English Premiership club, Southampton FC has entered a new sponsorship deal with Sportsbet, a crypto-centric betting company, which would see the team earn bonuses in crypto. According to the partnership, part of the new deal includes receiving performance-based bonuses in Bitcoin, which the premier league club is convinced that it would bring huge benefits in the future.
In the announcement, the premiership club said they would be able to make the most of “the high-growth currency”. This new deal is the biggest in the club history.
The shirt deal between Sportsbet and Southampton was first announced at the start of the current football season. Usually, sponsors tend to pay a flat rate to their sponsored teams, in addition to that, most of them also pay an additional performance-based bonuses to these teams.
Crypto Adoption Hits The Sports Industry
Cryptocurrencies have permeated the football space across Europe. In 2018, Arsenal FC signed a deal to help promote the ICO of CashBet. In 2020, Catalan giants FC Barcelona came up with their own token to enhance fan engagement. Manchester City, four-time premiership league winners, had launched a fans tokens to reward their officially registered fans.
And it’s not just in football. Late last year, Russell Okung, a NFL player started receiving 50% of his salary in BTC. Just recently, Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, launched his NFT company. Not only that, we reported that Sacramento Kings was also preparing to pay its players using the digital assets.
