Not everyone was thrilled by the news that Coinbase has teamed up with the WNBA. The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is one of America’s most popular sports leagues. Still, many basketball fans were upset about their league partnering with a crypto exchange company amid a market crash.
Last October, the US crypto brokerage rapidly inking more sponsorships across pro sports became an official cryptocurrency platform for NBA and WNBA. Now it has partnerships with Seattle Storm star Sue Bird and New York Liberty’s Jewel Loyd.
Related Reading | Coinbase Witnesses Major Outage Amidst Continued Crypto Bloodbath
According to the agreement, every WNBA player will be assigned a Coinbase wallet. Today, the WNBA and Coinbase held a Twitter chat. The New York Liberty’s Betnijah Laney joined two employees from Coinbase to discuss crypto from a beginner’s perspective.
WNBA fans on Twitter are not pleased by these activities. Coinbase’s announcement tweet on Thursday afternoon was met with a wave of skeptical responses, ranging from the outright anger and calling it a “scam[atic] scheme” to others expressing concern about the company’s 70% stock drop this year.
The WNBA has come under fire in one of the most negative tweets. The tweet reads;
I hate that the WNBA is framing their dumb sponsored crypto chat as female empowerment.
One Twitter user quoted an environmental concern with cryptocurrency in reply to the Seattle Storm team’s tweet: “This feels kinda gross from a team whose home venue is literally called the climate pledge arena.” However, Sue Bird herself got a fan’s reply saying, “crypto isn’t good because it ‘exploits women’s sports and wildlife.”
Some people who like cryptocurrencies sneered at the partnership. One wrote on Twitter: “The dudes in the comments telling the crypto company they’re too good for women’s sports y’all are pushing me into alcoholism.” Another called the partnership “The perfect intersection of crypto dudes hating this because they don’t like the WNBA and WNBA fans not liking this because it’s crypto.”
Crypto promotions or sponsorships have been criticized many times. A fan of the NBA said,
Crypto is crashing, and sports leagues [are] still getting attached to them, hope they get all the money up front
Some fans termed the current crypto deal illogical for WNBA because its economic position has been disturbed.
Related Reading | Coinbase CEO Clears Air Regarding Risk Of Bankruptcy
It’s not only the WNBA getting criticized; many other sports teams are receiving negative fan responses for their partnerships with cryptocurrencies. For example, the Washington Nationals baseball team tweeted out a Terra-sponsored crypto post last week, just as the Terra ecosystem was going up in flames.
Even though we are in a “Crypto Winter,” the sports deals are not likely to stop. Companies like Coinbase are spending big marketing dollars on getting their names out there to claim back some lost ground with new customers.
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