A full year’s takeaways from 2022’s sports and crypto crossovers.
It’s been climbs to mountain tops, dives and descents to unthinkable lows, and everything in between. There were new endorsement deals stand out and fall apart in less than a year. There was also controversy surrounding athlete endorsements of crypto products. The list goes on and on, but after a fast start in 2022, market conditions affected sports in a big way by the end of the year.
2022 brought a very different year to the sports roundup of 2021. Last year’s roundup was dominated by few more than FTX, and it certainly left a bad taste in our mouths around the idea that FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, and his associates, could have used client funds to spend exorbitant dollars on sponsorships around the world.
Nonetheless, 2022 finally brought a big ‘reset’ in sports sponsorship engagement, allowing executives to realize that even at this level, sometimes it’s too good to be true.
Sports Leagues and Teams Associations
The biggest stories in sports and crypto-focused on team associations and leagues. It all started with Terra, who signed with the MLB Washington Nationals club earlier in the year. Within weeks, Terra Luna had club branding and even logo markings just behind home plate at Nationals games.
Nonetheless, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the FIFA World Cup, took place with the sponsorship efforts of Crypto.com without much fanfare, which in the last quarter of the year was a huge victory considering the chaos that had preceded much of the previous three quarters.
Brand Commitment
NFTs were the centerpiece of the brand’s engagement this year, with lukewarm input from a variety of sports-focused brands like StockX, Adidas, Prada, and more. However, the winner in sports-related brand deals within crypto is likely to be Nike, whose acquisition of RFTKT has proven to be one of the best longevity plays in the space.
Athlete Commitment
The beginning of 2022 started with a lot of sponsorships and athlete partners, but on the other side of the coin, throughout the year, there were consistently athletes from all different types of sports listed in lawsuits related to promoting various protocols and platforms. Early in 2022, former NBA forward Paul Pierce and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. were named in the infamous EthereumMax lawsuit.
Beyond the madness of the lawsuits and scams, it was the first full year for Tom Brady’s NFT platform Autograph, which had many highlights throughout 2022.
All the Extras
Sports collectibles continue to be an interesting topic, and there were quite a few 6-figure and up NFT sales of NFT sports cards throughout the year.
Completely in the “unexpected” bucket is the story behind WAGMI United, once Crawley Town FC, a football club in England. The club has brought a ‘crypto twist’ and describes itself as ‘the internet team’.
It was a big year for sports and crypto crossovers, and there’s no doubt that 2023 has a lot more in store.
By Audy Castaneda
