Miami Heat’s home has one other name: Miami-Dade Arena.
This will likely be the temporary name of the constructing where the NBA team plays their home games while the seek for a more everlasting partner with naming rights begins.
Heat County and Miami-Dade County announced the recent name on Friday, two days after a bankruptcy court terminated the county’s naming rights agreement with failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
A county official said earlier this week that it could be called “The Arena”, although those plans quickly modified.
“Effective immediately, Miami-Dade County and the Miami Heat have agreed that until a recent naming rights partner emerges, the arena will likely be called the Miami-Dade Arena,” the parties said in a statement. joint statement. “Removal of existing facility signage and alternative of branding elements will proceed in the coming weeks.”
The process of removing the FTX branding from all features of the arena will take a while.
The company’s logo appears on the court, many entrances, is embroidered on the T-shirts worn by many security and game staff, is on the roof of the arena, and has even been placed on the swipe cards staff use to access the facility.
The county asked for the naming rights deal to be terminated in November, saying at the time that continuing to name the constructing FTX Arena would only add to “persistent difficulties” brought on by the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.
The county owns the arena and has negotiated a 19-year, $135 million naming rights cope with FTX.
The Heat – who had played in the constructing since January 2, 2000 – were to receive $2 million a 12 months under this deal, which took effect in June 2021. County and Heat say they are going to work together to seek out a recent title partner.
Before the FTX deal, the constructing was called AmericanAirlines Arena because it opened in 1999.
The airline giant, which has a hub in Miami, said in 2019 that it could not renew the contract after the January 1, 2020 expiration date. The airline’s name remained on the constructing until 2021.
FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, even though it ended up with billions of dollars value of losses – estimates range from $8 to $10 billion – before in search of bankruptcy protection after a spectacular crash that lasted only a few days.
Its founder, 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested last month in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States to face criminal charges for what U.S. Attorney Damian Williams called “one of the biggest frauds in American history.”
Bankman-Fried has been released on bail and is on account of appear in court in October. He pleaded not guilty.
With postal wires