Lakers’ home ground Staples Center to be renamed Crypto.com Arena

Lakers’ legendary arena Staples Center will be renamed to a currency known as Crypto.com Arena.

The Staples Center, which is home to the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Kings, and Sparks, will be renamed “Crypto.com Arena.” The Crypto Dot Com Arena, to be precise. According to the LA Times, the cryptocurrency exchange spent more than $700 million for 20-year branding rights, making it one of the largest such transactions ever. In 1999, Staples paid $100 million for the ten-year rights.
The new logo will be unveiled on Christmas Day for the Brooklyn Nets game against the Los Angeles Lakers, and Staples Center branding will be phased out by June. “In a few years, this will be remembered as the moment when crypto crossed the divide into the mainstream,” says the author. Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek tells the LA Times. “This is just such a brilliant move from the guys at [venue owner] AEG because the next decade belongs to crypto.”

Crypto.com is situated in Singapore and provides a Visa rewards debit card that can be used with cryptocurrencies kept in customers’ accounts after they have been traded on its exchange, as well as other crypto services such as NFTs and its token. The corporation has previously dabbled with sports sponsorship, signing a $100 million agreement with Formula One earlier this year and forming partnerships with teams such as Paris Saint-Germain, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Montreal Canadiens.
Of course, the NBA is no stranger to blockchain technology, having collaborated with Dapper Labs to build the Top Shot trading card platform, which is one of the most widely used NFTs to date, and earlier this year, the Miami Heat’s home American Airlines Arena was renamed after crypto exchange FTX.