The MLB is swinging for the fences with crypto exchange FTX. Baseball’s biggest league has become the first of the ‘big 4’ major sports leagues in the U.S. to formalize a partnership with an exchange. The news comes just days after the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) became the first pro sports league in North America to adopt bitcoin as a method of payment for player salaries as part of a partnership with Canadian exchange Bitbuy.
MLB & FTX: A Unique Partnership
Today’s partnership announcement highlighted a number of exciting deal points for FTX. Most notably, the exchange will become the first-ever umpire uniform patch partner. Beginning with next month’s All-Star Game, all umpire uniforms throughout the season will don an FTX.US logo patch. The patch will be implemented not just in regular season games, but also in postseason, spring training, and Jewel Event games.
FTX will also become the Official Cryptocurrency Exchange brand, the first of it’s kind for a major league sports team in the US. Additionally, the partnership includes MLB Players Inc., which allows FTX access to group player rights for their marketing content. The crypto exchange’s branding assets will run the gambit when it comes to visibility, with logo usage expected on televised games, MLB.com, social media, and more.
In statements throughout the press release, MLB’s chief revenue officer Noah Garden described the exchange as “a global leader in the early stages of their unbelievable growth”. FTX’s CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried echoed the sentiment, stating that his firm “strive(s) each day to make a global positive impact, and there is no better partner for us to achieve this goal with than the MLB and its international fan base”.
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FTX All-In On Sports Partnerships
The commitment to US-based sports partnerships continues for FTX. The exchange has spent likely north of $350-400M in domestic sport sponsorships in the last six months alone. While the financial details of the MLB partnership have not been disclosed, two major sport partnerships this year have been: esports organization TSM and the NBA’s Miami Heat.
The powerhouse crypto exchange shelled out roughly $7.1M annually over a 19-year deal with the Miami Heat, committing to a $135M spend. Meanwhile, the exchange also sealed naming rights in recent weeks to leading esports organization TSM – rebranding the org to TSM FTX. That deal was valued at $210M over 10 years.
The exchange also partnered with chess company Play Magnus Group earlier in the year.
BTC is still garnering major league attraction. | Source: BTC-USD on TradingView.com
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