Sports always have a solid fan base where people come together without seeing any differences between them.
But there are other sets of people who are sports enthusiasts because of betting. In recent days, many websites give NFL betting lines that help such people guess the odds ideally.
Sports always find new ways to increase their revenue stream, so recently, they have opted for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies to keep up their revenue. This way, they can attract many fans and sponsors, especially during this Covid period.
This Covid-19 has created a distance between the industry and the fans, which resulted in a considerable revenue loss for the sports industry.
But the fans have their support by using technology where the report says that these enthusiasts watch sports beyond the actual duration of the match. Thus the sports industry realized that technology like cryptocurrency and fan tokens is the only way to reach the audience and meet fan expectations.
Partnerships and Sponsorships
Cryptocurrency is being the big talk among people worldwide, but still, there are some hesitations for people to choose this over real money. But sports sponsorships have broken such hesitations among investors and viewers.
Sports teams using the new and upcoming cryptocurrency exchange platform for their advertising budgets are given below:
The first-ever sponsorship deal signed in December 2014 between US bitcoin payment BitPay and ESPN set as a bold inspiration to many. St. Petersburg Bowl, an annual post-season football in the US, was also sponsored by BitPay to promote Bitcoin.
In 2018, the new CashBet coin was introduced and promoted by signing a deal with the Arsenal Football Club as the club’s official blockchain partner. These CashBet coins were created for use on CashBet’s online gambling platforms.
Next on the list is Litecoin, which in 2018 became the official partner of UFC 232 after sponsoring the Light Heavyweight title fight. This fight was between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson, which was a great success and attracted many audiences worldwide. This even received over 40 million Twitter impressions as an interest in this coin to an audience of 16 million users.
eToro partnered with many Premier League teams for the promotion of a crypto-trading service. In September 2020, they became one of the biggest European football sponsors of many clubs like Tottenham Hotspur FC, Leicester City FC, Brighton & Hove Albion FC, Cardiff City FC, and Crystal Palace FC.
According to the recent update, “Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One,” partnered with the cryptocurrency in March 2021 became the first formula one team to part with such a firm.
Use of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology in Sport
Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies are also used for payment transactions. The sports industry has introduced a new option for fans to use cryptocurrency to purchase tickets and merchandise. In addition, they have also asked the clubs to pay the player’s salary using these digital currencies.
This has given more benefits for the clubs and organizations to have a secure platform and transparent ticket exchange.
Some examples are:
Harunustaspor is a Turkish football club that was the world’s first-ever club that used Bitcoins to purchase their players. One player Omar Faruk Kiroglu earned 0.0524 in bitcoin, which is worth 385 Euro as a deal with the Harunustaspor club.
Even the payment services like Wirex and Epayments introduced the facility for the fans to buy FIFA world cup tickets in 2018 by using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum. Surprisingly the Kaliningrad hotel offered their customers to transfer Bitcoins while booking accommodations.
Even Gibraltar United Football Club, in July 2018, partially paid their player’s salary with cryptocurrencies using the Quantocoin platform. This same platform also owns 25% of the Italian Serie C football club Rimini FC 1912, which was officially the first football club to be owned by a cryptocurrency firm.
