At soccer season's end, PPL Park will get a new name

When the Philadelphia Union concludes its Major League Soccer season in October, it's likely to be the team's last game in Chester's PPL Park.

Don't fret, fans. The venue doesn't change. Only the name of the stadium.

PPL Corp., the Allentown energy company best known for its electric utility, last month formally spun off its competitive power-generation business into a new company called Talen Energy.

The new company, also based in Allentown, includes PPL's retail energy business, which marketed power under the brand name PPL Energy Plus.

It's the competitive energy business, which has nationwide reach, and not the regional electric utility that bought the 10-year naming rights to the Chester stadium in 2010 for $20 million.

"The naming rights are owned by our retail marketing business, and come over to Talen Energy," spokesman Todd L. Martin said.

"Some of the signage and advertising in the stadium has already been changed to Talen Energy, but nothing will change with the stadium name and/or branding until after the current soccer season," he said.

No word yet on the stadium's exact new name.

When Citizens Bank bought the naming rights to the Phillies' new ballfield in 2003, there was speculation that the new venue would go by the more demure "Citizens Park" rather than the overtly mercantile Citizens Bank Park.

PPL Park would join the pantheon of chameleon-like athletic venues whose names change with the fortunes of their corporate patrons.

Philadelphia sports fans have, for example, managed to survive the evolution of the CoreStates Center to the First Union Center to the Wachovia Center to the Wells Fargo Center (for now).