NFL Spends Money On Blockchain Lobbying Efforts, SEC Shows

The NFL spends money on blockchain lobbying efforts according to the SEC documents and maybe we can even see NFT, crypto, and blockchain technology soon coming to the gridiron so let’s find out more in today’s blockchain news.

The NFL has been slower than others to partner with crypto companies but the SEC documents show that NFL spends money on blockchain lobbying still. The NFT officials reportedly said that the league is looking to make crypto deals. Those explorations were enough to make their way into the US SEC reprots and the NFT also lobbied the agency on issues related to blockchain technology in the second half of 2021.

Unlike other major North American sports leagues, the NFT adopted a tentative approach towards crypto sponsorships and among its peers, NBA floors have already made Coinbase show up on the floors. MLB now even has jackets with the FTX logo and UFC has been raking in money from the crypto.com sponsorship. The National Football league and the NFL Players Association as the union for current and former players announced that it partnered with Dapper Labs blockchain firm behind the NBA Top Shot NFTs. The announcement said that the digital video collectibles are here on the super Bowl weekend with a waitlist being available. However, the league is releasing each Super Bowl attendee with a virtual commemorative ticket in their Ticketmaster wallet and these NFTs will be issued on the Polygon network.

By delaying, the NFL is leaving money on the table, and also NFTs which are blockchain-based deeds of ownership connected to digital collectibles set a record in sales of $5 billion on OpenSea during January. The NBA top shot recorded $60 million in sales over the past 30 days and $909 million all-time. The NFL has got power and ability to play crypto exchanges off of other businesses that are trying to attract sports fans and help drive sponsorship prices up. FTX paid $135 million for a 19-year naming deal with the Miami heats arena in 2019 while Crypto.com splurged $700 million for the 20-year naming rights to the home of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Football has a bigger reach across states than any other sports and topped both TV viewership and revenue metrics across leagues. Super Bowl LVI promises to be the biggest showcase for crypto companies. In addition to crypto.com, FTX and Coinbase platforms BitBuy and Etoro also plan on running ads.