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- Premier League team Watford FC will feature dogecoin as its sleeve sponsor, according to a report.
- The Athletic said the deal, part of a sponsorship with Stake.com, would be worth just shy of $1 million.
- Crypto has boomed this year and is edging its way into the world of sports sponsorships.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Dogecoin may not be heading to the moon but it’s heading to the Premier League.
Players for Watford FC, which was promoted to the world’s richest soccer league this year, will wear a dogecoin logo on their sleeves for the 2021/22 season, The Athletic reported on Saturday.
The initiative is part of a sponsorship deal with gambling company Stake.com. It will be worth just shy of $1 million to the team, according to The Athletic, a sports news website.
Watford FC did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment on Sunday.
Watford, which is based just north of London, is no stranger to the crypto world. It sported a bitcoin logo on its shirts as part of a sponsorship deal with Sportsbet.io for the 2019/20 Premier League season, which saw the side get relegated.
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that aren’t controlled by a centralized authority, such as a commercial or central bank. Instead, they are secured using complex cryptographic technology.
Crypto has boomed in 2021, with the entire value of the market now standing at around $1.95 trillion, according to Coinmarketcap. Yet regulators have repeatedly warned that cryptocurrencies are highly risky.
Dogecoin was started as a joke in 2013 and uses the image of the meme Shiba Inu dog known as Doge. But it has since captured the imagination of many crypto fans and has garnered the support of celebrities — most notably Tesla boss Elon Musk.
The meme cryptocurrency has risen 8,185% over the last year, according to Coingecko. Fans like to say it’s heading to the moon — but the highly volatile token is down 60% since an all-time high of $0.732 reached in May.
Sports and crypto tie-ups are becoming more common as companies reap the rewards of the crypto boom.
The Aston Martin Formula 1 team is sponsored by exchange Crypto.com, and soccer star Lionel Messi’s new contract with Paris Saint Germain includes some PSG “fan tokens”.
The Premier League is a hot target for sponsors. It’s the most lucrative soccer league in the world, with 5.86 billion euros of revenue in 2019 — around $6.92 billion at today’s exchange rates — according to UEFA.
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