Vivek Ranadivé, president and CEO of the Sacramento Kings, one of the most important teams in all of NBA history, announced that all their players and staff now have the option to choose to receive their salaries in bitcoin instead of US dollars. This move positions the NBA franchise as the first professional sports team to offer salary payments in bitcoin.
Bitcoin makes its way to Sacramento Kings salaries
Speaking at Clubhouse on Monday, Ranadivé revealed that all players and staff could soon start receiving any part of their salary in bitcoin. The official announcement is expected in the coming days, according to the president.
The Sacramento Kings have shown a more crypto-orientend approach than all other professional sports teams. In 2014, the NBA team partnered with payment provider BitPay to introduce BTC as a payment solution for tickets and merchandising.
Athletes receiving their salary in cryptocurrencies are becoming a trend this 2021
In addition to the NBA, Bitcoin has also made its way into the National Football League (NFL). Russell Okung of the Carolina Panthers announced last December that he would receive half of his salary ($ 13 million) in bitcoin through a partnership with Zap.
Additionally, the Dallas Mavericks American basketball team - owned by billionaire entrepreneur and Shark Tank's Mark Cuban - also showed a pro-cryptocurrency stance. The Mavericks first introduced bitcoin payments in 2019.
After a rather unstable relationship at first and Cuban skepticism, the Mavericks are now doubling down on their crypto support this year. This time around, however, the team is considering canine-themed Dogecoins.
The world's most popular meme coin, it has received public approval from big names like SpaceX's Elon Musk and Tesla (Tesla shares - ticker TSLA), rapper Snoop Dogg and others. And now, Mavericks fans can purchase team tickets and merchandise products using dogecoin. Cuban explained that the team had specifically chosen dogecoin and not any other cryptocurrency for the novelty it brought: "Sometimes in business you have to do things that are fun, engaging and hopefully generate a lot of PR."
The support for cryptocurrencies is therefore becoming more and more intense and as evidence of all this, at the time of writing this article, the DOGE coin has returned to the levels of a few days ago, just when Musk tweeted his will to take it to the Moon.
As stated by Tesla's technologist, it could be true and we would not be surprised at all if on one of his spacecraft, Musk should also carry a real coin.
What we ask ourselves at this point is where will these coins at this rate go? Posterity will judge. To you, the comments below!
