Inter Miami has entered into a training kit sponsorship deal with blockchain platform Polkadot in what is believed to be the first-ever sports sponsorship deal with a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
Blockchain has reportedly signed a season-and-a-half deal with the Major League Soccer (MLS) club, which includes branding rights to the front of the club’s training jerseys, starting with the upcoming away game against the Chicago Fire on Saturday.
Players and technical staff will also wear Polkadot branded tops during training sessions at the club’s Florida Blue Training Center. These jerseys are expected to receive significant exposure in the coming days as the club’s star player Lionel Messi returns to training after injury.
The Polkadot blockchain is an open-source Layer-0 platform that allows multiple blockchains to connect and operate within it. The platform was founded by Gavin Wood, a prominent figure in the blockchain industry who also founded the Ethereum blockchain and the Solidity programming language. Polkadot is described as the world’s largest DAO, an entity without a central authority in which holders of tokens issued by the DAO can vote on initiatives.
The deal was brokered by sports marketing agency Orsen, which also acted as an intermediary in the Miami club’s last two sleeve sponsorship deals (with XManna and the Fracht Group).
ANALYSIS: Messi deal puts Inter Miami at the top of MLS jersey sponsorship market
Sean O’Reilly, Orsen’s chief executive, said the training kit deal breaks new ground in blockchain and could create new sponsorship opportunities for rights holders.
“It’s been very, very complicated to put this deal together. The only deals that have really been done in the cryptocurrency space to date are with exchanges like Crypto.com, Kraken, Coinbase or Gate.io, which just announced the Inter Milan deal,” he said. “These are all exchanges where a crypto company can sell a financial product. No one has been able to do a major sponsorship deal with a DAO before because there’s no company to sign a contract with.”
To seal the deal, the agency sought approval from the Polkadot community through a referendum process where holders of its native token are given the right to vote on how to deploy community funds. The agency identified Inter Miami as an ideal choice for the blockchain brand as a significant portion of the crypto and developer community is based in the city while the club plays in pink jerseys that align with Polkadot’s distinctive brand identity.
After getting the community votes, O’Reilly said the agency presented the sponsorship proposal to the club and explained it to MLS. It then offered to sign the contract and underwrite the initial cash payment on behalf of the community due to Polkadot’s lack of central authority. Orsen then “offshored” his own payment from the platform, converting the native DOT currency into U.S. dollars.
“We had a lot of sleepless nights,” O’Reilly said. “We didn’t have to answer to any one person. There was no marketing director, no marketing team. We were accountable to a community, and the sponsorship was done on behalf of the community.”
In a statement announcing the deal, Chrissy Hill, chief learning officer and interim COO of Parity Technologies, Polkadot’s primary technical contributor, said, “We are thrilled that Polkadot’s innovative community is continuing its strong commitment to the future of entertainment with its sponsorship of Inter Miami.”
As Inter Miami’s “Presentation Partner,” the brand is expected to engage the club’s fans with interactive fan zone activations and will benefit from significant branding at the club’s training facility and on LED and stadium signage throughout its Chase Stadium.
As reported by SportBusiness SponsorshipInter Miami has leveraged the signing of Argentine superstar and FIFA World Cup winner Lionel Messi to secure the most lucrative jersey sponsorship deal in MLS. The Messi effect has also allowed the team to more than double the value of its sleeve sponsorship rights.
Nyon-based Orsen is also enjoying a successful year after securing the contract to manage Fiba’s global commercial rights for 3×3 basketball and, more recently, standalone sponsorship packages for beach volleyball as part of a deal with Volleyball World.
