Crypto.com Arena, the Arrival of Crypto to Sports & What This Means for Backstage
The month’s biggest event in the crypto space has hit onlookers like a freight train, with the sudden agreement between Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and Crypto.com to rename the Staples Center to the Crypto.com Arena.
AEG is both the owner and operator of the Staples Center and they have hashed out a massive deal with Crypto.com, slated to take place over the course of twenty years. The two-decade long deal will end up netting AEG around $700 million, which is significantly more than the naming rights to comparable arenas.
The soon-to-be Crypto.com Arena is home to the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, and the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.
Executives on both sides have expressed their excitement of this new unison between the worlds of sports and cryptocurrency. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen crypto start to make its way into sports, with many crypto platforms venturing into sports sponsorships and advertising as a way of lending them legitimacy in the financial world.
News like this is a great development for Backstage. At Backstage, we aim to create a blockchain-powered ecosystem for the events industry. The more mainstream cryptocurrency becomes, the more bars and clubs, concert venues, sports facilities and others should see the utility of the Backstage platform. This will help increase adoption of the Backstage blockchain for event operations, as well as use of BKS token for payments, investment, and financing.
Interested in joining the Backstage community? Click one of the links below.
Telegram: https://t.me/BKSBackstage
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BackstageBks
Crypto and sports: A bright future together
Crypto.com is a company based in Singapore that is mainly known for its crypto exchange app. Their immense growth has been credited to their aggressive marketing strategy that has now resulted in them securing the naming rights to one of the most well-known arenas in the world.
Earlier this October, the Serie A soccer club Lazio partnered up with Binance, featuring them as their main kit sponsor. This deal cost Binance about 30 million euros, earning them the right to showcase themselves on the players’ kits over the course of the next three years.
This wasn’t the only Serie A club to start working with a crypto company as a sponsor, as Roma previously established an agreement with Zytara Labs and Inter Milan did so with Chiliz.
However, you don’t even have to look that far to see how much crypto is becoming intertwined with sports. Looking at Crypto.com itself, we can see that they’ve set up deals with Formula One, the UFC, and even the NHL, specifically the Montreal Canadiens (the most historically successful franchise in league history).
Crypto.com has gone beyond merely sponsoring Serie A soccer teams. The crypto giant sponsors the league itself. Specifically, Crypto.com will be featured as a sponsor whenever technological elements are used to clarify moments that occurred on the soccer pitch. Crypto.com prides itself on being reliable and transparent, so they naturally see a metaphor in being the sponsor of such tech.
We’re super excited to see how cryptocurrency and sports will work together in the coming years. This trend presents so much opportunity for Backstage. It’s just the momentum we need as we begin our journey to become the top decentralized ecosystem for the events industry.
Sports and entertainment can bring more people into crypto
The growing impact of crypto on the world of sports brings many great promises to investors and fans on both sides of the fence. Crypto investors can now see their favorite platforms being featured side-by-side with their favorite teams (or their most heated rivals).
Perhaps more excitingly, cryptocurrency promises to change the face of sports betting, perhaps one day facilitating sports betting to an extent that has so far been impossible. Of course, you can’t overlook the growing prestige that crypto is gaining in the eyes of the general public due to these contracts.
No matter what one thinks of advertising in sports, it’s no lie that sponsorships on this level lend a company legitimacy. Even the most skeptical fan may be willing to learn more about cryptocurrency upon learning that their favorite sports arena now proudly features the name of one of the frontrunners in the crypto industry.
For Backstage, crypto going mainstream in sports makes a few things more likely:
More events companies, such as festival operators and nightclubs, will consider using the Backstage platform.
More people that attend concerts, sports games, conferences and other events will consider using BKS tokens.
More investors and entrepreneurs will see cryptocurrency projects, like Backstage, as a solution to current issues facing the industry, such as financing and ticketing.
What crypto in sports means for Backstage
This is just as exciting of a development for Backstage as it is for other players in the cryptocurrency space. The more people that start considering the crypto industry legitimate, the more that it will grow and begin to win over public sentiment, cementing its place as the future of worldwide transactions.
Predictions for where crypto will go within the next few decades range from the most ambitious ones that confidently state that crypto will boom faster than the internet ever did to more doomsday-like predictions that it will crash and burn due to aggressive legislation.
While it may not sound like much, the renaming of this single arena brings us one step closer to a brighter future in which cryptocurrency is able to flourish due to the average person’s comfort dealing in it.
Overall, this development means blockchain solutions like Backstage are more likely to receive a warm welcome at events, festivals, sports arenas and entertainment venues across the world. Some day, whether you’re at a bar in Copenhagen or a festival in Thailand, you may be able to pay with BKS tokens. How great would that be?
Image sources:
https://unsplash.com/photos/cBWgXg-hYNs
https://unsplash.com/photos/_Ghzg0xvHW0
https://unsplash.com/photos/AWdCgDDedH0
Sources:
https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2021/nov/22/aeg-sells-staples-center-naming-rights-cryptocom-7/
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/soccer-lazio-signs-jersey-sponsor-deal-with-crypto-exchange-binance-2021-10-13/
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/crypto-com-coin-staples-center-arena-altcoin-lakers-clippers-2021-11
