Many people have HODL their Bitcoin, but others choose to use it as just another currency for shopping. You can spend it in many places, including Amazon and Rakuten, and last week, the NFL team, the Tennessee Titans went down in history as the first NFL team to accept Bitcoin (BTC) for all team-related items.
You can now use the cryptocurrency to purchase season tickets, suites, team sponsorships, personal seat licenses (PSLs), and Nissan Stadium events, stated Bitcoin Magazine’s, Shawn Amick. The Titans will expand their acceptance of the cryptocurrency to also cover merchandise, single tickets, plus the sale of food and beverages at the stadium.
Four other major sports franchises accept the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a form of payment, including the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball (MLB).
The Titans partnered with UTXO Management and Bitcoin Magazine to add cryptocurrency to their methods of payment. A third-party conversion service will handle all Bitcoin purchases made for team-related items.
Bitcoin Explained
In 2009, futurist Satoshi Nakamoto published a whitepaper defining the concept of decentralized digital currency and created the blockchain and digital currency now called Bitcoin. It provides a direct method of goods exchange since its payments don’t go through a third-party financial institution the way debit card and credit card transactions do. It initially offers lower transaction fees than most other payment methods, too.
The government doesn’t issue Bitcoin, which isn’t a fiat currency. The cryptocurrency, like other cryptocurrencies since it, operates via a decentralized authority. Owners of the crypto coin or token as they’re called, obtain voting rights. The original concept bears a close resemblance to stocks, but most crypto coins attempt to design themselves to avoid meeting the US burden of stock investment. That’s because doing so increases the amount of paperwork and compliance needed.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH) and Solana use cryptography to ensure the security of the currency. Rather than physical, tangible paper or coin currency, the crypto token balances reside on a public cloud-hosted ledger that encrypts every record. Users of the Bitcoin blockchain verify the transaction using a process called mining.
Growth of Cryptocurrencies in Sports
Accepting cryptocurrencies like BTC marks one-way sports teams welcomed the blockchain technologies into day-to-day operations. Many sports organizations now use the ETH blockchain and the Polygon blockchain to list (mint) and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs). An NFT can take the form of any type of creative piece although most take the form of digital artwork. An NFT can take the form of a graphic, video, photo, song, letter, document, etc.
Some sports teams have created NFTs for their brands, while some athletes have done the same. Whether the Titans will also create NFTs like those from LeBron James and the virtual card packs issued by NBA Top Shot the team hasn’t announced. The NFL released a set of digital commemorative ticket NFTs in November 2021 priced at $10, but now each is worth thousands of dollars. Teams and sports organizations list most of the sports-related NFTs on Sorare and OpenSea, blockchain-based NFT marketplaces.