BOSTON (AP) – The search for a new name for the FleetCenter will begin in earnest after Bank of America Corp. agreed to give up the arena naming rights it inherited with the acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp.

Bank of America and the arena’s owner, Delaware North Cos., announced an agreement Wednesday that will allow the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank to get out of the final six years of the 15-year, $30 million naming rights deal.

Financial terms of the deal were not released, but a source familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Bank of America would pay around $3 million to get out of the deal.

The announcement comes four months after the companies had nearly completed a deal that would have put the Bank of America name on the 10-year-old building in downtown Boston. The bank had even test-marketed prospective arena names and measured for new signs.

But Bank of America spokesman Joe Goode said the deal collapsed over the summer, when the nation’s No. 3 financial services company began changing its marketing priorities after reaching a five-year deal to become “The Official Bank of Baseball,” with involvement in everything from Major League Baseball to Little League tournaments.

“We were really recasting and redirecting our marketing priorities, and at the end of the day this just didn’t fit in to those priorities,” Goode said Wednesday.

The bank and Delaware North also were unable to agree to financial terms, Goode said.

The FleetCenter, which replaced the legendary Boston Garden in 1995, is home to the NBA’s Boston Celtics and the NHL’s Boston Bruins and also hosted last summer’s Democratic National Convention.

The agreement calls for the 19,600-seat arena to continue carrying the FleetCenter name until Oct. 14. The name could change before that if Delaware North, which also owns the Bruins, can find a a new naming rights partner before that deadline.

Bank of America closed on its $48 billion acquisition of FleetBoston in April and picked up the arena naming rights as part of the deal.

Richard Krezwick, president and chief executive of Delaware North, said his company has been in touch with about a dozen potential naming rights sponsors but is still finalizing its offering price and its plans to market to potential sponsors.

About half of those dozen potential partners are locally based and half are from outside the region, he said. He declined to identify any potential suitors.

Krezwick said he hoped to have a deal completed by June.

Dan Migala, publisher of the Chicago-based sports marketing trade publication The Migala Report, said Delaware North is in position to land one of the richest naming-rights deals in pro sports. He cited an improving economy, as well as the arena’s high visibility in its downtown location and its busy calendar as home to two pro sports teams, concerts and other events.

“I think their prospects are tremendous. It’s part of the DNA of Boston,” said Migala, who said a deal worth around $6 million a year is possible.

Speculation about a new FleetCenter sponsor has focused on a long list of corporations, including a few – CVS, Liberty Mutual, Reebok and Staples – that have since said they’re not interested. Migala said he saw no clear favorite to secure an agreement.

The FleetCenter contract that Bank of America inherited restricted the number of times the arena’s name could be changed. The first such change occurred when Fleet bought Shawmut National Corp., which had signed the original agreement to name the building the Shawmut Center.

Bank of America’s red-white-and-blue logo already has replaced Fleet’s green on advertising signs at two other Boston-area professional sports venues: Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium.

At one point, the bank floated the idea of changing the FleetCenter name back to Boston Garden, but that proposal fell by the wayside.