Crypto and Women’s Soccer Tie-Ups: Will They Benefit Players?
The past month saw not one but two unprecedented partnerships between cryptocurrency platforms and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).
December 14th’s tie-up between the NWSL itself and Voyager was quickly followed the next Tuesday by Crypto.com becoming one of the founding partners of the L.A-based expansion team Angel City FC.
These partnerships were both multi-year and historic in the scale of the investment, and both left a lot of NWSL fans scratching their heads on Twitter.
In leagues like the NBA and MLB, most corporate partnerships are often relatively inconsequential to fans because these leagues are well-established and have deep pockets. You see Verizon commercials when you’re watching the NFL on TV and you go to the Wells Fargo Center to watch the Sixers play. These corporations give millions of dollars each year to these leagues because they know it will put their brand in front of tens of millions of people.
The NWSL is in a slightly different situation. The league has seen amazing growth and success in its decade of existence, but it’s also the third attempt at a professional women’s soccer league in the U.S., with its two predecessors the WPS and WUSA both folding due to expensive legal battles and lack of sponsors. Viewership of the NWSL is growing tremendously year-over-year, but its scale is still in the hundreds of thousands (for now).
Fears of the league making the wrong decisions and falling down this same path seem to have many people within the NWSL walking on eggshells. It’s been cited as part of why many players were hesitant to bring forward allegations of misconduct and player abuse against coaches — which ended up occurring in a staggering 5 of the 10 teams just in this past season.
So, why are some fans unhappy with these sponsorship deals?
A few key numbers may tell you why:
- About 75% of NWSL players make $31,000 or less annually, with the league’s minimum salary currently sitting at $22,000 a year, and the maximum salary at $52,500.
- According to a 2021 report from Gemini, the average cryptocurrency owner makes $111,000 per year, and 74% of crypto owners are male.
The typical NWSL player and their female-dominated fanbases have historically not been a part of the target demographic for Voyager’s and Crypto.com’s platforms, which is what caused a lot of folks to raise their eyebrows.
Now, Voyager’s CEO Steve Erhrlich specifically called out that women are underserved in the crypto industry, and that same survey from Gemini found that 53% of women in their surveyed sample are “crypto-curious,” meaning they might not be current crypto investors, but they are interested in learning about it.
Bringing more crypto awareness and education into the NWSL and its fanbase could be beneficial, but there are a few key factors to consider:
1. Direct Impact: What aspects of the sponsor’s product could realistically benefit players in the current state of the league?
Angel City’s partnership with Crypto.com seems like it will directly benefit players in a more obvious way than the NWSL’s partnership with Voyager. Crypto.com will help ACFC players create their own NFTs as part of their personal branding, which has exciting financial implications and is already a common trend in pro sports that intersects with NIL.
Voyager’s partnership with the NWSL is more focused on participating in the existing crypto marketplace rather than being creators, with a player fund via individual crypto accounts. While individual crypto accounts can produce capital gains over time, the impact probably has a longer tail. And the juxtaposition of Voyager’s crypto fund with the NWSL Players Association emergency fund for players to cover unexpected costs and mental health, both launching in the same week, certainly makes the crypto fund look a bit misaligned to players’ needs.
2. Context and Timing: What else is going on in and around the league that is top of mind to players and fans?
The launch of the NWSLPA emergency fund brings up my next point — the context of everything else currently going on in and around the NWSL. As the league approaches its 10th year in existence, it puts an even finer point on the fact that there has never been a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the players and the league. The NWSL Players Association’s #NoMoreSideHustles campaign of this past season and exposed how often players have to work 2+ side jobs just to make ends meet.
While many players are so clearly not having their basic needs met, the focus on crypto feels a bit frivolous. I personally would’ve loved to see a partnership with a company like BetterHelp or Talkspace that provided counseling and mental health resources to players.
3. Transparency: How transparent is the sponsor willing to be in disclosing benefits to players?
Regarding the NWSL and Voyager partnership, Voyager’s CEO declined to share the amount of money actually in the players’ fund, which caused many fans to raise concerns that there wouldn’t be a substantial ongoing investment. Without this transparency, and with the above-mentioned misalignment between NWSL players and fans and typical crypto investors, it’s all too easy for skeptics to fill in the blanks themselves.
Sponsors like Crypto.com and Voyager have the opportunity to provide real benefits for players through their investment, and positively impact the NWSL as a whole. But this won’t be possible without more transparency and accountability on the part of the league. The capital gains that are possible from crypto investment are exciting, but should be considered secondary to players having enough liquid capital to have their basic needs met, at the very least.
While many of the well-known U.S.-allocated players can secure their own sponsorship deals to supplement (and likely serve as the majority) of their income, the NWSL has revealed a habit of failing to protect and support emerging, young players.
The five coaches that were accused of misconduct this year weren’t targeting Megan Rapinoe or Alex Morgan — they preyed on players with less direct access to resources. The NWSL’s sponsorships should be laser-focused on supporting the players who need it most.
I’m not sure that these crypto partnerships accomplish that, yet — but hopefully when I’m buying an Angel City player-created NFT I’ll be proven wrong.
