While the beginning of the year was filled with a flurry of crypto and blockchain partnerships with sports teams, leagues, and organizations over the last few months the pace of announcements has ground to a halt. As the crypto market has suffered teams appear to be leery of partnering with the space. It surprised me then last week when I saw that one of the most recognizable sports teams in the world had announced a pretty big partnership with the crypto investing company NYDIG.
The New York Yankees announced the partnership last Friday which will allow both players and employees of the Yankees to enroll in NYDIG's Bitcoin Savings Plan. Last year it seemed pretty common to hear about sports stars receiving part of their salary in Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency like Ethereum but it was never the team itself who set up or arranged this rather it was the player who had his paycheck sent to a company to do the transaction on his behalf. This is the first time that I have found a major sports team partnering with one of these providers for their players and staff.
Personally, what caught my eye the most about this partnership wasn't that partnership itself as it was going to happen sooner rather than later. What was so surprising was that it is not just for the players who are making millions of dollars. Yankees' employees also benefit from this and can set aside part of their earnings and have it allocated into Bitcoin. As a bonus, the customers (the employees of the Yankees) do not have to pay any of the transaction fees that would occur if they were to do this themselves.
Another thing that caught my eye about this was that people tend to look and say that Baseball is a dying sport and that it is only for old people. Could this be a move to try and attract younger people to look at this sport? Maybe! Several studies have shown that millennials and Gen Z are interested in allocating part of their pay into Bitcoin. Having arguably the biggest baseball team brand doing this (Los Angeles Dodger fans would argue otherwise) brings younger eyes to the sport, the team, and the league.
The New York Yankees also make sense as the first team to do this not only because of its historically high payroll but also because of what New York City in general is doing. The Mayor has received part of his salary in both Bitcoin and Ethereum and while the other major city that I could see doing this is Miami their baseball team has one of the lowest payrolls and is just not near as good or popular as the Yankees are. I could see someone like the LA Dodgers or even the Yankee's cross-town rivals the New York Mets being the next teams to move on this since they are both high profile and high payroll teams.
Another twist in this will be the MLB draft that started yesterday and runs through tomorrow. It would not surprise me to see some of these young stars who are signing contracts worth millions to either partner or have teams announce partnerships that pay part of their bonus's in Bitcoin or another crypto. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be flying around the next few weeks between the draft (accounting for $280 million) and the trade deadline (where money and players fly around and teams try to build out their rosters for playoff runs)!
Please know I am not a financial advisor and make sure you do your own research! If you enjoyed this article and would like to further support me below are a few referral links that if you used when signing up I would appreciate it! Also, follow me on Twitter @Cje95_
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