MIAMI — A federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday terminated the naming rights agreement between Miami-Dade County and the FTX crypto exchange, ending a two-year stretch of the Miami Heat’s playing in FTX Arena.
The order states Miami-Dade, which owns the downtown Miami facility that the Heat manages, plans to stop using the FTX name immediately and quickly remove all uses of the FTX name from the Miami arena. In November, the county and the Heat both announced their intention to break the 2021 deal with FTX in the days after the company was ensnared in allegations of fraud and mismanagement headed by former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now awaiting trial on federal criminal charges.
On Nov. 22, Miami-Dade asked the judge presiding over FTX’s bankruptcy trial to let it out of the $135 million sponsorship deal that put FTX’s name on the Miami Heat court and its logo atop the waterfront arena. FTX’s new corporate leadership last week made a similar request, asking the deal be ended retroactively to Dec. 31.
On Wednesday, Judge John Dorsey approved an agreement between the company and Miami-Dade to end the naming rights agreement as of Dec. 31 and halt use of the FTX name by the arena.
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