The Miami Heat arena is set to remove branding logos for FTX from its façade after bankruptcy judges in Delaware received approval, reports revealed on Wednesday.
Miami-Dade County authorities earned a $135 million USD agreement with the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. It allowed the county to rename the stadium from the Miami Heat Arena to FTX Arena up to 2040.
Branding covers multiple parts of the facility, including courts and the building itself. However, new filings the county filed with courts will effectively end the deal.
The Miami Heat expected to earn $2 million yearly from the agreement from June 2021, but payments stopped in January this year. It expected FTX to pay $5.5 million on 1 January.
The news comes after FTX struck a major partnership with the Forumla-1 global racing team. The crypto firm received the right to rename Berkeley, California’s Cal Memorial Stadium.
Legendary National Football League (NFL) quarterback Tom Brady also inked a deal with FTX to promote the brand. Team SoloMid (TSM), a professional esports organisation, renamed its company to TSM FTX in June 2021, but dropped its $210 million USD deal with the collapsed crypto firm.
According to a recent hearing, FTX “recovered $5 billion in cash and liquid cryptocurrencies” but still holds $8.8 billion USD in liabilities.
Ongoing FTX Scandal
The news comes after FTX, research firm Alameda Research, and 130 affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 11 November last year, citing a liquidity crisis.
The collapse rocked cryptocurrency markets, triggering several additional bankruptcies and sparking governments to tighten regulations on digital assets.
Following his arrest in the Bahamas, authorities extradited Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s ex-CEO, to New York courts. He currently faces roughly 115 years on eight counts of fraud, misappropriation of funds, and other offences. Caroline Ellison, Alameda Research’s ex-chief, struck a plea deal to serve just one of eight of the charges totalling 110 years.
