NFL Patriots Partner With Web3 Blockchain Firm Chain, CEO Buys Patriots.eth For $99,000
Blockchain infrastructure firm Chain announced a new sponsorship deal with the National Football League’s (NFL) New England Patriots, and Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution.
Under the new four-year agreement, Chain will partner with Kraft Sports + Entertainment to create innovative Web3 experiences for visitors to Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots and New England Revolution.
“We are proud to partner with Kraft Sports + Entertainment to envision the future of Web3 for Gillette Stadium, the New England Patriots and the New England Revolution. Our team is excited to help Kraft Sports + Entertainment build groundbreaking experiences for stadium patrons using Chain’s proprietary blockchain technology,” said Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal.
Kraft Sports + Entertainment is part of a consortium, The Kraft Group, a group of privately held companies with business interests in professional sports, manufacturing and real estate development, based in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The company manages sales, marketing, content development and event operations for Gillette Stadium and the two New England sports teams. It bought the New England Patriots in 1994 and was a founding member of the New England Revolution football team.
In November 2021, Kraft entered into an agreement with Socios.com to give New England Patriots fans a way to win prizes for answering game-related questions during each week of the football season.
Chain CEO buys patriots.eth ENS domain, an NFL first
Following the announcement, Thapliyal purchased the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain Patriots.eth for 75 ETH ($99,321.75). ENS domain names map human-readable domain names to cryptocurrency addresses, content hashes, and certain types of metadata in the Web3 environment. They can be traded as non-fungible tokens on secondary marketplaces such as OpenSea. A lot of Twitter sentiment about the new agreement came from owners of ENS domains.
Notably absent from the announcement is the mention of fan tokens that other sports teams have launched through Socios.com to give holders access to exclusive fan merchandise and experiences. This omission is likely due to a 2022 ruling by the NFL that allowed teams to secure blockchain sponsorships for as long as three years, provided the teams do not promote specific cryptocurrencies and fan tokens.
Following the NFL ruling, the Dallas Cowboys became the first NFL team to sign a sponsorship deal with a crypto company in April. The agreement with crypto exchange Blockchain.com includes branding and advertising.
Thapliyal owns BAYC and CryptoPunk NFTs
Thapliyal, an avid NFT collector, also owns the Deepak.eth and nerev.eth domains, along with NFTs from blue-chip collections such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
In February 2022, Be[In]Crypto reported that Thapliyal bought CryptoPunk #5822, another blue-chip NFT, for a record $23.7 million worth of ETH using the DeFi protocol Compound.
The financial terms of the agreement have not been made public.
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