Bitcoin’s Impact on Sports Sponsorships
Although the FTX debacle and 2022 Crypto Winter have slowed Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption to a crawl, sports sponsorships with cryptocurrency companies remain a real future possibility. Early 2022 estimates were that sports sponsorships with crypto organizations were going to reach $5 billion by 2026. Check out current sports sponsorships as well as where crypto and sports partnerships are headed.
A New Era of Partnerships
2022 saw a massive rise in sports stars taking their pay in bitcoin
Odell Beckham Jr. took his entire payment from the Los Angeles Rams in 2021 and 2022 via bitcoin.
Beckham wasn’t the only NFL star who wanted to be paid in BTC. Russell Okung, then a Carolina Panthers offensive lineman, also decided to receive payment in Bitcoin.
Sports stars taking payment in BTC wouldn’t last. The Crypto Winter of 2022 hit after Luna and Terra crashed and sports stars scrambled to rework their bitcoin payment contracts.
Organizations also signed sponsorship deals in 2022
2021 and early 2022 were banner years for sports and crypto sponsorships. Crypto.com took over the naming rights for the Staples Center for 20 years.
The crypto exchange company ponied up a breathtaking $700 million for the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers arena naming rights.
Coinbase signed an over $192 million deal with the NBA that will run over four years. In addition to the NBA, the deal includes the WNBA, the NBA G-League, and the NBA2K video game franchise.
Even Tezos, a straight up cryptocurrency, signed a deal. Tezos gave Man United $25 million to put their logo onto United kits. Like with sports stars, 2022 was kind to sports sponsorships in the crypto world.
Crypto winter started the backslide, FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried started the avalanche backslide
FTX was heavily involved in sports sponsorship deals in 2021. But when it came to light that SBF had committed massive fraud, sports sponsorships dried up.
Supposedly, Tom Brady lost over $100 million due to the FTX scandal. At the time of this writing, few sports stars and fewer sports leagues are getting into sponsorship deals with companies like Crypto.com.
Gary Gensler at the SEC is also having an effect. Gensler recently declared Coinbase and Binance illegitimate organizations. Some believe the SEC is out to end cryptocurrency companies and keep Bitcoin and, maybe, Ethereum as the only two cryptos.
New object-minded protocols can change this
Sports stars and sports leagues will return to the crypto deal making table once new protocols like SUI and PraSaga’s soon to be released SagaChain and SagaCoin land in October.
SUI and SagaChain are object-model chains. Object-model chains work differently in the sense that a digital representation of anything exists in what PraSaga calls a private enclave. Each object in the private enclave is only available to those with a specific key to unlock the digital twin.
Also, gas fees, which are a major issue for both Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions, will be at a maximum fourth of a penny in the long run.
Where to Bet with Crypto
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