Staples Center’s new name shows crypto’s dominant ambitions – Quartz

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After years on the fringes of finance and culture, the cryptocurrency industry is using the global obsession with sports to forge its way into respectability. The final step is the renaming of Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the National Basketball Association Lakers, to Crypto.com Arena, after the Singapore-based crypto exchange signed on as a sponsor.

“In a few years, when every person in the world owns a crypto, we will all look back at that historic moment knowing that that was the day cryptocurrency broke the chasm and went mainstream,” said the CEO. from Crypto.com, Kris Marszalek via Twitter following the announcement of the deal.

Los Angeles accord is part of a growing trend

AEG, the owner of the famous 20,000-seat sports and music facility in downtown Los Angeles, has entered into the 20-year trademark deal with Crypto.com for $ 700 million. The deal adds one of the crown jewels of live entertainment to Crypto.com’s growing sponsorship list, which includes the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a deal worth $ 175 million, as well as the Formula 1 racing, the Twitch Rivals esports tournament, the Montreal National Hockey League. Canadiens and the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA.

The company’s interest in a sports-focused marketing approach, including esports, appears to be driven by the demographics of crypto users. Crypto investors tend to be males between the ages of 18 and 44, which is also the profile of sports enthusiasts and very close to the 18-34 demographics of the most active video game users.

The Crypto.com deal is the second NBA-focused arena naming deal. The Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners in Florida has agreed to change the American Airlines Arena, the home of the NBA Miami Heat, to FTX Arena, promoting the name of another major trading platform crypto.

Crypto and sports marketing go hand in hand

While some other sports sponsorships may seem strained, like the Smoothie King Center of basketball in New Orleans or the guaranteed baseball field in Chicago, crypto’s entry into the sports world is, thematically. , a natural fit, especially with the rise of legalized sports betting. in many parts of the United States. While long-term crypto natives avoid describing the space as a gamble, this is exactly the number of mainstream investors who have crafted it in recent years.

Long before the UFC did its own crypto sponsorship, one of its stars, Ben Askren, hired a high-profile crypto sponsorship from the Litecoin Foundation. And in 2018, boxing headliner and crypto enthusiast Floyd Mayweather was fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission for mis-promoting a then largely unknown crypto project.

The free nature of the sport aligns closely with the users and creators involved in the crypto space, who often see crypto as a tool to challenge traditional boundaries in finance and wealth building. However, just like sports betting addictions, some crypto stories don’t always turn out well. But that hasn’t stopped the tendrils of crypto marketing from slowly creeping into the sports world.

LA Sports fans lament loss of Staples Center name

Some longtime sports fans lament the name change of the Los Angeles arena where so much sports and music history has been made over the past two decades. But the new name of Crypto.com Arena, which will officially launch on December 25, is no more incongruous than many of the unlikely brand names that grace the front of other major arenas or displayed on the jerseys of their favorite teams. basketball and football.

Other big sports organizations are happy to accept the crypto riches brought about by the current bull market. The NBA recently struck a deal with Coinbase, a US-based crypto exchange, and Major League Baseball chose FTX as their sponsor.

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