Starting Christmas Day, Los Angeles’s iconic Staples Center, home to the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers, the NHL’s Kings, and the WNBA’s Sparks, will be known as Crypto.com Arena. Singapore-based cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com is reportedly paying $700 million for the naming rights to the building for 20 years, although the details of the deal were not made public. The 20,000 seat arena has been called the Staples Center since its opening in October 1999, with the naming rights held by the office-supplies retail company under a 20-year agreement. The reaction to the name change has been primarily negative, with Clippers player Reggie Jackson saying, “It's gonna be hard to not call it Staples.”
Zoom In: Crypto.com has been investing heavily across the global sports landscape over the last year, forming sponsorship deals with Formula One, the UFC, Italy’s Serie A, Paris St-Germain, and the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens and even purchasing the Philadelphia 76ers’ uniform sponsorship patch.
