Bankrupt crypto business FTX looks to terminate sports sponsorship deals with, Heat, Warriors & MLB – Daily Mail

Bankruptcy court filings from crypto giant FTX could see the company end many of its sponsorship deals with sports teams.

This includes FTX’s naming-rights deal with Miami-Dade County in Florida for the home basketball arena for the Miami Heat, according to the Miami Herald.

Lawyers for FTX filed a motion to cancel more than 23 marketing deals. That includes the currently-christened FTX Arena, which has had its name in place since 2021 – when the company payed $130million for the rights.

In addition to the request to scrap the deal with Miami, they’ve requested to end deals with the Golden State Warriors and Major League Baseball.

Golden State signed a deal back in December of 2021 to have FTX marketed as the team’s ‘Official Cryptocurrency Platform and NFT Marketplace’.

The Warriors were sued by a Canadian citizen who filed a class action suit back in November accusing the company of ‘fraudulently promoting the exchange.’

Back in November, the Warriors announced they were ‘pausing all FTX-related promotions’ at their home games at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, over in baseball, MLB umpires have been wearing FTX patches on their uniforms as part of their deal made in back in June of 2021 to have FTX branded as the ‘official cryptocurrency exchange brand of MLB’.

League commissioner Rob Manfred said back in November that it would be a ‘pretty good bet’ the patches would not return to the uniforms next year. 

‘The FTX development has been really jarring,’ Manfred said. ‘We will proceed with caution in the future, how much we have to worry about it depends on when this exactly lands.’

In addition to the professional ranks, the University of California at Berkeley (Cal) cancelled its deal with the exchange to sponsor their football stadium as ‘FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium’.

For Miami, the county asked a judge in New York to void the deal, ‘citing “hardship” from being associated with FTX,’ the Herald’s report says.

The Heat – which had a separate sponsorship agreement with FTX – put out a joint statement with Miami-Dade saying they wanted to get out of their deal as well.

According to the Herald, FTX has paid $20m on the arena rights deal to the county so far and is due to pay an additional $5.5m in January.