The Billion-Pound companies bringing crypto to the Premier League
Today we uncover how Watford are leading a Crypto revelation and reveal how expensive Jack Grealish really is.
After winning promotion to the Premier League, Watford Football Club announced an interesting new shirt sponsor last week with a £5m/year deal with Stake.com, a betting company and cryptocurrency casino headquartered in Curacao.
The interesting part? Stake.com will be paying the annual sponsorship fee in Cryptocurrency!
The currency itself has yet to be revealed but it marks the latest attempt by Stake.com to increase their international presence having recently announced themselves as the betting partner of the UFC in Latin America and Asia.
This isn’t the first cryptocurrency exposure in the Premier League.
Earlier this year Man City released their first token $CITY which can be exchanged for goods and services within the club.
All of this is possible through an innovative new company, Socios.
Socios are a rapidly-growing cryptocurrency platform which enables sports teams, companies and popular individuals to release their own token to their fanbases.
It works like this:
Each respective token costs £2 and allows fans to vote on decisions within their respective clubs.
All clubs split the revenue generated with Socios 50/50 allowing for a healthy revenue stream for all teams
Clubs have access to critical data giving them direct access to the their most loyal and engaged fans
The app has been downloaded over 1,200,000 times since 2019 and has generated over $150m in revenue from 45 sporting partners across football, basketball, NFL and cricket.
You can bet your bottom Doge this will not be the only cryptocurrency venture in the Premier League as the year progresses!
STEPH GETS PAID
Elsewhere in the World of Sport:
🏀 Over $2bn in guaranteed contracts were given out in the first 48 hours of NBA free agency this week. Most notably, a 4yr/$217m contract extension for 2-time MVP Steph Curry who becomes the first player in NBA history to sign TWO $200m contracts. Christ.
🏉 The Rugby League World Cup, which was due to be held in England later this year, has been postponed until 2022, due to New Zealand and Australia withdrawing. New Zealand and Australia made the decision to withdraw from the competition due to rising COVID cases in the UK.
🇯🇲 Double Olympic Champion Elaine Thompson-Herah who won both the 100m and 200m gold medals at Tokyo 2020 this week was suspended from Instagram after posting footage from her race wins. She tweeted that Facebook had suspended her account as she “did not have the right to do so”. Her account was reinstated 7 hours later.
La Liga announced on Wednesday that Private Equity company CVC Capital Partners have acquired a minority 10% stake for approximately £2.3bn (€2.7bn).
The deal, which has not yet been approved, would see CVC take a minority stake in a newly created Topco company that would manage broadcast, sponsorship and digital rights for the league. La Liga, would still retain control.
CVC Capital Partners have been actively increasing their presence in the Sports arena with some notable deals. A timeline of CVC’s last 18 months alone looks a little something like this:
May 2020: CVC explore £120m deal for 28% stake in Pro14 rugby (rebranded to United Rugby Championship) - Successful ✅
December 2020: CVC explore a stake in La Liga technology business, La Liga Tech - Unsuccessful ❌
February 2021: CVC explore £245m ($300m) deal with International Volleyball Federation - Successful ✅
February 2021: CVC, Advent and FSI’s €1.7bn attempt to acquire stake in Serie A was met with stiff resistance from leading Italian clubs - Unsuccessful ❌
March 2021: CVC explore £365m deal for a 14.3% minority stake in English Premiership Rugby - Successful ✅
Private equity companies making inroads into major sports is something you can expect in the future for three main reasons:
Sports teams have proven themselves to be recession proof businesses
Broadcasting rights are extremely lucrative and provide healthy protection to downward market shifts
PE firms have deep-pockets and are sniffing opportunities below market price as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic
An example? Atletico Madrid sold a 33.96% of their club to US Investment Company Ares for €181m just last month.
These deals will increase in frequency in the coming years. When they do, you’ll find out about them here.
More on the way next week as always. Until then, I leave you with the following…
Craziest tweet of the week
Wild.