Technology / 11.23.21

Crypto Craze: Hot Market for Naming Rights of Sports Venues

Access Staff

VenuesNow (11/18/21) Muret, Don

AEG recently forged a 20-year naming-rights deal with crypto.com to rebrand Los Angeles' Staples Center the Crypto.com Arena for $700 million to $800 million, the richest such deal in sports. In combination with earlier deals for SoFi Stadium and the Intuit Dome, L.A. now owns three of the largest naming-rights transactions in sports, with each agreement running more than $30 million annually. The crypto.com deal also encompasses official designations with the Lakers basketball team, the Kings hockey team, the Microsoft Theater and Staples Center's neighboring L.A. Live retail and entertainment district. The Staples Center itself will boast crypto.com branding across premium areas and a 3,300-square-foot activation space at its entrance. The deal aligns with major upgrades planned for Staples Center over the next three years and should go a long way toward helping AEG underwrite the project. Arena president Lee Zeidman said cryptocurrency will not at this point be accepted as payment for purchases made at the stadium, and no decision has been made whether that could change later on. One unanswered question is whether AEG will be partly remunerated with cryptocurrency.

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Tags: News , Venues