Judge Bids Farewell To FTX Arena, Leaving The Miami Heat A Home Without A Name

The home of the NBA team the Miami Heat will soon be looking for a new name.

A federal bankruptcy judge has ended the naming rights agreement between Miami-Dade County and FTX FTT/USD in a court filing on Wednesday.

Miami-Dade County requested that the judge overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy end the agreement in November after founder Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX were accused of fraudulent use of customer funds.

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Bankman-Fried is accused of leading the scam by giving FTX customer funds to quant investment company Alameda Research, which was also run by Bankman-Fried. He now awaits trial on fraud and conspiracy charges.

The county claimed FTX owed the $16.5 million for early termination of the naming rights agreement and added a further $5.5 million if the agreement wasn’t terminated by the start of 2023.

As part of the termination of the contract, FTX paid the county $20 million and owes another $5.5 million this month.

The naming deal for the arena was originally intended to last 19 years and cost a total of $135 million which was ear-marked to combat gun violence and poverty.

Some FTX signage at the arena has already been taken down, but the rest will certainly be removed with the termination of the agreement. The Arena was originally named after American Airlines, but now Miami-Dade County will be looking for a new sponsor.

The fallout from the FTX collapse has already claimed other exchanges like BlockFi, and now poses a threat to Digital Currency Group (DCG) who Tyler Winklevoss, CEO of crypto exchange Gemini, accused of hiding the damage to their balance books that came from significant FTX exposure with a large unsecured, low-interest loan to crypto lender Genesis.

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Image source: Wikicommons, “FTX Arena Downtown Miami - But not for long”, Phillip Pessar