In recent years, cryptocurrency companies like Crypto.com, Kraken, OKX, and Coinbase have entered sports sponsorship deals with sports teams and organizations. Football, soccer, and basketball teams have signed deals and partnerships with crypto and crypto-related companies to help boost revenue, especially as the sports industry continues to struggle against a challenging sponsorship market.

Most recently, pioneering global cryptocurrency exchange CoinW announced its official sponsorship of three tennis athletes at the 2024 US Open as part of the company’s move to bridge the gap between digital finance and world-class sports. The three athletes are two-time Grand Slam champion Zhang Shuai; Bu Yunchaokete, the first Chinese male player to break into the Top 100 rankings; and 2024 Paris Olympics’ Silver medalist in women’s doubles Diana Shnaider.

Sonia Shaw, President of CoinW, stated that the demanding combination of skill, discipline, and excellence in the sport of tennis mirrors the values and drive of the crypto exchange company. As such, sponsoring these athletes is part of CoinW’s aim to foster excellence in the sports arena as well as within the world of digital assets.

This recent sponsorship is only a step in CoinW’s journey of integrating crypto into the world of sports. In 2022, CoinW became the first crypto exchange to sponsor La Liga, Spain’s premier football league, and in 2023, the company appointed football legend Andrea Pirlo as its global brand ambassador.

Cryptocurrency sponsorships in sports are only one way digital currencies permeate the sports world and culture. In this post, we’ll look at some more ways cryptocurrency presence is impacting tennis:

Crypto tennis betting

Aside from watching or attending tennis games, many tennis fans also indulge in tennis betting to make potential winnings by placing wagers based on player odds, handicaps, and match histories.

For example, Canadian rapper Drake is known for his love of sports betting. The rapper recently reinforced the “Drake curse” joke after losing his six-digit US Open bet on home favorite Taylor Fritz. Before the finale, Drake had posted a screenshot of his $210,000 wager backing Fritz to pull off the upset against world number one Jannik Sinner. If things had gone Drake’s way, the rapper would have won $808,000.

Of course, most tennis fans aren’t able to bet as much money as Drake. However, the rise of cryptocurrency has transformed the tennis betting market, allowing tennis fans to bet using popular currencies like Bitcoin. Reputable crypto betting platform Thunderpick offers various tennis betting odds across different leagues, including the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour and the WTA Tour by the Women’s Tennis Association. Using crypto to bet on tennis matches also means fans can deposit and buy crypto with modern modes of payment like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or other credit cards, making tennis betting more accessible and convenient.

NFT tennis games

Aside from facilitating more secure and anonymous tennis betting, the growth of cryptocurrency has also paved the way for new ways to engage with the world of tennis.

In a previous post, we highlighted Fungiball, the innovative NFT card game platform, and its integration with number four in the world, Alexander Zverev, in its digital universe. In Fungiball, players can collect NFT cards representing one of four tennis-specific skills: Power, Serve, Return, and Mental. These skills are evaluated weekly based on the players’ real-life performances based on scores ranging from 0 to 100. This is a fairly common scoring system in other sports-based games like the NBA, NHL, and FIFA games.

As real-life tennis players’ performances on the court continue to evolve, this impacts the value and rarity of their corresponding NFT cards in the game. This creates a dynamic and ever-changing gameplay experience for tennis fans. Players can also create their own avatars, called FungiPlayers, to partake in the tournaments and unlock rewards. These avatars can be personalized and equipped with NFT cards that grant them specific skills and abilities necessary to best other FungiPlayers. Currently, Fungiball has a catalog of over 300 professional players, revolutionizing the way tennis fans can interact with their favorite sport.

Tennis-based NFTs

Finally, while similar to the tennis-based NFT and play-to-earn game, Fungiball, there are also more straightforward tennis-based NFT collections. These are collectible digital assets that tennis fans can collect and “mint” to celebrate tennis players and moments.

In 2022, the Association of Tennis Professionals announced the launch of LOVE — an NFT collection consisting of generative digital artworks created in collaboration with Art Blocks Engine and renowned artist Martin Grasser. The limited-edition NFT collection celebrates impactful and memorable moments from the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals and is generated by capturing official in-match data from the ATP Tour’s season finale. What resulted is a collection of unique and iconic works of digital art in vibrant colors.

The artworks are generated using official tennis data provided by Tennis Data Innovations. Shadows and court lines indicated each ball’s location, velocity, and direction of travel at the point of impact. Additional variables were used to generate unexpected colors, texture, and zoom to result in unique collectible artworks. Collectors were also able to order high-quality physical prints of their artwork via online custom frame company Level Frames. The collected LOVE NFT can also be traded on the secondary market, with 1% of secondary sales donated directly to the Giving Block’s Mental Health Impact Fund.

Ultimately, the continuous growth of cryptocurrencies and other digital currencies will continue to transform the world of tennis and innovate how fans and viewers can interact and engage with the sport. Whether tennis betting or collecting digital assets based on real-life tennis athletes and icons, crypto helps add new layers to the tennis viewing experience. Blockchain technology has also been considered to help keep professional tennis fair and square by preventing match-fixing and establishing better transparency in officiating. Recording match data on an immutable ledger can be a potential help, and if this goes mainstream, it can help make the sport cleaner and more trustworthy.

If you liked this post, you can check out the Tennis Grandstand website for more news and insights on tennis.