Crypto. com Sponsorship Portfolio Grows with $10m PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf Showdown

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Crypto. com’s $10m Golf Showdown 🏌️ 

Crypto. com has been announced as the title sponsor for the upcoming ‘Crypto. com Showdown’, where PGA TOUR Tour stars Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler will take on LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. Scheduled for December 17 in Las Vegas, the event is set to make history as the first major golf tournament to feature a multimillion-dollar prize purse paid entirely in cryptocurrency. The prize pool is worth $10m, and paid in Crypto. com’s native token $CRO, and the athletes will be paid into Crypto. com accounts, and can do as they wish with the cryptocurrency prize.

The crypto exchange now boasts 100m+ users globally and has the most expansive, high value sports portfolio of any crypto company.

In November 2021, Crypto. com secured a 20-year naming rights deal for the iconic Staples Center in Los Angeles, rebranding it the Crypto. com Arena - in a deal reportedly worth $700m. They also have 8 figure, multi-year deals with Formula 1 and UFC, and in football have sponsored the FIFA World Cup 2022, as well as more recently in August 2024 — became the first exclusive crypto sponsor of the UEFA Champions League.

As Steven Kalifowitz, CMO of Crypto. com puts it:

Analysis & Concluding Thoughts 🧠

Crypto. com are by far the most aggressive crypto business when it comes to sports partnerships and perhaps marketing in general. This approach dates back to 2018 when they purchased the crypto. com domain for a reported $5–$12 million, along with various associated social handles. In hindsight, this appears to be a savvy investment, as the domain and social assets are likely worth significantly more now.

Their dominance in the sports sponsorship market is unprecedented, spanning nearly every major sport and event. The exchange boasts over 100 million users globally, which is significant when compared to Coinbase’s 75 million users (8 million of whom are monthly transacting) and Binance’s 120 million users worldwide. Sports sponsorships have become Crypto .com’s primary go-to-market strategy, a strategy which makes sense given the overlap in demographics; sports fans and crypto traders skew young, male, and less risk-averse.

The timing is interesting for this deal and it’s intriguing that Crypto. com is now targeting golf, especially given the sport's volatile state over the last few years. The emergence of LIV Golf in 2021 created significant tension, dividing professional golf into two competing divisions. In the summer of 2023, a merger was announced between the PGA TOUR and LIV Golf, but recent reports suggest that the deal remains uncertain. This lack of unity, and certainty in the future governance of the sport, has posed challenges for prospective sponsors, which includes crypto space. Furthermore, the involvement of the Middle East in LIV Golf, combined with its more progressive and aggressive stance on crypto, adds another layer of complexity, in the sense that one would think that LIV could have a greater pull for some crypto businesses.