American professional basketball player of the National Basketball Association (NBA) Kevin Durant is moving from Bloomberg to Coinbase, according to a recent report. According to the report, Durant will act as “a face of the brand” and help promote the exchange’s promotional content.
Kevin Durant joins Coinbase
NBA legend Kevin Durant, also known as “KD”, has joined Coinbase in a promotional deal that will see Durant appear as the Coinbase spokesperson. Durant plays for the Brooklyn Nets as a power forward and is widely regarded as one of the best professional basketball players of all time. The Brooklyn Nets star will join Coinbase as the “face of the brand,” Durant manager Rich Kleiman told Bloomberg.
While Kleiman says KD makes minimal brand partnerships off the pitch, the Nets forward is one of the highest-paid basketball players in the world thanks to his deals with Nike and Foot Locker. “Kevin does very, very few branded deals and that was intentional,” emphasized Kleiman. “They are this new model of brand partner for us, where they integrate into all different areas of our business,” the Durant manager continued.
Additionally, Durant and its mutual fund called Thirty Five Ventures invested in Coinbase in 2017. The NBA legend joined Coinbase’s $ 100 million funding round earlier this year and has invested in other crypto asset companies like Opensea. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Kim Bhasin, KD said he’s always had an interest in finance and economics. “Even when I was younger, I was always curious about the business side of things and always tried to learn from the people I met along the way,” said Durant.
The Brooklyn Nets power forward added:
Basketball has always been number one for me, but it was clear that I could achieve a lot more if I had the right team around me.
Sports offerings are becoming a very prominent trend in cryptocurrencies this year
Durant’s partnership follows a series of sports deals entered into this year between sports-related agencies and athletes and crypto companies. For example, FTX has contracts with Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels, the Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones, and seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady and his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen. FTX has also partnered with Sports Illustrated and renamed the Miami Heat Arena the “FTX Arena”.
The exchange Crypto.com has closed a deal to rename the Los Angeles Lakers’ Staples Center the “Crypto.com Arena”. Exchange Crypto.com has also signed a deal with MMA entertainment company UFC. The largest digital asset fund manager, Grayscale, has partnered with the National Football League (NFL) team, the New York Giants. In fact, there have been so many sports on offer this year that it has become one of the biggest trends in the crypto industry in 2021.
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Ambassador, Coinbase, Coinbase Deal, Crypto, Crypto Ads, Crypto Exchange, Digital Asset Exchange, Investor, KD, Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant Bitcoin, Kevin Durant Coinbase, Kevin Durant Crypto, NBA, NBA Legend, NBA Star, Opensea , Sports, Sports, Thirty Five Ventures, Tom Brady
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Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a Florida-based financial tech journalist. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for bitcoin, open source code and decentralized applications. As of September 2015, Redman has written more than 4,900 articles for Bitcoin.com News on the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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