Oct. 19, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Staples, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLS), the world’s largest office products company, and AEG, a leading sports and entertainment presenter, today announced that Staples has elected to extend its naming rights agreement for the AEG-owned STAPLES Center, one of the nation’s leading sports and entertainment arenas. With Staples paying a previously negotiated fee, its original 20-year naming rights agreement will now be extended in perpetuity. This arrangement creates the first lifetime naming rights extension for a major-market arena.

“As Staples has grown to become the world’s leading office products company, it is fitting that we shared an association with STAPLES Center, the world’s best known venue for sports and entertainment,” said Mike Miles, Staples president and chief operating officer. “We like to think it’s with a push of their Easy Button^®, but clearly a long list of sports champions, community leaders and entertainers have had some of their greatest moments at STAPLES Center and we look forward to many more in the years to come.”

Staples has owned the naming rights to STAPLES Center since the arena’s opening in October 1999 as part of the company’s original agreement with AEG. The 10th year of this agreement included an option for a naming rights extension.

“Staples has been a great partner since day one,” said Timothy J. Leiweke, president & CEO of AEG and STAPLES Center. “They had the vision to enter into a groundbreaking agreement 10 years ago, which has certainly paid off with a partnership to create an association with the most widely recognized venue in the world. This lifetime deal, with a leading global brand, will continue to be heralded as a great investment and one that will help secure the future of STAPLES Center as a world-class sports and entertainment destination.”

With annual attendance of more than four million people and about 250 events annually, STAPLES Center is the host of many high-profile events of national and international distinction. These include the 2000 Democratic National Convention, the 2002 NHL All-Star game, the 2004 NBA All-Star Game, 2009 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, nine GRAMMY Awards shows, the ESPN X Games, the WTA Tour Championships, and is home to the NCAA Men’s Pacific Life Pac 10 Basketball Championships. Most recently, the arena received global attention for the Michael Jackson memorial service which was watched by over 2 billion viewers worldwide.

In addition to an impressive schedule of sports and entertainment events, STAPLES Center is the home of four professional sports franchises - the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks.