
Los Angeles Olympics to sell naming rights to venues in first
In a statement released on Thursday, LA28 organizers said the "landmark change" will apply to featured venues in support of the "largest commercial revenue raise in sports."
"From the moment we submitted our bid, LA28 committed to reimagining what's possible for the Games," LA28 chairperson and president Casey Wasserman said in a statement.
"Today's historic announcement delivers on that promise, creating the first-ever venue naming rights program in Olympic and Paralympic history while advancing LA28's mission of a fully privately funded and no-new-build Games."
Contracts are already in place with automaker Honda, an LA28 sponsor which already has the naming rights for the Anaheim, California, arena that will host volleyball, and with media and technology company Comcast — which will have its name on the temporary squash venue.
As previously announced, Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles will host boxing and weightlifting.
Wasserman said the "groundbreaking partnerships" will generate revenue beyond what is already budgeted and "will introduce a new commercial model to benefit the entire (Olympic) movement."
"We're grateful to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for making this transformation possible," he added.
Naming rights for up to 19 temporary venues will be available, with the IOC's sponsorship partners and LA28 partners having a chance to put their names on Games venues.
Companies that already have their names on Olympic venues like SoFi Stadium and Crypto.com Arena "will have the opportunity to keep existing venue naming rights during Games time", Wasserman indicated.
"Clean venue" policies that prohibit advertising on the field of play will still apply.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Japan Times
20 hours ago
- Japan Times
Top MLB prospect Rintaro Sasaki is committed to doing it 'the hard way'
On a near-perfect California afternoon in June, a few light breezes stirred the eucalyptus trees near Klein Field, better known as Stanford's Sunken Diamond. Inside the adjacent Mark Marquess Room, named for a former coach who led the Cardinal to two national baseball titles, sat Rintaro Sasaki, Stanford's hulking freshman first baseman. He was giving a postseason update of his history-making decision to be the first Japanese high school star to play NCAA Division I baseball in the U.S. Stanford exams were just around the corner, and Sasaki was asked to give himself a grade for his first year.


Japan Times
a day ago
- Japan Times
A startup is tapping underground parking garages for clean energy
The heat held in New York's underground labyrinth of infrastructure, from hundreds of miles of subway tunnels to parking garages and malls, is a clean energy gold mine. Now, a Swiss startup wants to tap it to heat and cool buildings, all without drilling a single borehole. Globally, heating accounts for nearly half of all energy consumption. That could make decarbonizing it a half-trillion-dollar market, according to a BloombergNEF analysis. Using the Earth's heat offers one route to cut emissions, but traditional geothermal projects can be costly and require space to operate drilling equipment, making them a poor fit for cities. Startup Enerdrape's system uses energy-harvesting panels in manmade underground spaces, though, which could allow it to gain a toehold in cities. The Swiss company focuses on older multifamily buildings, which are harder to decarbonize than newer builds. In New York, residential structures built before 1960 make up more than 64% of the housing stock, though not all of it is well-suited for the panels. "There really aren't many companies doing this,' said BNEF analyst Stephanie Diaz. "They are truly a novel approach in how to decarbonize buildings,' though the company will have to figure out how to scale its technology to work with a wide variety of buildings. Enerdrape's technology is the product of decades of research spearheaded by Lyesse Laloui, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne. A five-time startup founder, he's spent the last 15 years tackling the question of how to turn underground structures into energy sources. Initially, he created a solution for new construction, but realized that it only addressed a small part of the decarbonization puzzle compared to existing buildings. He and his team developed a prototype heat-exchanging panel in 2015. Enerdrape's panels affix to concrete infrastructure, which can hold large stores of heat. (Think of how hot a subway station gets in the summer, for example.) Enerdrape taps that heat using a system of prefabricated panels that absorb geothermal energy from the ground or the air. Even when underground spaces aren't sweltering, the ground temperature, at several feet of depth, stays relatively constant throughout the year. During the summer, Enerdrape's system uses the underground as a heat sink to absorb a building's heat and cool it. In the winter, it does the opposite, using the ground like a battery to warm things up. The system requires installing one panel for roughly every 110 square feet (10 square meters) of a building's floor area. The panels are connected to heat-transferring fluid, working in tandem with one or more heat pumps. "Enerdrape moves heat from where it's not needed to where it is,' co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Alessandro Rotta Loria said. Rotta Loria, who was Laloui's former PhD student, likened it to an underground solar panel that feeds on heat rather than the sun's rays. Enerdrape says its panels can meet 100% of the space heating, cooling and hot water needs for buildings up to 10 stories in height. The company, which launched in 2019, has projects across Europe, including with Switzerland's largest retailer, Coop Immobilier, small businesses like a dental office in Spain, utilities and multiple Swiss cities. It also teamed up with Engie, one of Europe's largest gas and renewable energy suppliers, to provide energy to 72 homes with Paris Habitat, France's largest affordable housing provider. Enerdrape said its 145 panels provide 70 megawatt-hours of heat per year and cover 25% of homes' domestic hot water needs while avoiding 15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Despite many urban areas setting ambitious climate goals and a growing number of residential electrification programs, few companies target affordable housing, according to a 2022 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Decarbonizing heat first is the most cost-effective way to electrify affordable housing, the group found. Low-income housing tends to be old buildings that are more expensive to retrofit, said Thatcher Bell, who leads climate tech accelerator The Clean Fight's programs. High upfront cost for replacement, financial constraints and the large number of stakeholders in these buildings make operators less likely to install new technology. The accelerator selected Enerdrape for a recent cohort of startups focused on low-cost, low-construction ways to cut emissions from older units, without displacing residents. The need for those types of solutions is growing. