The Staples Center no longer exists.
On Christmas Day, the former home of the Los Angeles Lakers, LA Clippers, Los Angeles Kings, and Los Angeles Sparks will get a new alias: Crypto.com Arena.
Crypto.com is reportedly paying $700 million for the property rights to the legendary arena’s name over the next 20 years. The cryptocurrency exchange site is based in Singapore. Office supply company Staples originally doled out $120 million for 20-year naming rights in 1999.
The Staples Center opened on October 17, 1999, next to the Los Angeles Convention Center. It is the only facility that is home to two NBA teams, but it is primarily known for and synonymous with the Lakers and their historic title runs.
Whether you call it “The House That Kobe Built” or “The House That Shaq Built,” it saw six championship banners ascend to the rafters during his tenure under the “Staples” moniker, including three featuring Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’ Neal, two more with Bryant and Pau Gasol, and one more with LeBron James and Anthony Davis (although that title was won in the NBA bubble).
The history within the center is rich and so are countless memories housed within. So, naturally, there were a number of people who expressed their dissent with the impending change.
Paul George of the Clippers was one of them. Born in California, George grew up during Bryant’s heyday and vividly remembers the legendary team’s careers in the early 2000s.
“I grew up Staples and Staples being the place to play and the place to be,” George said after Tuesday’s announcement.
“From here on out, I guess a new story will be written. It sure will be weird, [but] we will be in our own place. It is what it is, I guess.”
A new stadium for the Clippers is currently under construction in Inglewood, California. It will be called the Intuit Dome and is scheduled to open in 2024.
George’s teammate Reggie Jackson agreed with that train of thought, concurring that he “can’t see” the arena as anything other than Staples.
“[The Lakers] they have their story here. Kobe, especially my era, growing up, watching those championships. shaq [O’Neal]. No, there are too many memories. It’s going to be hard not to call it Staples,” she said.
Others were able to make light of the situation, maintaining that the name change was just a product of ever-changing times.
“This news was met with a bit of angst online,” Kevin Wildes said Wednesday on “First Things First.”
“People have a real affinity for Staples. [Some of you] I didn’t always love Staples. You were online, buying your office supplies. He would have seen you in the notebook aisle. Login to Crypto.com and buy some Crypto.”
But several reporters agreed with the views raised by George and Jackson.
“It will always be known as the Staples Center, no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars Crypto.com paid for the naming rights,” USA Today reporter Bryan Kalbrosky wrote in an opinion column.
“Nothing means anything until we decide it means something. This place will only be known as Crypto Dot Com Arena (it doesn’t really roll off the tongue, oh my god) if people agree and agree to call it that.”
Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, also shared a photo on Instagram after the breaking news.
Here’s how the rest of the sports-slash-Twitter world reacted to the news:
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