BangBros artist conception
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Given recent news of layoffs at Kaseya, New Times knows what all Miamians are thinking: Will we finally be able to watch the Miami Heat play at the BangBros Center (AKA the BBC)?
Kaseya, the IT management company that bought the naming rights to the downtown Miami arena in April 2023, eliminated 200 jobs this week, including 50 at its Miami headquarters. Chief communications officer Xavier Gonzalez emphasized that the layoffs were “part of a focused investment strategy to align resources with the areas that will deliver the greatest impact.”
After a hiring spree in 2023, the company fired 150 employees in April 2024. At that time, Gonzalez maintained that the cuts were “performance-based terminations,” as opposed to layoffs.
“Kaseya has made organizational changes designed to position the company for long-term growth and continued leadership in delivering secure, intelligent, and automated IT solutions for its partners and customers worldwide,” Gonzalez said in a statement sent to New Times earlier today. “Kaseya remains committed to its naming rights agreement for the Kaseya Center and continues to meet its financial obligations as part of the agreement with Miami-Dade County. Kaseya remains strong financially. These changes are proactive steps to focus our investments on the strategic areas that will drive growth, strengthen our market leadership, and ensure we deliver sustainable value to our customers and partners.”
A Brief History Lesson
Founded in 2000, Kaseya moved its headquarters to Brickell in 2018. Five years later, the company received $4.6 million in government subsidies from Miami-Dade County for a local hiring spree and, a mere two months later, won the naming rights to the county-owned arena after the venue’s then-sponsor, cryptocurrency exchange FTX, went bankrupt amid the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal.
Whereas the ill-fated FTX pact signed in 2021 called for 19 years and $135 million, Kaseya and the county inked a 17-year, $117 million deal. (Both arrangements called for the Heat to receive a portion of the sponsorship dough.)
And for the second time in less than five years, BangBros, which had resubmitted its 2019 offer of ten years and $10 million, found itself on the outside looking in.
“If they accept our offer, they would be supporting a local business made up of loyal season ticket holders for the last 20 years,” a BangBros representative told New Times before the homegrown porn empire was snubbed. “They can show their loyalty back by selling us the naming rights.” (In a rival risqué proposal, Booby Trap, which owns a handful of strip clubs in South Florida, submitted a $5 million bid to name the home of the Heat “Booby Trap Arena.”)
BangBros has not responded to New Times‘ emailed request for comment for this story.
For two decades, Miamians knew the venue, which opened in 1999, as American Airlines Arena. But in 2019, the airline announced that when its arrangement with the county expired on January 1, 2020, it would not renew the deal. (The airline’s name wasn’t removed from the building until 2021.)
Meanwhile, Kaseya’s website lists 69 job openings worldwide. In June, technology executive Rania Succar replaced Fred Voccola as the company’s chief executive officer. “The company continues to hire in customer-facing, product, and engineering roles as it accelerates investment in international expansion and innovation, particularly in AI-driven capabilities,” Gonzalez explained in his statement.
