By the next football season, a new era for Chelsea owner, US-born Todd Boehly will begin with a new shirt-sleeve sponsor, a digital asset platform, WhaleFin.
According to Financial Times, Chelsea had signed a sponsorship deal worth £20m with a crypto trading platform, WhaleFin. The deal was in spite of Bitcoin crashing below $30,000 this week before recovering a portion of those losses.
WhaleFin, a Singaporean-owned company, agreed to sponsor the London club from next season, stated a person with knowledge of the matter. In recent months, professional football clubs have struck deals with cryptocurrency platforms to increase their commercial revenues.
In February, a sponsorship deal was signed between Manchester United and Tezos. The next month, city rivals Manchester City announced a global partnership with crypto exchange OKX.
Chelsea’s commercial revenues totalled £153m in the 2020-21 season, amounting to about 35 percent of its total revenues of £434m. The club made most of that from broadcast deals, which amounted to £273m.
The Boehly-led group plans to invest £1.75bn in Chelsea. However, there is an extra pressure on Chelsea to improve commercial revenue because its 40,000-capacity Stamford Bridge stadium is far smaller than the venues of its major rivals.
Abramovich bankrolled Chelsea for two decades after buying the club in 2003 for £140m, acquiring top players to compete in and win the biggest trophies in the sport, including the elite Uefa Champions League and the English league title.
Amber owns Whalefin and its shareholders include Singapore’s Temasek investment group, Sequoia China, Pantera Capital, Tiger Global Management, Tru Arrow Partners and Coinbase Ventures.