Staples Center Is Getting A New Name For Christmas, And It Costs $700M
Goodbye, office supplies; hello, digital money: Downtown Los Angeles' Staples Center arena will soon become the Crypto.com Arena following a new naming rights deal announced Wednesday.
The $700M, 20-year agreement with the cryptocurrency exchange platform is among the most expensive in sports history, the Los Angeles Times reported. The name change, a first for the arena since it opened in 1999, takes place on Christmas Day, the arena’s owner, AEG, and Crypto.com announced.
“In the next few years, people will look back at this moment as the moment when crypto crossed the chasm into the mainstream,” Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek told the LA Times.
Renderings of the renamed arena show the roof of the building emblazoned with Crypto.com’s name and logo. The Singapore-based Crypto.com bills itself as the fastest-growing cryptocurrency platform in the world.
The company isn’t the first cryptocurrency partnership in sports. This year, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading locked down a $135M naming rights deal for the arena now known as the American Airlines Arena. FTX has also nabbed Anaheim Angels baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani as a global ambassador for the brand, CNN reported.
The Downtown arena is a centerpiece of L.A. Live, the entertainment district just north of the Los Angeles Convention Center. The 20,000-seat arena hosts awards ceremonies, special events and serves as the home of the LA basketball teams the Lakers and the Sparks, as well as the hockey team the Los Angeles Kings.
The venue is also the home of the Clippers, but only for a couple of more years. The team is building its own new arena in Inglewood, which snagged a $500M deal for naming rights with Intuit, the makers of TurboTax. The team’s lease is up at the Staples Center in 2024.
Only one other NBA arena has held a name longer than the Staples Center: Chicago’s United Center, which was first named in 1994, according to Sports Illustrated.
Following the official name change on Christmas Day, all signage will be updated by June 2022, according to the LA Times. Other noticeable changes to the space will include the transformation of 3.3K SF near the arena's entrance from L.A. Live into "a dedicated Crypto.com 'activation space' featuring crypto-centric interactive experiences for sports or music fans," the LA Times wrote.
