The naming rights to Los Angeles’ Staples Center have been sold, it was revealed Tuesday night, meaning that effective Christmas Day, the iconic venue will be called Crypto.com Arena. Well, only officially, that is — because fans are definitely not open to calling it anything else.
For years, Staples Center has been home to the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers, the WNBA’s Sparks and the NHL’s Kings — not to mention, the site of historic concerts and awards shows like the Grammys and the Emmys. So after decades of knowing it as the Staples Center, no one is all that eager to reprogram it in their brain.
“Bless their hearts. We are always gonna call it Staples Center no matter what lil name you slap on the building,” writer Roxanne Gay tweeted following the news.
Meanwhile, others argued that if the name were ever going to change, it should honor late Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.
“The only name name the Staples Center should do is calling it Kobe Bryant Arena,” one Twitter user wrote. “It’s the house Kobe Built!”
The renaming deal was announced Tuesday in a joint statement by Crypto.com and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which owns the venue. For those in Chicago, the situation is all too familiar; many online pointed out that even though the Sears Tower was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, few “true” Chicagoans ever actually call it by its new name.
“Remember when the Sears Tower was renamed ‘Willis Tower’ and most people didn’t care and just kept calling it the Sears Tower? I feel like that might happen with this too,” one person speculated.
You can check out more defiant reactions to the Staples Center news below.