Crypto, Sports, Beer & Money — A Synergetic Relationship
What is Bitcoin? What is the difference between Ethereum & Ether? Is blockchain the next big thing? Are NFT’s literally digital paintings?
I’m sure myriads of online content will help you form an opinion about such topics rather than a university’s marketing-focused magazine. What we are going to do is give you random information about the continuous innovations in this domain, to get you interested, and maybe invested (PS: this article is not a paid promotion by WazirX or any other crypto exchange).
Let’s begin with the interesting work that Crypto.com is doing. This company is doing a lot of things, right from Crypto Payments, Crypto Credit, Metal Visa Cards to NFTs. The company has now gone to the lengths of providing Crypto Derivatives Trading with a Margin Leverage limit of up to 10x. We would be lying if we marketers told you we knew how the crypto derivatives market functions.
So let’s focus on the interesting things that the company is doing to build a brand for itself.
The company recently partnered with Oscar Winner Matt Damon for an ad campaign — ‘Fortune Favours the Brave’. Earlier this year, Crypto.com expanded its presence in Formula One with a $100 million deal which saw the brand win top-bill branding slots at a number of races. Pay attention to the billboards the next time you’re watching a Grand Prix.
Is this partnership simply a branding initiative you ask?
Well, no, there is much more to it than just a brand collaboration. Crypto.com partnered with the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team in March 2021. The collaboration helped produce NFTs of the first moments of the new Aston Martin F1 car hitting the track. Valuable content was sold as NFTs. People were able to buy the first videos and moments of Sebastian Vettel driving the new Aston Martin F1 car.
See the synergies in the collaboration?
Crypto.com has multiple partnerships with UFC, Paris Saint Germain, Serie A, and Twitch Rivals amongst others.
Another interesting development in the Crypto space is Socios.com, which is allowing sports fans to have deeper engagements with their sports teams and icons.
Socios.com, powered by a digital currency called Chilliz ($CHZ) is a fan engagement and rewards app that allows fans to engage with favorite teams and clubs through digital assets known as Fan Tokens. Supporters can use these Fan Token to avail themselves multiple benefits like — to vote in exclusive club polls, connecting with fans around the world in chat forums, earning VIP rewards and merchandise, and gaining access to an exclusive club and sponsor-related promotions.
The company also launched an immersive Geo AR hunting game for fans, in simple words, a Pokémon Go to collect fan tokens, which have actual value.
Some people use Socios as a trading platform to speculate on the triumphs and failures of sporting teams. You see, these fan tokens trade on a platform like a stock exchange. So, every time there is a development (player transfer, promotion, relegation, etc.), the price of the token fluctuates on the basis of fan sentiments. It’s a good way to bet on major sporting events.
The company has listed fan tokens of — Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Arsenal, UFC, Aston Martin F1 Team, Chicago Bulls, Golden State Warriors, Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and many other sporting franchises. They’ve also partnered with clubs like Sevilla and Inter Milan as Official Shirt sponsors.
By now you may be wondering, Is this a sports-crypto article?
To make things exciting now, we should move to everyone’s topic of interest — Beer, something that goes very well with sports.
Between this NFT craze, Budweiser too decided to jump on the bandwagon with unique collectibles dubbed ‘The Budweiser Heritage Collection’. ABInbev launched 1936 NFTs of Budweisers beer cans to celebrate the birth of the first-ever beer can that was launched in the year 1936. 36 of the cans were listed as ‘Gold NFTs’ prized at $999 with special rewards for buyers. The other pieces were priced at $499. The company changed its Twitter handle name to “beer.eth” referring to the Ethereum Blockchain that the NFTs were built on.
The company welcomed the buyers to the “best beer community in the Metaverse” on their website. Is Budweiser dropping some Zucker-hints? What can a special reward from a beer company even mean? — except for a lifetime supply of beer!
WazirX and a number of other players have launched NFT marketplaces in India. The scope for NFTs in the heavily-populated, entertainment-driven Indian subcontinent is massive.
Imagine owning rights of content like — the last ball from the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup when Dhoni finished it off in style, or even Shah Rukh Khan’s iconic moments from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge! Yes, these are the collectibles that people are willing to park their funds in. The best feature of an NFT — the content creator or the artist gets a percentage of the sale value every time a transaction is made.
But there are a number of issues that need to be addressed before investing heavily in this market — clarity on Indian government regulations (since the government is now launching its own Digital Rupee), sell the concept of Digital/Virtual art as an investment to an Indian consumer who would rather invest in Fixed Deposits, overpopulated NFT marketplaces where every young artist is trying to jump on the bandwagon and finally make the concept of owning cryptocurrencies aspirational!
What do you think about the so-called ‘Crypto-bubble’? Are NFTs actually the next Billion Dollar idea?
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Author: Nihaal Gajaria
Editorial and Digital Marketing Team, NjM
Class of 2023, NMIMS Mumbai
Creatives: Chaitanya Kolli
Creatives Web & Promotions Team, NjM
Class of 2023, NMIMS Mumbai
