The American exchange FTX closed a sponsorship of BRL 15 million with Fúria, the largest eSports organization and team in Brazil. The sponsorship announcement was released by Estadão on Thursday (21). According to the article, the amount paid by FTX is the highest ever paid by an eSports team in Brazil. FTX is the eighth company that sponsors Fury, but its contract has a higher value than all other sponsors combined. The contract is also equal to contracts signed by football teams, including Serie A. By way of comparison, São Paulo Futebol Clube closed a sponsorship contract estimated at R$ 40.5 million in sponsorship with the Bitso exchange. In other words, FTX’s sponsorship of Fúria is almost 50% of the total amount paid to the São Paulo team. However, São Paulo has a national fan base within the most popular sport in the country. On the other hand, Fury is a very specific niche team and is just over five years old. However, the team stands out in the Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) game universe. The Fúria team also has illustrious supporters, such as the soccer player Neymar.
Fast-growing sectors
According to Aline Mariama, director of sales and partnerships at Furia, the sponsorship comes from the great moment of the cryptocurrency market. With the appreciation at the end of 2021, companies began to close partnerships in the sports sector as a whole. In this sense, Fúria received several proposals and talked with other interested parties before closing the deal. However, he chose to choose FTX due to what he called the “convergence of ideas” between organizations.
“Furia is more than a sports organization, we are a socio-cultural movement. We want to impact people’s lives, whether our professional athletes, streamers and employees, through sport, performance, technology and good decision making. We care about the future and the lives of the people who are connected with us. We are not only looking for a sponsor, but also partners who want to grow with us, with our bold ideas of provoking and seeking change”, he said.
FTX will have its brand stamped on the Fúria team uniforms in all modalities. In addition to CS:GO, Fury has teams in Valorant, League of Legends, Rainbow 6 and Free Fire games. The team’s last title was won at the IEM New York 2020 North America, in October 2020. It is not the first time that FTX has closed sponsorship with Brazilians in the gaming sector. In 2021, as reported by CriptoFácil, the company closed six individual supports for Axie Infinity players. Sponsorships were provided by Sponsor-A-Scholar, a company related to Axie, but which received support from FTX. According to the consultancy specializing in games Newzoo, eSports revenue grew by 14.5%, with more than US$ 1 billion raised. Following the growth expectation, the consultancy believes that in 2024 the modality will earn US$ 1.6 billion. Read also: Bitcoin Core developer promotes soft fork in BTC to create quantum resistance Read also: XRP whales enter the buying wave, says analyst predicting rise for Ripple Also read: Survey: 63% of Brazilians want to make payments with cryptocurrencies in their Shops
