegotiate that deal have been unsuccessful. However, it’s worth noting that contract reportedly runs through the 2027-28 season, meaning this lease extension (unless they were to break it) locks the Sharks into staying in the Bay Area until there are only three years remaining on the deal.