Software company Kaseya is in talks with Miami-Dade County over a naming-rights deal for the home arena of NBA basketball team Miami Heat.
The venue is currently known as the Miami-Dade Arena after an agreement with cryptocurrency firm FTX was terminated. FTX acquired the naming rights to the arena in April 2021 in a deal worth a reported $135m (£110m/€125m) over 19 years, but the agreement was terminated after the firm filed for bankruptcy.
The deal with FTX officially ended in January after a federal bankruptcy court terminated the agreement. Miami-Dade County, which owns the arena, has been seeking a new sponsor and the Miami Herald newspaper has reported that talks have taken place between Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Kaseya, which has been based in Miami since 2015.
Levine Cava’s office confirmed to the Herald that Kaseya is in “active negotiations” over a naming-rights deal for the arena. Terms of the deal were not reported, with the Herald adding that a final agreement could be reached during a meeting between the two parties on April 4.
The report noted that a website and Twitter account have been registered for ‘Kaseya Arena’, suggesting that the deal is likely to be finalised.
The Heat and Miami-Dade County announced in November that the deal with FTX would be terminated after the firm filed for bankruptcy. It came after rival cryptocurrency exchange Binance walked away from a deal to acquire FTX, leaving the latter’s sports sponsorship deals in the balance.
FTX Arena had previously been known as AmericanAirlines Arena since it opened in December 1999. The airline announced in 2019 that it would not be extending its $2m per year deal once it ended in 2020.
