FTX Will Likely Get Naming Rights to Miami Heats Arena

Crypto exchange FTX will likely gain the naming rights to the Miami Heats’ sports arena, according to the Miami Herald.

Over the past several weeks, FTX negotiated a $135 million deal to gain naming rights for the home stadium of the NBA team the Miami Heats. With this, FTX will replace the stadium’s current AmericanAirlines branding and name it after its exchange.

$90 million from the deal will go to Miami-Dade County, which controls the naming rights. The county has reserved those funds for initiatives against gun violence and poverty; the remainder of the funds will be paid to the Miami Heats at a rate of $2 million per year.

Though FTX will likely succeed in its bid, county commissioners must still approve the deal. Voting will be completed on Friday.

FTX was launched in 2019 by Alameda Research and is led by CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The exchange is currently the third largest crypto derivatives exchange by open interest (OI), boasting more than $4.4 billion of OI over the last 24 hours.

This news comes at a time when the basketball and cryptocurrency sectors are intersecting. The NBA’s Top Shot series of cryptocollectibles are rapidly gaining popularity; investors spent more than $230 million on the series of items at the end of February.

Meanwhile, individual teams and owners are embracing cryptocurrency as well. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been especially active in adopting crypto; he added Dogecoin to the list of cryptocurrencies that the team accepts this month.

On Mar. 6, NBA team owners assembled a committee to search for new ways to use blockchain and cryptocurrency, suggesting that more basketball-related news is on the way.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this author held less than $75 of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins.