Miami Heat's arena gets new name after FTX removed
The Miami Heat arena is now called the Kaseya Center after its owners this week inked a more than $100 million deal with a new sponsor, Miami-Dade County officials said.
Miami-Dade County commissioners on Tuesday voted to enter a 17-year naming rights deal for the county-owned facility with Kaseya, an IT management and security software firm. Kaseya will pay $117.37 million over the term of the deal, with much of that going to the county. The Heat will receive $2 million per year under the deal.
The name change takes effect immediately.
The new sponsorship comes roughly three months after a federal bankruptcy court terminated the arena's previous $135 million sponsorship deal with FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed amid fraud allegations late last year. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who stepped down as company CEO in November, has been in and out of court in recent weeks after federal prosecutors charged him with money-laundering, fraud and most recently bribery.
After having FTX's name stripped from its roof, court and hallway entrances, the South Florida stadium was temporarily redubbed the Miami-Dade Arena.
FTX's implosion just two years into its 19-year deal with Miami-Dade County made county's officials more cautious about picking the right sponsor for this latest naming deal, CBS News Miami reported.
"The collapse of our previous partner caught everyone by surprise but, in conjunction with Miami-Dade County, we worked efficiently and incredibly quickly to fill our naming rights vacancy with Kaseya," Heat business operations president Eric Woolworth said in a statement.
"I learned that some companies do bad things. This isn't cryptocurrency, this is a business, just like FTX was supposed to have been," Miami-Dade County Commissioner Keon Hardemon told CBS News Miami. "But unfortunately that business committed crimes, and sometimes businesses do that, however, we don't expect this company to commit a crime," he said.
The county will generate net revenues totaling $83.3 million over the term of the deal, CBS Miami reported — $3.5 million more than it stood to earn from the FTX deal. The county will allocate those funds toward the Anti-gun Violence and Prosperity Initiatives Trust Fund (Trust Fund).
Headquartered in Miami, Kaseya serves 48,000 customers in more than 25 countries and has roughly 4,500 employees, according to the company.
As part of the deal, Kaseya's name will also appear on arena signage and digital content. The company will also have a presence in hospitality and game-day features and community engagement events.
The Miami Heat's arena-naming situation wasn't always so complicated. The stadium bore the name "AmericanAirlines Arena" for two decades before the company declined to renew the deal in 2019.