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Comment by theideaofcoffee | Hacker News Reader

I also think this is an interesting question. Coming from a lay person I'd imagine it would remain with that name until the contract is up for renewal. Depending on how the naming deal was structured, the money to do the deal would probably have come from FTX' marketing budget in a lump sum up front (presumably) for a fixed number of years. When that's done, the arena will find another source of funds and give the rights anew.

Edit: here's [0][1] some sources that says FTX ponied up $135M for the name to remain through 2040. Your question still stands, will that name stay even if the organization that has the name doesn't exist or is circling the drain? All depends on the terms of the contract, I guess.

[0] https://www.local10.com/news/local/2021/03/27/nba-still-need...

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/its-official-miami-heat-h...

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>Coming from a lay person I'd imagine it would remain with that name until the contract is up for renewal.

As a lawyer, not a transactional lawyer so this is pretty far outside my expertise, I'd imagine they'd include some provisions for this type of scenario in the agreement. Even if it didn't, the stadiums owners would probably offer FTX some sort of partial refund to give up the naming rights, which they would have to to pay back their creditors. They could even just breach the agreement and offer a settlement.

Eron field got renamed pretty fast. So will this stadium.

Thank you for those points!

A few years ago Consol Energy broke a naming rights deal early; the original deal was $105 million over 21 years, but they were only about 8 years in. The Pittsburgh Penguins found a new partner in PPG Paints pretty quickly. And Consol didn't even go bankrupt!

The Heat will find another partner, and they may or may not try to get money out of the FTX bankruptcy proceedings, but I'm guessing the odds of that aren't super high. Probably more efficient to cut bait and move on.

Unlikely is was paid up front. The news articles say things like "$90m over 19 years". There is also almost certainly terms in the contract relating to the reputation of the advertiser (FTX in this case).

All of this is handled much differently if a party is in bankruptcy (which is the point of bankruptcy).

The administrators / bankruptcy courts will try and do a deal with the stadium. Something like "we can auction the rights again and we will keep 90% of what we get for them, you can have 10%, so you are 10% up, for nothing"

Very unlikely the bankruptcy court will get to do much beyond terminating the deal.

They could probably even claw back some of the money

If there's time left on the deal, but the arena would rather not keep the stinky association, can't they sell a new naming rights deal today, and send a portion of the new proceeds from that to FTX?

In a way it would be another asset for the bankruptcy liquidator to disperse.

Alternatively, can FTX sell the naming rights (with the approval of the arena)

Yeah that makes more sense. They have the asset (rights through 2040). Would be pretty funny if it turns out that these naming rights are the single most valuable asset they own today.

I just looked up a similar situation from 20 years ago[0,1].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/28/sports/baseball-astros-ba...

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1014832920627596080

Good info thanks! I had lazily not researched my question yet at all :)

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