In what will be the debut primary crypto sports sponsorship contract in the country, the Australian Football League (AFL) has formed collaboration with History of Bitcoin to finance its men’s and women’s leagues.
The Australian Football League has announced a new five-year agreement with Singapore-based crypto exchange company, Crypto.com in an agreement that will see the brand become the AFL’s official trading platform and crypto exchange.
The AUS$25 million deal will also see the brand become a sponsor of both the AFL and the AFLW women’s competitions. A partnership that also covers naming rights for all matches from the regular season as well as the finals series. The deal will mark the first of many scenes including making the very first ASL to partner with the online cryptocurrency exchange platform while simultaneously making the women’s football league AFWL the first partnership by Crypto.com with a female professional sports league.
Crypto.com is an online crypto exchange that offers its ten million and a rising flock of customers a wide range of services including digital wallets and crypto-backed debit cards. The contract indicates a significant increase from the AFL’s current $18.4 million partnership deal with Toyota.
Chief executive officer and co-founder of Crypto.com, Kris Marszalek commented on the latest partnership saying that Crypto.com is committed to making investments in Australia which he regards as a vital market and authority in the adoption of cryptocurrency, and that he believes the union will contribute to the fast growth of Crypto.com users globally.
He added that the AFLW and AFL are precisely the best platforms to endear Crypto.com with the Australian culture and sports seeing as one of the most prominent spectator sports existing in Australia, having been in existence for more than 150 years. Its deep history uniquely unites Australians in a manner that truly inspires everyone.
The first time financing an elite women’s worldwide sports competition, Kylie Rogers, the general executive manager of AFL regarded the situation as one she is proud of. She remarked that the AFL is honored to be the prime Australian sports competition and professional women’s league to be in partnership with an organization that shares the same idea and will to improve the future of tech and professional sport.
CNBC in August 2021 released a survey that showed that women are less likely to invest in cryptocurrency compared to men, with the former having less than half the propensity of the latter to invest in crypto. The survey had shown that unlike 16% of men, only 7% of women have shown interest to invest in cryptocurrency.
Australia though has seen relatively high numbers of women show interest in crypto according to Karl Mohan, the general manager of crypto.com Pacific and Asia. Karl said that Crypto.com was attracted to Australia by this fact and added that their current consumer research confirmed that about 52% of crypto traders and investors in Australia are females; a result of Australian female crypto owners doubling in 2021 alone.
Karl concluded that it is an encouraging thing to witness Australians from different disciplines becoming interested in owning cryptocurrencies regardless of their background or gender. He added that everyone at Crypto.com is excited about the opportunity of being Australia’s go-to crypto platform.
His statement remains very similar to that of AFL chief executive Gilon McLachlan who impressed the importance of the crypto industry on his listeners. He commented that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is a fluid and emerging industry and just like Crypto.com, the AFL takes great pleasure in partnering with the crypto exchange company and being at the forefront of the industry’s growth in Australia.
Crypto.com has collected many sports branding agreements in the last months valuing more than $1.5 billion. They recently agreed on the most lucrative naming rights deal in history with AEG that saw them take on primary branding of the downtown home of the Los Angeles Lakers on a 20-year deal reportedly worth US$700 million. The Staples Center, Los Angeles will be renamed Crypto.com Arena.
AFL joins Formula One; who signed a sponsorship deal worth $100 million in June. In addition to this, the Italian’s AFL also entered a sponsorship deal of $175 million with UFC in the following month.
