Sports Marketing deals slow down for crypto companies

Yahoo Finance Anchors David Briggs and Josh Schafer discuss the recent downturn in the cryptocurrency market and what that means for the future of sports marketing deals for crypto companies. The segment took place on July 11, 2022.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: A $700 million naming rights deal for the Lakers Staples Center last year set the tone. Crypto is coming hot to pro sports, but now the recent crypto crash is being felt across the sports landscape.

JOSH SCHAFER: That Crypto.com deal really, we should say, kind of came at the top of the market, right? That came last fall. Bitcoin trading near probably $67,000 at that point. Bitcoin year to date down more than 60%. And so we're seeing some issues for sure. Voyager Digital is a company that filed for bankruptcy recently. They have a lot of sports deals, including with the NWSL. And now we're seeing that really impact where companies are spending overall.

So I talked to Peter Laatz, a global managing director at IEG. They track sports sponsorship deals and track how much money these companies are giving and what the leagues are getting. He said there's been a big slowdown, like a really big slowdown. So for example, a couple of months ago, they were seeing a couple of deals per week in their terminal. Now, no deals. Over the last 60 days, they haven't seen any deals.