- Crypto.com will a sponsor of the 2021 Coppa Italia soccer final between Atalanta and Juventus on May 19.
- Lega Serie A is the first football league to sign a partnership with a cryptocurrency and NFT platform.
- Crypto.com has previously inked sponsorship deals with the NHL Montreal Canadiens and the Aston Martin Formula 1 Racing Team.
Hong Kong based cryptocurrency app Crypto.com has started to make inroads into sports sponsorships and they’ve just landed a big one. Crypto.com has signed a deal with Italy’s Lega Serie A to serve as a sponsor of the upcoming Coppa Italia Final at the Mapei Stadium in Reggio Amelia. The Coppa Italia is Italy’s national cup tournament for soccer and Atalanta and Juventus will compete for the title on May 19.
Previously, Crypto.com signed a deal with the NHL Montreal Canadiens that gave them branding at center ice of the Bell Centre rink in addition to other promotional considerations. They’ve also signed on as a sponsor of Aston Martin Cognizant’s Formula 1 racing team. Aston Martin returned to the sport for the first time in 60 years in 2021 and Crypto.com has played a major role in promoting and branding for the team. The deal with Aston Martin is a multi-year agreement while the partnership with the Montreal Canadiens is for an initial term of one year.
Lega Serie A now becomes the first football league to sign a partnership agreement with a cryptocurrency and NFT platform. There weren’t many specifics as to the term of the agreement in the press release announcing the deal–it did say that the partnership ‘is expected to extend long into the future’. In addition to branding and promotion, Crypto.com is partnering with Lega Serie A on a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) commemoriating the 2021 Coppa Italia. Crypto.com previously released a NFT series for the Aston Martin Cognizant F1 team which became the platform’s most successful drop to date.
Given Italy’s famous passion for football, the Coppa Italia NFT drop should also be extremely successful. Luigi De Siervo, CEO of Lega Serie A, talked about the partnership with Crypto.com and the fan engagement facilitated by the NFTs:
“We are extremely proud to announce this prestigious partnership with Crypto.com, a leading company in the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. We are the first football league in the world to sign an agreement in this new market which is extremely innovative and relevant not only for sports fans, where other world-class leagues such as the NBA have been operating in recent months. In this way Lega Serie A aims to expand its target audience and continues the international growth of the brand, always looking to the future and innovation. The Coppa Italia Final will be an expression of these values and will offer millions of fans around the world an exciting experience not only on the pitch, but also before and after the game, thanks to the many commercial and marketing initiatives that we will organize with our partners”.
Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, is pleased to work with Serie A and teased some more high profile sports sponsorships:
“We are proud to collaborate with an exceptional partner such as Lega Serie A, the latest in an exciting roadmap of sports partnerships we’ll soon be announcing. It’s a unique opportunity to support the world’s most popular sport during the historic match between Atalanta and Juventus, surely to be watched by football fans world-wide. Through our partnership, we will bring together the best of blockchain technology and football by co-creating NFTs sure to become instant classics and highly coveted collectibles.”
A number of sports teams and organizations around the world have recently entered the world of NFT collectibles. The NBA has done particularly well with their TopShot endeavor.
