#4 It was almost named Etihad Airways Arena
It was first called the MCI Center as the arena sold naming rights to MCI Communications. Then in January of 2006, Verizon Communications purchased MCI resulting in the arena name to change to the Verizon Center.
In 2015 a report emerged in May that year that Verizon would not renew their naming rights when their agreement with Monumental Sports and Entertainment was set to come to an end in 2018.
In that same week Etihad Airways signed a deal to become the official airline of the arena. That began speculation that Etihad would be the leading contender to naming rights in 2017.
On August 9, 2017 the name officially changed as the bank Capital One bought the naming rights. It named the venue Capital One Arena and it’s still that name to this day.
In 2019 and 2020 Monumental Sports and Entertainment put $30 million into renovating the arena. That included completely changing the arena seats from blue/purple to black, and in turn the renovations improved the concourse and the food and drink options.
They also updated their video board and if you’re too high up to see it don’t worry, there’s four secondary screens in each corner of the arena. The arena looks like it glowed up.