The Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood has quietly rebranded to PH Live. Thank gawd. Nearly 85% of people were pronouncing “Bakkt” wrong. It’s like “backed.” Which is now a completely useless “fun fact.” Sigh.
Anyway, Caesars Entertainment is between naming rights sponsors. Prior to the name Bakkt, it was the Zappos Theater. Before that, it was The Axis. At some point in there (2012-2013), it was PH Live.
Confusing? Definitely. Just ask any rideshare driver.
Bakkt Theater has been called that since early 2023.
Why has Bakkt backed out of its five-year sponsorship deal with Caesars Entertainment after a little more than a year?
Well, Bakkt shares have lost about 73% in value since the beginning of the year. Or as it’s called in the world of stock trading and investing, “an epic shitstorm of dumpster trainwreck clusterfuckery.”
Bakkt describes itself as “Custody, Trading & Onramps for Crypto.” You know, they’re a crypto infrastructure provider. What could possibly go wrong?
In our story about the renaming from Zappos to Bakkt, we said, “Bakkt is a cryptocurrency company, so we trust Caesars Entertainment got its money up front.”
We were joking, but as anyone we’ve ever been in a relationship with will tell you, our “jokes” are actually a passive-aggressive way of undercutting things that make us feel awkward. It’s also a way of saying how we really feel without committing to it. It’s complicated.
The fact is Caesars Entertainment took the nature of Bakkt’s business into account when structuring its deal. Specifically, it front-loaded the five-year contract. Bakkt bought out the rest of its obligation. We could probably find the numbers buried in the financials of Caesars Entertainment, but that would involve “effort” and perhaps even “journalism,” so that’s not happening.
Naming rights deals are found money for companies like Caesars Entertainment. Like selling its World Series of Poker brand.
The theater at Park MGM is Dolby Live. The former Mandalay Bay Events Center is now called Michelob Ultra Arena. Allegiant Air pays $25 million a year for naming rights of the Raiders stadium. There’s also T-Mobile Arena on The Strip.
Naming rights deals are notoriously underwhelming marketing investments with little concrete, measurable return on investment.
Bakkt Theater was one of the clumsiest naming rights deals in town, just because the company isn’t well known and “Bakkt Theater” wasn’t memorable or pleasing to the ear, at all.
So, if you’re trying to see a show at Planet Hollywood, tell your Lyft or Uber or taxi or limo or party bus driver all the various names of the theater and one will ring a bell.
We’re curious to see whose name gets slapped on the (placeholder) PH Live theater next. If we hit Megabucks, you already know the answer. First residency in the Vital Vegas Theater will be Duran Duran. Shocker.
