- FTX Exchange recently got into a deal with Alabama women’s softball team
- The sports industry and the Crypto world seem to find more ways to stay connected
- Sam Bankman was willing to buy the Super Bowl itself but couldn’t
The world of Cryptocurrency and sports are constantly coming up with new opportunities to be connected to each other. Earlier in December 2021, FTX, which is a popular Crypto exchange, partnered with the UCLA women’s basketball team.
And recently, it announced a partnership with the Alabama women’s softball team. It announced the NIL offer made to the team, which is the second partnership of its kind that is done between FTX exchange and women’s sports.
According to Nate Clancy, the Vice President of business development, they would like to partner with full teams because crypto is majorly about community development and that they hope that NIL partners along with their friends learn and explore crypto and FTX exchange authentically. And FSU softball was an excellent fit for FTX. When they looked at the culture built by FTX and the FSU Standard of Excellence, it became pretty clear that they were the right partners.
The trend of accepting payments in crypto when it came to sportspersons, was started by Russell Okung, a former player on the football team the Carolina Panthers; it was quite shocking for the world when Okung stated that he would be converting half of his salary into Bitcoin, whose annual salary is over $13 million. He stated that money is more than currency, it is power. And the handling of money from creation to dissemination is also part of that power. Getting paid in Bitcoin is the first step to opt-out of the corrupt, manipulative economy that we all inhabit. Bitcoin fans are not only disrupting the status quo, they are reclaiming the power that is rightly theirs. He further stated that PAY ME IN BITCOIN becomes a reality today. And that this is the exposure in a new way, a new power, and a new future that recognizes diversity in finance and reclamation of proper financial control.
2021 was a year that saw many sports ventures getting into crypto deals. And according to Clancy, though earlier there have been deals that were offered to FAU and BYU, this is a deal first of its kind that occurred to a softball team.
FTX exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried explained that they actually wanted to buy the whole Super Bowl itself, who apparently don’t accept payments in crypto yet, and hence, they are settling for Ad-time as for now.
The past year has shown that the sports industry seems to accept Cryptocurrency slowly and what all can happen in 2022 is interesting to look forward to, as FTX exchange got into such a deal in the new year, more Crypto deals might take place. And payments in Cryptocurrency might be accepted widely.