Today Formula One team Oracle Red Bull Racing announced a sponsorship deal with Singapore cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, which unconfirmed reports put at $50 million a year over three years. Red Bull stated it was the largest per annum cryptocurrency sports agreement.
Red Bull’s driver Max Verstappen won the F1 Drivers’ Championship last year, and the team just announced Oracle as its new Title Partner. Bybit is a Principal Team Partner, just behind Oracle.
As part of the deal, Bybit will be responsible for the team’s fan tokens. These are not non-fungile tokens (NFTs). They are closer to cryptocurrencies, with the price tending to go up and down with the team’s fortunes. Usually, fan tokens enable owners to participate in non-critical decisions such as color schemes. Socios is the company best known for fan tokens and it has a deal with Team Aston Martin Cognizant.
Oracle Red Bull Racing CEO Christian Horner said that enlivening the fan experience through innovation is “a key mission for the Team and Bybit’s assistance will help us build a deeper more immersive and unique connection with the team for fans around the world.”
Red Bull already has a relationship for NFTs with Tezos, which is the team’s Official Blockchain Partner. Bybit is the Official Cryptocurrency Exchange Partner.
Bybit also becomes the team’s Tech Incubator Partner, which will include crypto-literacy initiatives, support for women in blockchain as well as promoting green technologies. The crypto exchange is one of the top ten globally and has six million registered users.
One version of the announcement stated that the payment would be part in cash and part in BIT, the governance token of BitDAO. The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) aims to support blockchain builders and a decentralized token economy. Bybit commits a small percentage of all transactions on its platform to BitDAO, which also claims it’s supported by Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund and several other venture capital firms.
Meanwhile, other Formula One teams have also embraced crypto. McLaren partnered with Tezos for non-fungible tokens and Bitci for fan tokens. Velas blockchain is a sponsor of Scuderia Ferrari F1.