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul calls for building 800,000 electrified or electrification-ready homes by 2030. New York City, meanwhile, passed a law to tackle building emissions, which account for approximately 70% of the city's carbon footprint. Similar measures in cities like Boston and Seattle have followed. The majority of New York City residential buildings covered by the law are pre-war construction of six stories or less, according to the Urban Green Council. That provides plenty of opportunities for technology like Enerdrape's. However, the startup faces some challenges. Heat pump adoption is higher in parts of Europe, and Enerdrape will have to contend with slower adoption in the U.S. due to cost. Upfront cost, which includes panel installation and heat pump connection, is typically between $100,000 and $500,000, depending on a building's available surface area that can be activated as a heat source. Political headwinds in the U.S. are another issue, with President Donald Trump curtailing federal support for heat pumps. The system can cut electricity costs, though. According to the company, it can deliver energy at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to the average U.S. gas price of 17 cents per kWh. Enerdrape says its solution is cheaper in Europe, where fuel costs are 3 to 5 times higher than in the U.S.. The system also won't help with larger buildings, which are some of New York's biggest energy users. "We're not going to be able to do much' with a 60-floor high-rise, Rotta Loria said.

Japan Times
a day ago
- Japan Times
Alcaraz to face defending champ Sinner in Cincinnati ATP final
World No. 1 Jannik Sinner and top rival Carlos Alcaraz will face off in a final for the fourth time this season after both booked straight-set wins into the title match at the Cincinnati Open on Saturday. Defending champion Sinner ruthlessly subdued 136th-ranked qualifier Terence Atmane 7-6 (4), 6-2 while Spanish second seed Alcaraz defeated an ailing Alexander Zverev, who was suffering badly from the 32 degrees Celsius heat and humidity, by a score of 6-4, 6-3. Alcaraz and Sinner have played for trophies this season in Rome, Roland Garros and Wimbledon, with the Italian winning their most recent at the All England Club last month. Sinner, celebrating his 24th birthday, ended Frenchman Atmane's dream run and will now try to become the first man since Roger Federer in 2014-15 to win back-to-back titles in Cincinnati. Sinner, warming up for the U.S. Open in his first tournament since winning Wimbledon, hasn't dropped a set en route to the final. "It's a very, very tough challenge every time you play a new opponent," Sinner said. "In the later stages of the tournament,the pressure is on, they deserve to be there." Alcaraz will also be playing in his second Cincy final after losing to Novak Djokovic in 2023. The Spaniard increased his ATP season match win lead to 53 in a year where he has won five titles. Alcaraz broke Zverev once in the opening set to claim it before the German, who is diabetic, began feeling poorly and took a medical timeout off court after the third game of the second set. Zverev, who has retired in only two matches since 2014, came back out to finish what was a patchy match from Alcaraz, who double-faulted four times in the second game of the second set but won the last 12 points with Zverev running on fumes. "We started well with good rallies, a good level," Alcaraz said. "All of a sudden he felt bad and I was thinking more about how he was feeling instead of playing good tennis. "It was tough and I just wish him all the best." Alcaraz said he is keen to try and take his Wimbledon revenge on Sinner in the unorthodox Monday final. "We always bring our best tennis. We raise each other's level. I'm ready to take the challenge," Alcaraz said. "I will try and adjust my game better and correct what I did wrong in our last match. I want to be ready with my 100%. Mentally I'll be ready — I'm excited for Monday." Atmane gave birthday boy Sinner a Pokemon card shortly before they went on court, but he was in a less giving mood once they were underway. Sinner, however, surrendered just three points in his first six service games as they went to the tiebreaker with neither man facing a break point. Atmane double faulted on the first point of the decider and Sinner was away, powering to a 5-2 lead and pocketing the set at his second opportunity. "My experience helped in the first set," he said. "I'm very happy to go through to another final. "I tried to focus on myself, how I usually play, and then try to adapt a little bit to his game style," Sinner said. "And that's exactly what I did today. "The pressure was on me. That's normal in the position where I am in — he was ready to fight." "My goal has always been the U.S. Open, but we have put in the work here, in the gym and in practice. I just hope to be ready for New York." Sinner showed a first sign of vulnerability as he needed five game points to hold serve in the opening game of the second set. But that was the closest look Atmane got at his serve, and Sinner broke the Frenchman for a 3-1 lead and again to seal the match. Atmane, who is projected to crack the top 70 in the world rankings, became Sinner's 22nd straight French victim since May 2021, when he lost to Arthur Rinderknech in Lyon.