Hadlock Field in Portland, home of the Portland Sea Dogs, was renamed Delta Dental Park. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

The Portland Sea Dogs’ home ballpark has a new name for the first time: Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field.

The Sea Dogs on Thursday announced a 10-year partnership with Delta Dental just weeks after the club and the city of Portland signed a 15-year lease extension.

Financial terms of the Delta Dental partnership were not disclosed.

The city of Portland owns the Park Avenue ballpark, but the team was able to sell naming rights as part of the new lease, which was finalized Sept. 4, said Geoff Iacuessa, the Sea Dogs president and general manager.

Iacuessa said the city’s lone stipulation was that Hadlock Field still appear in the ballpark’s name.

Hadlock Field, which seats 7,368 fans, was named after longtime Portland High baseball coach Edson Hadlock Jr. The ballpark opened in 1994 and became the Double A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox in 2003. Along with the Sea Dogs, the ballpark is the home field for the Portland and Deering high school baseball teams.

As part of the new lease, the Sea Dogs will pay the city $260,000 annually, plus 25 cents for every ticket. In years three through 15 of the lease, the city gets 50 cents from every ticket sold.

That’s an increase from the $175,000 the Sea Dogs paid to lease the ballpark for the 2024 season, which included no ticket fee.

A box seat to a 2024 weekend Sea Dogs game was $19 for an adult and $18 for children ages 16 and under and seniors 62 and over. General admission tickets were $14 for adults and $11 for children/seniors. Iacuessa said that while 2025 ticket prices haven’t been set, he doesn’t anticipate an increase.

Greg Watson, the city’s director of housing and economic development, said the new lease works for the team and the city.

The statue of Slugger stands outside the entrance of Hadlock Field, the city-owned home of the Portland Sea Dogs, which will now be known as the Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

“The recently extended lease agreement between the city of Portland and the Sea Dogs increases revenue to the city, which will be leveraged to maintain the stadium,” Watson said in an email. “The Sea Dogs will also be investing up to $10 million in improvements to the stadium that will extend benefits to players, fans and the high school teams that share space at the field.”

One fan who commented about the change on social media wasn’t pleased.

“I just think the change is ugly, not just physically, but it shows the direction the city has been taking,” Brandon Dinardo, a fan from Sanford who used to live down the street from Hadlock Field, said in a phone interview. “Renaming a local landmark to a corporation is never a good sign.”

Naming rights to stadiums are a tenet of modern professional sports business, even at the minor league level, Iacuessa said. He noted Cross Insurance Arena across town, formerly the Cumberland County Civic Center and home to the ECHL’s Maine Mariners, as an example of how naming rights already work well.

“You’ve seen it across the industry. More teams have them in our league than don’t have it. It definitely makes a big difference,” Iacuessa said.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, other Maine stadiums have sold naming rights in the last decade. In 2012, for example, Cross Insurance paid $3 million for the naming rights to the new arena in Bangor. In 2014, Cross Insurance paid $2.5 million for a 10-year naming rights deal on the Cumberland County Civic Center.

The new revenue from the naming rights with Delta Dental will help offset the cost of the new clubhouse the Sea Dogs are building this offseason to get into compliance with Major League Baseball’s standards for minor league facilities, Iacuessa said.

“It’s a new area of revenue,” Iacuessa said.

As part of the partnership, Delta Dental will provide 20 tickets to each of the Sea Dogs 69 regular-season home games to a local nonprofit or youth organization.

The new name will be featured outside and inside the park. The logo features the Delta Dental name with the ballpark’s lighthouse.

Staff Writer Katie Langley contributed to this report.