Thunder Bay turf sports facility gets new name

CBC News

· Posted: Nov 07, 2025 5:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 12 hours ago

Thunder Bay's caller indoor turf sports installation has a name.

Tbaytel has secured naming rights for the gathering — presently being constructed beside the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium — and it has formally been named the Tbaytel Multiplex.

City assembly approved the sanction earlier this week, and Tbaytel is paying $500,000 — which volition beryllium breached up into yearly payments of $50,000 per twelvemonth for the adjacent 10 years — for the naming rights.

"We judge truthful overmuch successful this community, successful families successful this community, and a installation similar this is conscionable going to beryllium a generational concern that's going to bring recreation, not conscionable for kids, but for each property radical into Thunder Bay," Tbaytel president and CEO Paul Norris said astatine a media lawsuit connected Thursday.

"We're tremendously excited astir this," helium said. "This is going to beryllium a hub for this assemblage for years to come."

The Tbaytel Multiplex, erstwhile completed, volition see a full-sized turf tract that tin beryllium utilized for sports similar soccer, football, lacrosse and cricket.

It's scheduled to unfastened successful autumn 2026, and volition outgo astir $36 cardinal to build.

Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff said the multiplex volition let the metropolis to beryllium a amended big for sports and different events.

"Having your ain assets ... allows us, arsenic a community, to beryllium acold much autarkic and originative and financially unchangeable than galore different communities," helium said.

The metropolis has been looking into selling naming rights for assorted facilities, including the Canada Games Complex, the Centennial Botanical Conservatory, and arenas including the Fort William Gardens.

In an email to CBC News, Callie Hemsworth, the city's supervisor of initiatives, marketing, and assemblage support, said the metropolis is inactive aboriginal successful the process, and has not yet secured naming rights sponsorship for immoderate facilities too the Tbaytel Multiplex.