The partnership between the Sporting Kansas City soccer club and the Livestrong Foundation is over.Livestrong, the organization founded by Lance Armstrong, will be removed from the stadium name in the midst of what was a six-year deal.
When Sporting Kansas city decided to name its stadium Livestrong Sporting Park two years ago, team CEO Rob Heineman said Livestrong represented a cause the stood up for.
“Cancer as a disease obviously is very personal to us as an ownership group, and we said, ‘Hey this would give us a platform where we could really elevate a cause that we all very much believe in,'" says Heineman.
The team stood by that despite the public relations nightmare caused by the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. But Heineman said in a statement that Livestrong forced the team into an unsatisfactory arrangement.
The stadium will now be simply known as Sporting Park.