Cryptocurrencies continue to broaden their influence in the mainstream marketplace, including popular sports. UFC has continued their crypto affiliation with the recent addition of Vechain to their roster of altcoin sponsors in a new deal said to be worth $100 million dollars.
Read more below to learn how Vechain will expand its visibility and influence across multiple markets through sports sponsorship in addition to its huge influence on real-world supply chain applications and blockchain solutions:
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Dana White’s team shared massive news about an important tie-up with world leaders in blockchain technology. The marketing partnership has raised $100 million for the UFC as it brings VeChain onboard.
One of the leading layer 1 blockchain ecosystems, VeChain, signed a $100 million sponsorship deal with the UFC for five years. The seven-year-old crypto project aims to use the MMA promotion’s worldwide reach to possibly garner more users.
Through the company’s first sports sponsorship, VeChain will get unprecedented integration into many of the promotion’s core assets.
The blockchain ecosystem will gain titleship in the fighter rankings. After the integration, the fighter rankings will be renamed ‘UFC Rankings Powered by VeChain’.
VeChain will also be featured in the world-famous octagon during all the 42 annual events and the ten-episode ‘Dana White Contender Series’. Vechain also stands to make frequent appearances on the fight deck LED boards positioned around the octagon.
The Blockchain giant will also work with the promotion on many custom and original content bits featuring popular fighters.The blockchain ecosystem is also expected to provide paid marketing opportunities to various fighters.
The VeChain partnership will debut on the UFC 275 fightcard headlined by Glover Teixeira and Jiri Prochazka.
VeChain specializes in helping enhance the supply chain management of different organizations using distributed ledger technology. VeChain is one of the most widely adopted layer 1 solution blockchains in the world.
VeChain is the second blockchain partnership of the Ultimate Fighting Championship
Crypto.com inked a massive $175 million kit deal with Dana White’s company in 2021 becoming the promotion’s global kit partner. As per the deal, the crypto currency platform’s logo was integrated into the ringwalk jerseys of all the fighters.
Later in 2022, Crypto.com introduced three new post-fight ‘Fan Bonuses’ for the fighters. As per the new award, fans can vote for three fighters from the pay-per-view bouts, with the winners getting cash prices.
The bonuses will be in the form of the popular crypto currency Bitcoin. The first, second and third place winners, as per the votes, were to receive bitcoin worth $30000, $20000 and $10000 respectively.
This bonus was introduced in addition to the already existing official performance bonuses. The ‘Fan Bonus’ was introduced for the first time on the UFC 273 fight card headlined by the title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and ‘The Korean Zombie’.
From a meager million-dollar valuation to a giant leap into the multi-billion dollar sale, UFC has come a long way. The promotion continues to scale to new heights and picks up valuable partnerships across the board from all over the world. However, this splurge in their market share and values has not reflected in fighter pay, and the roster continues to bring up that issue.
In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, former UFC middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold aired his frustration with the promotion. He looked at the immense growth of the sport and how it has reached the multi-billion dollar mark. But unfortunately, this hasn’t affected the fighter’s pay in any shape or form, which seemed quite puzzling to the former champion.
Rockhold has been a part of the sport for a long-time and he continues to fight to this day. He took aim at the UFC brass, called them out for ignoring fighters. He said,” What the f**k are we doing here? F***g 50 thousand dollar bonuses going around like f***g two decades, what the f**k? The valuation of the company is going up, f*****g billions of dollars, and we are still stuck on 50 thousand dollar bonus checks. What the f**k is this? People need to wake up,”
He added,” Remember when they were doing 100 thousand dollar bonuses? Back when Jake Shields fought f**g George St Pierre, you know what I mean? And we are still stuck on 50 thousand-dollar bonuses. I mean, how many billions have we gone up in valuation since that?”
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Keep an eye out for more crypto influence in mainstream arenas like sports, entertainment, and multimedia.
