The Year of Crypto in Sports: A Review of 2022

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Is there a concise way to describe the crypto sports landscape over the past year? There were climbs to mountain peaks, plunges and dives to unimaginable lows, and everything in between. We’ve seen smashing new sponsorship deals that have risen to prominence and collapsed in less than a year. We have seen controversy around athletes’ endorsement of crypto products. The list goes on and on, but after a fast start to 2022, market conditions are having a major impact on the sport at the end of the year.

Let’s dive into a full year of learning from 2022’s sports and crypto crossovers.

A deep dive into 2022 sports engagement

2022 has brought us a much different year than 2021’s sports recap. Last year’s recap was dominated by few other than FTX, and we’re no doubt left with bad taste in our month around the world. he idea that FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and his associates could very well have used client funds to spend exorbitant dollars on sponsorships across a variety of different sports.

Nonetheless, 2022 has finally brought about a big “reset” in sports sponsorship engagement, prompting executives to realize that even at this level, sometimes it really is too good to be true.

Just like we did last year, we’ll break down this year’s recap into four main categories: sports team and league activities, brand engagement, athlete endorsements and engagement, and everything else.

Sports Team and League Partnerships

The biggest stories in sports and crypto easily centered on team and league partnerships. It all started with Terra, who signed with Washington Nationals MLB earlier this year. Within weeks, Terra Luna had club branding and even logo markings right behind home plate during National Championship games.

However, it wasn’t until a few months later that Terra’s implosion happened, and the deal with the Nationals was soon terminated as Terra Luna effectively disappeared from the map altogether, as the experience of ` ‘decentralized stablecoin’ in this case proved unsuccessful.

Of course, the other half of the sports sponsorship topic centers around none other than FTX. The Miami Heat arena and MLB jersey patch were largely the two biggest deals FTX had put together, and the two – along with many other FTX deals – shook up the sports sponsorship world.

Nonetheless, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the FIFA World Cup, took place with Crypto.com’s sponsorship efforts without much fanfare – which, in the last quarter of the year, was a major win considering the chaos that had preceded much of the previous 3 quarters.

In non-mainstream esports, esports organization 100 Thieves capitalized on the NFT momentum by releasing a free Polygon-based NFT that was the first of its kind. In racing and F1, Red Bull Racing has seen a quiet teardown of its existing Tezos deal, but a new one in place with the Bybit swap. Also in F1, the often silent Binance (at least in the area of ​​sports sponsorship) signed with Alpine for a fan token deal.

Brand commitment

Many brand offerings have sprung up in 2022, but few have truly left a resounding mark on the sports industry.

NFTs have been the centerpiece of brand engagement this year, with a lukewarm entry from a variety of sports-focused brands like StockX, Adidas, Prada, and more. However, the winner of sports-related branding deals within crypto will likely be Nike, whose acquisition of RFTKT has proven to be one of the best longevity plays in the space.

Elsewhere in NFT, Dapper Labs started the year strong by launching its UFC NFT platform, UFC Strike. However, Dapper Labs has recently lost ground to fantasy-style contender Sorare in recent months when looking at the broader perspective of NFT in sports.

Athlete Commitment

The start of 2022 has started with plenty of athlete endorsements and partners – but on the other hand, throughout the year we’ve consistently seen athletes from every type of sport listed in promotion lawsuits. of various protocols and platforms. In early 2022, former NBA forward Paul Pierce and boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. were both named in the infamous EthereumMax lawsuit.

In recent months, following the FTX fallout, we’ve seen athletes who had co-signed for the exchange also be named in newly formed lawsuits.

Beyond FTX, we’ve also seen Crypto.com embark on partnerships with athletes, signing LeBron James as an ambassador earlier this year. We’ve also seen athletes genuinely interested in crypto such as Jimmy Butler, Alex Rodriguez, and Odell Beckham Jr.

Lawsuits and scams madness aside, this was the first full year for Tom Brady’s NFT platform, Autograph, which saw many high points throughout 2022.

Binance (BNB) has remained relatively underappreciated in the sports world, which has proven to be a resilient move in bear markets like those seen in 2022. | Source: BNB-USD on TradingView.com All extras

Sports collectibles continue to be an interesting topic, and there have been quite a few NFT sales of 6+ digits (in fact, up to nine digits) of NFT sports cards throughout the year. .

The storyline behind WAGMI United, formerly Crawley Town FC, a football club in England, is right in the “unexpected” bucket. The club has brought a “crypto twist” and describes itself as “the team of the internet”.

It’s been quite a year for sports and crypto crossovers, and we have no doubt that 2023 has plenty more in store.

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