Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Crypto companies are increasing their sports investments and sponsorships as they seek to capitalise on renewed enthusiasm for the industry after Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Some of the most high-profile transactions this month included stablecoin group Tether buying a 5 per cent stake in Juventus, Italy’s most successful football club with 36 league titles, while crypto exchange Gato.io struck a branding deal with Formula One racing team Red Bull Racing.
The deals come as the crypto industry celebrates a revival that has been partly driven by support from Trump, who launched his own crypto coin days before his return to the White House last month. His election win propelled bitcoin to more than $100,000, leading to record trading volumes and raising the fortunes of crypto businesses.
While the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in late 2022 left numerous sports teams and leagues out of pocket, bitcoin’s resurgence has injected new life into the sector’s capacity to fund sports sponsorships.
Crypto businesses have struck 22 deals with sports groups this year, compared to 18 in the same period last year, according to marketing agency SportQuake. The number of deals rose to 117 last year, up from 93 in the previous year, but still lower than the 173 struck in 2022.
The average value of new deals since the start of 2025 is roughly $4.3mn, the agency said, compared to $2.6mn in the same period last year. For the whole of 2024, the annual value of new deals announced totalled $305mn, up from $247mn in 2023, but less than half the 2022 peak of $681mn.
Other deals completed this year include a partnership this month between Coinbase and Saudi Arabia-backed F1 team Aston Martin Aramco, which was paid for in stablecoins. Crypto exchange XBO.com became the official sponsor of Argentina’s national football team this week.
Sponsorships and branding deals with big-name sports teams help crypto businesses reach a wider audience, and can potentially entice thousands more retail traders to buy and trade tokens.
But the sector’s image has also suffered from being linked to other risky industries, such as gambling, which will be banned from the front of team shirts in England’s Premier League from the 2025/26 season.
In addition to the potential damage to their own reputation, sports organisations also risked being accused of exposing fans to potential financial losses, said sports marketing expert Tim Crow, stressing the need to perform due diligence on any commercial partner.
In 2021, the UK’s advertising watchdog censured Arsenal football club for a promotion of “fan tokens” that the body said did not sufficiently highlight investment risk. At that time, the Advertising Standards Authority rebuked a number of companies over promotions linked with crypto assets.
This has not deterred crypto betting houses from getting in on the action with Sportsbet.io, a crypto sportsbook and online casino, last month becoming the main partner of snooker’s Players Championship and two other major tournaments. Crypto betting group Cloudbet last month signed a deal with the Professional Fighters League, a US mixed martial arts group.
“If you associate your club with a brand, that therefore suggests to your fans that you trust them,” said Crow, founder and chief executive of Crow Business Services. “You better make damn sure you’ve done your due diligence on them so that it doesn’t transpire that your fans regret it.”
Crypto and sports deals are enjoying a comeback since FTX’s collapse and the jailing of its former boss Sam Bankman-Fried forced a rethink of deals. The business had a long list of sponsorships but its bankruptcy caused thousands of ordinary investors to lose money and damped sports teams’ appetites for signing crypto deals.
Fierce competition for sponsorship dollars means most commercial rights holders in sport are price takers rather than setters, Crow added, giving greater leverage to crypto firms which are looking for sports teams to endorse.
