Fort Worth’s biggest stage just traded its work pants for a pair of boots.
Dickies Arena is now Ariat Arena, effective immediately, Trail Drive Management Corp. and Ariat International announced Monday. The 10-year naming rights deal ends a stretch in which the old name had been fraying at the seams.
The unraveling began when Bluestar Alliance, a New York brand management company, bought Dickies, a Fort Worth workwear staple since 1922. According to WFAA, the new owners moved the company’s headquarters out of town in 2025 and laid off 125 employees on the way out. Then, naming rights apparently became optional and Trail Drive sued for $1 million in damages. The lawsuit alleges Bluestar created an assetless shell company, Dickies Acquisition II LLC, and dumped its payment obligations into it to dodge the contract. If true, that’s one heck of a patch job…