The ongoing wave unlike anything we’ve seen before “says Peter Laatz, managing director of IEG, a consulting firm in sports partnerships. According to the latter’s estimates, cryptocurrency companies helped fuel NBA sponsorship revenue to an all-time high of $1.6 billion for the 2021/22 season.
This is up about 14% from the $1.4 billion in the prior year. In the 2018/19 season, the big league raised $1.2 billion in sponsorship. Crypto-related partnerships are now the second most lucrative sponsorship category for the NBA, behind revenue from tech companies.
It is recalled that these sponsorship contracts can include agreements around the names of the rooms (“naming”) and the possibility for these companies to put their names or logos on the jerseys of the players.
The NBA, for example, signed a multi-year contract with Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform for buying, selling and storing Bitcoin. A contract worth $192 million over four years.
More recently, on December 25, the Staples Center disappeared to make way for the Crypto.com Arena. The Lakers have indeed concluded a twenty-year contract for the rights to the name of his hall worth $ 700 million. It should be remembered that the Heat also fell for millions of dollars from a cryptocurrency trading platform, and Jimmy Butler’s teammates are now playing at the FTX Arena.
Other industries that pay the NBA more than $100 million a year, according to IEG, include banking, telecommunications and commodity companies.
Among the four major American sports leagues, the NBA ranks third in terms of sponsorship revenue. The NFL is number 1 with nearly $2 billion in contracts for its 2021 season.
