The Staples Center is now a crypto bro. Welcome to 2021.
The home of the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Kings, and Sparks will be rebranded on Christmas Day under a new 20-year naming rights deal, which will transform the Staples Center into “Crypto.com Arena”:
The Staples Center in Los Angeles said it would rebrand as https://t.co/f6jhiEqFvp Arena, in a 20-year deal with a cryptocurrency platform based in Singapore. https://t.co/Q8V7PHOON3
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 17, 2021
I wonder if the teams will accept payment in crypto. This is the second crypto naming rights deal to reach the NBA, by the way, with the Miami Heat signing a deal with the FTX exchange earlier this year.
The price tag is a reported $700 million dollars, which absolutely blows away other naming rights deals.
The one small defense I’ll offer here is that buying naming rights for an outrageous price can actually make sense for a service like Crypto dot com, since the deal – and all the stories, and the subsequent references for years and years – puts the mere existence of the service on peoples’ radars. This can be one very small part of a long-term strategy to ensure that crypto doesn’t flame out as a fad among the masses, and stay reserved for only the hardest core of digital enthusiasts. Will it work? We’ll see. Just ask Pets.com!
The Clippers are moving into their own new arena in a few years, by the way, sponsored by Intuit. Maybe make that the over-under for whether the new name of the Staples Center sticks.