“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way from the Forum”

November 17, 2021

“Naming Rights from the Days of Quarters to Crypto Currency”

Los Angeles, California - One of the great characters among sport teams owners was Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings in the mid-sixties through the 70’s.  After one of his many disputes, this time with the Coliseum Commission that also operated the Sports Arena where Cooke’s teams played, he set out on his own.  He went six miles south, to Inglewood, and privately financed “The Forum”, or as legendary Laker announcer Chick Hearn called it, “The Fabulous Forum”.  

When the majestically built arena opened in 1967, with 80 white columns, true-circle design and color scheme, the “naming” of the place was obvious, “The Forum”. Julius Caesar, Inc., did not pay an absurd amount of money for the “naming rights”, that was just not how it was in those days. 

As a sports obsessed kid, I had no idea how much money players made or what franchise were worth.  I certainly didn’t understand corporations “naming” the great theaters of sport.  I just hoped that when I went to a game some adult would buy me a couple dogs and a coke.  

My early experience with money, or currency, was all about my Granny.  My Dad was was too “frugal” to give me an allowance, I mean, after he rubbed two nickels together he put them back under his mattress. 

Ethel Peters, Granny to me, was a true “G”.  She would give me two quarters ever Sunday after church.  50 cents was all the currency an eight year old in Venice needed to be holding.  I would make my way over to the liquor store, get a soda and then play a game or two of pinball next door at the laundromat.

About the same time, I saw my first pro games.  The Lakers at the Forum, the Rams at the Coliseum and the Dodgers at Dodgers Stadium.  The names were either based on great Roman architecture or on the team nickname because no one with the Dodgers could think of any other Roman architecture besides “Bath House”, and that didn’t work.  

I grew up as a sports fan at the Forum.  The Forum was the first place I saw a pro basketball game, the Lakers played the Milwaukee Bucks on St. Patrick’s Day in 1972.  Kareem, then with the Bucks, dropped 50 on Wilt, but the Lakers still won. 

Ten years later, with Kareem now on our team, I rolled with my cousin Barney to see the Lakers win the 1982 NBA title in six games over the Sixers.  I saw a whole lot more that night in the Forum Club, if you know what I mean.  

But all good things do come to end, and so it was by the time the 21st century rolled around, the Lakers had a new home.  It was back in Downtown LA, only a couple miles from where they started in 1960 at the Sports Arena.  It would serve as the centerpiece of a revival of the downtown area, where commercial and residential business would rise up.  And it had a “name”…Staples Center.  Wait!  What?

Staples?  As in, the little piece of steel wire?  Nope, I was told, it was named after the American office retail company that paid $100 million for ten years.  I really had no idea staples were that valuable, but, okay, I guess we go with “Staples Center” instead of “Lakers Arena”.  

I was at Staples the night it opened to see a guy from New Jersey and his E Street Band open the place with a concert and complain that there were too many suites.  Bruce is the Boss, he should know.   

Staples, however, would win us Angelenos over.  Win being the operative word.  The Lakers won the NBA title in the first year they played in Staples.  Something like that makes up for a stupid name.  I sat in the 300 section of Staples the year it opened with my own eight year old boy, Vaun, who wore Kobe’s #8 jersey and was christened a lifelong fan when Kobe busted out a 360 dunk.  

I was at Staples in 2018 for the NBA All-Star Game with my friends Roger and Tim, who were from the same state as the best player on the floor, LeBron something or other.  He would soon be wearing a Laker jersey and playing in the office retail company named Center.  20 years after Kobe went 360 for us, Vaun and I watched as LeBron went down the lane with authority and dunked on what seemed to be the whole Sacramento Kings lineup.

Flash forward to last night,  as I walked from an “LA Live” sports bar to meet my friend Gino for a Clippers game.  The Clippers of course share Staples with other tenants but will be heading to their own place where the Lakers used to hang, as in, Ingle-What? That’s right, they will soon be in Inglewood with the Rams.

As I walked past the statues outside of the Center that is named for the place you get paper clips, I stopped and acknowledged the Jerry West statue.  One does not just walk past their boyhood hero without saying thanks for the interview that won him two Telly Awards.  Respect Logo, respect.

The Clippers, who, as we learned from the SSDL award winning blog series on the NBA teams that made the conference finals last season, started their life as the Buffalo Braves before moving to San Diego and rebranding as the Clippers before moving into the LA scene.  In town for some Tuesday night action were the San Antonio Spurs, one of the four teams from the ABA that were chosen to join the NBA in 1976, breaking the heart of those franchises not selected, especially Jackie Moon and his Tropic Thunder family.

Right around halftime, a notification popped up on my phone, the kind of news that would’ve made the next mornings LA Times in years past but today comes by way of Bleacher Report:  

“Staples to Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena in $700M, 20 year Contract”. 

Wait! What?  No more Staples?  What about other office supplies?  This is crazy, we are sitting here as the name of the arena has changed to, er, um, what exactly is “crypto”?  

Crypto currency, right?  Can I cash that out for some quarters?

• Denny Lennon is the President of Sports Stories, Inc., and the host of the “Sports Stories with Denny Lennon” docuseries and “Preps To Olympians” live TV show.

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