By JAMES FINK, ALLISSA KLINE
jfink@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1611

While First Niagara Financial Group Inc. completed talks with HSBC Bank USA N.A. to acquire 195 retail branches, officials broached a different but related topic.

What about the naming rights to HSBC Arena, home of the Buffalo Sabres? Would HSBC Bank be willing to allow First Niagara to acquire those rights in addition to the branches?

"Put it on us," said John Koelmel, First Niagara president and CEO. "The opportunity was there to ask the question. It was (HSBC's) asset, but it was the right time and right place for them to allow this to happen, and it was the right time and right place for us do that."

Nearly one month after announcing the $1 billion deal to purchase HSBC branches in New York state and Connecticut, First Niagara acquired the naming rights to the downtown sports and entertainment arena. As of Aug. 25, the name switched from HSBC Arena to First Niagara Center. The deal gives First Niagara:

• Exclusive exterior facility naming rights.

• Exclusive banking presence within the facility's rink.

• Exclusive on-site ATM presence throughout the arena.

• Television and other "value-added" promotional benefits.

Terms of the new 15-year naming rights agreement were not disclosed. The amount of money that First Niagara committed to the deal will eventually become public because First Niagara, as a public company, has to disclose the information.

"We'll give you good disclose in due time," Koelmel said.

The bank's marketing and advertising expenses will likely increase because of the deal. First Niagara spent $3.8 million in that category during the second quarter of 2011, which ended June 30. That's down from $7.7 million spent on marketing and advertising during the same quarter of 2010.

Meanwhile, officials of the NHL franchise say they are pleased with what has transpired.

"I'd be lying if I didn't say I was excited,"  Sabres President Ted Black said. "An opportunity like this doesn't come along very often, so we were lucky to take advantage of the opportunity when it did come."

The changing of signage from HSBC to First Niagara is slated to begin immediately, officials said. The most significant part of that involves removing what Black called the "massive" HSBC lettering from the building exterior.

He anticipates the signage will be changed before the Sabres' Oct. 14 game against the Carolina Hurricanes.

HSBC, meanwhile, plans to maintain its arena box. Paul Cronin, regional president for commercial banking in Upstate New York, was on hand for the Aug. 25 announcement. He said the bank invites customers to watch home games and will continue to have a presence in the region, albeit through commercial banking only.

This isn't the first time that First Niagara has secured naming rights. Soon after it expanded into the Pittsburgh area, it bought rights to the former Post-Gazette Pavilion, an amphitheater in Burgettstown, Pa. It's currently a presenting sponsor of the New Haven Open at Yale, a women's tennis event in Connecticut.

First Niagara closed its $1.5 billion acquisition of New Haven-based NewAlliance Bancshares Inc. earlier this year.