On January 17, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange , announced that it is the new sponsor of Sao Paulo women's soccer league, Paulistão Sicredi 2022. The exchange stated that its sponsorship provides for the launch of exclusive products, such as the development of a platform for NFTs and LiveNFTs, among other initiatives. Such a partnership is set to make the 2022 soccer league edition of Brazil’s Campeonato Paulista Sicredi Serie A1 become the most innovative ever held. The move increases Binance’s active collaborations with streamlining, arena advertising and social media partners in sports competitions. Such a partnership has become successful as recently the São Paulo Football Federation (FPF) aims to provide the best experiences for fans and sponsors.
Guilherme Lenz Cesar, a Partner at LiveMode, stated: “We are ready to promote many innovations and create unprecedented offers for brands and fans of the largest state in the country. Paulistão 2022 will give Binance national visibility and the chance to offer unprecedented products to fans.”
Reinaldo Carneiro Bastos, the President of the FPF, added: “We are delighted to announce Binance, another global giant, as a partner of Paulistão Sicredi 2022. The crypto market has been growing a lot in Brazil. And, the most innovative competition in the country now brings the largest brokerage in the world.”
Meanwhile, the Binance CEO and Founder, Changpeng Zhao, described sponsoring a competition as important to the Brazilian sports calendar as Paulistão Sicredi 2022 marks Binance’s immersion in Latin American football culture: “We strongly believe in the potential of sport as an important means to spread the innovation brought by blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, contributing to mass adoption. We look forward to bringing these two universes together, in a partnership that is sure to be very successful,” he elaborated.
The Paulistão Sicredi 2022 grand Sponsorship is Binance's second sports marketing initiative in South America. In November last year, Binance formed an agreement with Santos Football club for the commercialization/operationalization of products, such as Fan Tokens and NFTs. Also, the platform sponsored the Santos Futebol club shirt.
Crypto Platforms Position Themselves to Capture Market Share
The development by Binance comes at a time when a rising number of crypto firms are becoming some of the biggest advertisers and sponsors in sports. The move has been spurred on by the need to reach a new audience and push into the mainstream. In November last year, Crypto.com, a payment and cryptocurrency platform, bought naming rights to iconic Staple Centers for $700 million. In October last year, The National Basketball Association (NBA) landed its first crypto sponsorship with Coinbase crypto exchange. In May last year, even-time Super Bowl champion, Tom Brady stated that he is a big believer in cryptocurrencies after he bought crypto coins. Fintech companies want to increase revenue around blockchain to grow the crypto economy. At the same time, sports leagues have rapidly embraced cryptocurrency as they look to get revenue to address pandemic-driven losses. As a result, they have created a sponsorship category that rarely existed less than a year ago.
