Cryptocurrency exchange FTX is close to finalizing a 19-year, $135 million deal to take over naming rights for the Miami Heat’s arena, formerly known as AmericanAirlines Arena, according to multiple reports.

The venue will be renamed FTX Arena, pending approval of Miami-Dade County officials at a special meeting Friday.

Not only is the FTX agreement the first cryptocurrency exchange to sponsor a professional sports arena in the U.S., it’s one of the largest-ever naming rights deals in history. However, the FTX deal looks like a bargain compared to other naming rights blockbusters:

• Scotiabank Arena: $639 million, 21 years
• MetLife Stadium: $425 million to $625 million, 26 years
• Citi Field: $400 million, 22 years
• Chase Center: $300 million to $400 million, 24 years

American Airlines paid the Heat about $2.1 million annually for naming rights to the arena, which expired in 2019. Miami-Dade County had been paying the team nearly the same amount while it searched for a new partner.

FTX was founded in 2019 and is run by Samuel Bankman-Fried, a 28-year-old billionaire. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the FTX bid “complements” the crypto-friendly brand he wants for the city.

In February, Forbes said the Heat are worth $2.38 billion, good enough for the 12th-most valuable team in the NBA.

After months of its stock price being tugged by the whims of hedge funds and retail investors, GameStop produced its first earnings report since the “meme-stock” craze.

The company reported net sales of $2.1 billion for the 13 weeks ending on Jan. 30, 3% below the $2.2 billion it reported for the same period last year, before the pandemic.

With its stores closing in March 2020 due to the pandemic, GameStop’s near-equal sales total came with fewer operating expenses, causing its net income to jump to $81 million in the quarter, from $21 million the previous year.

Adding to the drama, the company’s chief customer officer Frank Hamlin said on Tuesday that he would resign on March 31. Hamlin is the second C-level executive to depart since RC Ventures, the venture firm of Chewy cofounder Ryan Cohen, upped its investment to 13% of the company. Cohen, who has three board seats at GameStop, has pushed the company to shift from brick and mortar to e-commerce.

Chief financial officer Jim Bell was pushed out in February, and on Tuesday, GameStop announced that Jenna Owens, formerly of Amazon and Google, would be stepping in as chief operating officer. 

Cohen’s influence was also visible in the appointment of a new senior vice president of e-commerce, Neda Pacifico, previously Chewy’s vice president of e-commerce. Pacifico was an executive at Amazon prior to Chewy.

GameStop’s stock price was down to $181.12 at market close Tuesday. It reached a peak of $483 earlier this year.

Coming off the most-watched NFL Draft ever, ABC, ESPN, and the NFL Network are planning wall-to-wall TV coverage of the 2021 NFL Draft, which runs from April 29 to May 1.

There will be two nights of prime-time coverage of Rounds 1-3 on Thursday and Friday nights, followed by daytime coverage of Rounds 4-7 on Saturday. 

The 2020 draft reached 55 million viewers over three days and saw average audiences across ABC, ESPN, ESPN Deportes, NFLN, and digital channels grow 35% to 8.4 million viewers. Last year’s first round had an average audience of over 15.6 million viewers, breaking the previous high of 12.4 million viewers in 2014.

Kirk Herbstreit will headline ABC’s draft coverage this year, sources tell Front Office Sports. ABC’s broadcast focuses more on the personal journeys of draft prospects.

Herbstreit’s “College GameDay” castmates Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, David Pollack, Maria Taylor, and Jesse Palmer have joined him for all or part of ABC’s coverage the past two years. They’re each expected to return. 

While draft guru Todd McShay is expected to play a big part in ABC’s coverage, Mike Greenberg will make his debut as host of ESPN’s more X’s and O’s-oriented coverage. Greenberg succeeds Trey Wingo, who anchored ESPN’s coverage the past four years.

This year’s draft will be held in Cleveland and select fans from all 32 teams will be on hand, but must be vaccinated. As in years before the pandemic, there will be a live “Draft Experience” featuring entertainment, musical performances, and other attractions.

The ongoing torrent of SPAC money has many market observers wondering when the flow will dry up, but another growing sector might keep the investment trend going a while longer: sports betting.

SPACs, shell companies that raise money to acquire a private company and take it public, have become an incredibly popular trend among athlete and celebrity investors. They have also become a vessel through which investors can quickly pour money into the sports betting industry.

DraftKings went public through a SPAC merger in April 2020, and has seen its stock rise over six-fold since its launch. Rush Street Interactive and Golden Nugget Gaming, which have both online casinos and sportsbooks, also went public via SPAC.

The tech landscape underlying sports betting operators features a diverse group of companies that have been SPAC targets as well.

Sportradar, a major sports data provider with partnerships with the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB, is considering going public via SPAC, as is one of its top competitors, Genius Sports.

A December report on the sports betting industry counted three publicly traded sportsbooks and 15 technology companies related to the betting and gambling industry. The related iGaming industry — online betting where customers can win real money — has attracted $5.7 billion in SPAC acquisitions since 2020.

With Goldman Sachs predicting that the sports betting market will reach nearly $40 billion by 2033, money will keep pouring in through one source or another for a piece of that enormous pie.