Sports Sponsorship, one of the most important tools for the brand awareness of global companies, has changed the fortune of several organizations in the past few decades. In the world of globalization and crazy fans, sporting clubs and teams have the power to influence people worldwide.
The international sports sponsorship industry is currently going through a major shift. The sector, which was once dominated by FMCG companies, is now the primary target of emerging crypto and blockchain firms. Companies within the global crypto and blockchain ecosystem have poured billions of dollars into sports sponsorship deals to expand their brand awareness.
Some of the most prominent companies which participated actively in sports sponsorship deals throughout 2021 were, Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro, FTX and Tezos. The firms signed agreements with Soccer, Basketball, American Football, UFC, F1 and Baseball teams around the world. According to an estimate, FTX and Crypto.com poured more than $1 billion into sports sponsorships during 2021 alone.
The dominance of crypto in sports sponsorship is such that the recent Super Bowl, the annual playoff championship game of the National Football League, was called the ‘Crypto Bowl’ by the industry. Reason? Because the halftime ads during the match were dominated by leading crypto companies like Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro, and FTX. Coinbase alone spent nearly $14 million on its ad and saw the biggest traffic in its operational history.
Finance Magnates asked some of the well-known names in the crypto industry about their views on the surging dominance of crypto and blockchain brands in sports sponsorship.
Increased Spending
According to Matt House, the CEO of SportQuake, a sports sponsorship agency specializing in football sponsorship, the overall volume of money spent by the crypto companies on global sports sponsorships, especially football sponsorship deals has increased significantly since the start of 2021.
"Crypto and blockchain brands are taking over sports sponsorship. They have seen how successful sports sponsorship has been for building online sports betting and online trading brands and have run with it aggressively, taking the speed of adoption and initial spending behind adoption to another level. There are 4 key battlegrounds to drive brand visibility and salience for crypto and blockchain brands: The NFL and NBA to drive the key US market. Football (soccer) and F1 to drive non-US markets,” House said.
“If you take football (soccer), crypto and blockchain brands are already the 10th biggest spender on football sponsorship globally. For context, sports betting, which is the 2nd biggest spending brand sector ($492m in 2021/22), has taken 15 years to build, whereas crypto and blockchain brands only started spending 2 years ago,” he added.
Commenting on the future position of crypto companies in the global sports sponsorship ecosystem, the CEO of SportQuake, said: “Based on these current run rates, crypto and blockchain brands are on track to move from 10th to 5th biggest spender by 2022/23 and if you believe in the mainstream potential of crypto and blockchain and the size of the businesses/ associated marketing budgets that would unlock, crypto and blockchain brands have the potential to outspend mainstream financial services and become the number 1 spender in sports sponsorship very quickly.”
Miami Heat, PSG, Manchester United
In 2021, digital exchange FTX signed a sponsorship deal with Miami Heat and became an exclusive crypto partner of the NBA club. Crypto.com signed a deal with PSG and Tezos partnered with Manchester United. Ilman Shazhaev, the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Farcana Metaverse, said that the recent trend is unlikely to die soon.
“Last weekend, over 100 million people tuned into the Super Bowl, and American Football wasn’t the only focus. Crypto took center stage as the likes of FTX, Coinbase and Crypto.com ran multi-million dollar campaigns at the major event. The biggest crypto brands are turning to the sports industry to broaden their reach, which makes sense given the mainstream appeal for sports around the world. This trend is unlikely to die anytime soon: in fact, Tezos, one of the biggest smart contract platforms, is now sponsoring Manchester United (the network also has a focus on Formula 1 and UFC, among others),” Shazhaev highlighted.
“As crypto companies have an abundance of capital for marketing budgets and sports maintain their popularity, we expect to see the two fields become increasingly intertwined over the coming years. We don’t even have a choice: both FTX and Crypto.com’s recent naming rights deals for Miami Heat and LA Lakers will run for the next two decades. If it wasn’t already confirmed, crypto has entered the mainstream for good,” he added.
Super Bowl Ad of Coinbase
Coinbase saw more than 20 million hits on its landing page in one minute after the company’s Super Bowl ad. Commenting on the inspiration behind the ad, Kate Rouch, the Chief Marketing Officer at Coinbase, said: “We saw over 20M+ hits on our landing page in one minute — a volume that was historic and unprecedented. Our core inspiration for the ad was the curiosity and intimidation we know many people have about crypto. We wanted to pique their interest by doing something different, something that’s never been done in the history of Super Bowl advertising — a playful, low production nod to a popular Internet meme that invites action and discussion both in the living room and on social media. We are a remote-first company.”
“Our CEO and his Co-Founder met on Reddit. Traditional highly produced Super Bowl advertising just didn’t feel inspiring to us. We wanted to show up in a more authentic way to our brand. We hope people found it in turn surprising, confounding, and delightful. Most of all, we hope it inspired them to take their first step into crypto,” Rouch added.
