Miami Heat’s home arena becomes FTX Arena. Also, details on name change and transition
Bye-bye AmericanAirlines Arena, hello FTX Arena.
The Miami Heat and FTX formally converted the name of the downtown Miami venue to FTX Arena during a press conference held on the building’s main court on Friday, with the cryptocurrency exchange taking over as the lead sponsor. The switch comes after Miami-Dade commissioners approved the 19-year deal worth $135 million for naming rights at the Heat’s county-owned arena in March and the NBA also approved the change.
Among those who spoke at Friday’s event were Heat president of business operations Eric Woolworth, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Heat players Bam Adebayo and Udonis Haslem were also on stage for the press conference.
“We’re coming off of the 14 most bizarre months of all of our lives,” Woolworth said. “So to be coming out of that and into this new era with FTX, it’s a little bit hard to explain. It’s something that energizes us. We’ve staked out our reputation in our industry for being innovative and forward thinking and tech savvy and all that stuff, and this is just a fit for us. They’re a really fast growing company in a really interesting sector that’s obviously on the rise. So for us, it’s a great fit.”
This marks the arena’s first name change since it opened in 1999 on New Year’s Eve. Removal of the building’s American Airlines signage began on Sunday and took four days to complete.
As for the iconic American Airlines airplane on the roof of the arena, it’s the only old signage remaining on the building. An FTX logo will replace the airplane on the roof at some point, but Woolworth noted that the parties involved are “working on a bunch of stuff” and “we don’t know what it’s ultimately going to look like.”
“Listen, we’ve got 20-plus years of American Airlines stuff,” Woolworth said. “We tried to inventory everything and figure out what we have to get out before we can start putting in. It’s a huge job. I mean, a really huge job. The roof is part of that and probably the most complicated part of that. So we’re working on it. We have some ideas and some plans, but it hasn’t all come together yet.”
The naming-rights deal agreed upon by the county and the FTX cryptocurrency exchange is expected to cover most of the same kind of signage that American Airlines had.
In a press release issued by the Heat ahead of Friday’s event, FTX was described as “a leading US exchange where customers can trade Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies safely and securely.” FTX is based in Hong Kong.
“I’ve watched the building many times online, but this is my first time actually in it,” said Bankman-Fried, who had never been inside the arena that his company’s name is now on before Friday. “It’s sort of surreal seeing FTX all over it.”
In tandem with the county’s recent agreement with FTX, the Heat announced in April that it entered a long-term partnership with FTX.us, the company’s U.S.-based exchange that launched in 2020. The partnership makes FTX.us “the official and exclusive cryptocurrency exchange partner of the Miami Heat.”
The partnership will give FTX.us “prominent in-arena signage, hospitality, association with Heat digital content series, promotions, contests, community engagements and more,” according to a press release issued in April.
The Heat negotiated the naming-rights deal with American Airlines in the 1990s, but Miami-Dade exercised its option to take over naming rights in 2018 in exchange for guaranteeing the team a $2 million yearly payment starting in 2020.
Finding a new sponsor for the arena was an uphill climb for Miami-Dade, sparking tension with the Heat. But the recent election of Levine Cava helped smooth over friction between the two sides, as she met with Woolworth soon after she was elected in November.
“It was one of the very first things I did because I knew that there had been hard feelings,” Levine Cava said. “I knew that to reset the relationship button was going to be critical and really it’s a three-way relationship. So it really requires trust. It requires open dialogue and communication, and to understand the needs of all three-parties.”
Woolworth added that the Heat currently has “the best relationship we’ve had with Miami-Dade County probably since we opened the building.”
“We did this together in partnership. Really, in partnership,” Woolworth said. “We were all in the virtual room together hammering this out and even a little bit in person with [Levine Cava’s chief operating officer] Jimmy Morales. I think that’s meaningful for us that we feel sort of again re-energized by that relationship with the county. It’s something we’re looking forward to spending more time with them on. I think we found some things we can do together and we’re thinking alike about a lot of things that can help this community.”
Miami-Dade’s agreement brings the NBA its first arena sponsor from the cryptocurrency industry, with the largest-ever cryptocurrency conference also taking place in Miami this week.
“It’s an incredibly exciting place,” Bankman-Fried said of Miami. “In addition to having a great location for a lot of reasons historically, Miami has really recently reinvented itself as a tech hub. It has been really welcoming and encouraging of new industries and new businesses, including and especially crypto. We always just love to be somewhere we’re appreciated and wanted and get to work productively with local government and businesses.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 7:39 PM.
