Bitcoin Forum

The annual postseason college football game played in St. Petersburg, Florida will for the next four years be known as the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl as part of a sponsorship deal signed between bitcoin payment processor BitPay and ESPN Events.

The arrangement marks one of the most high-profile marketing initiatives yet for a bitcoin-related business and comes as the digital currency continues to gradually make inroads into mainstream commerce.

In an announcement Wednesday, BitPay and ESPN Events, a subsidiary of sports network ESPN, said the name change would take effect at this year's Dec. 26 game and would continue each year through the 2016 game.

The game will air on ESPN. Tickets, which start at $40 each, and associated merchandise will also be available for purchase with bitcoin through Bitpay's processing services.

The St. Petersburg game, which previously bore the name of the Beef O'Brady's chain of sports-themed restaurants, is in its first year of a new college football affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference and the American Athletic Conference, each of which will field a team for this year's event.

BitPay's foray into college football sponsorship coincides with a new drive toward bitcoin adoption by retailers and other merchants. Over the past three weeks, satellite TV provider Dish Network and travel site Expedia Inc. have both announced they would accept bitcoin.

In the six months before that, businesses such as online retailer Overstock.com Inc., NBA team the Sacramento Kings and space-tourism provider Virgin Galactic started accepting the digital currency.

Though the deal is the first bitcoin sponsorship for a televised U.S. sporting event, it isn't the first connected to a digital currency. Those honors go to a currency known as dogecoin, which promotes itself via an Internet meme image of a shiba inu dog.

Dogecoin sponsored Nascar's Josh Wise at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway on May 4. The sponsorship deal cost $55,000, with the funds raised via donations from dogecoin enthusiasts that were denominated in the digital currency.

SOURCE "http://online.wsj.com/articles/bitpay-to-sponsor-st-petersburg-bowl-in-first-major-bitcoin-sports-deal-1403098202"

I am a Southeastern Conference fan but I will be attending this game, because bitcoin!

Good news, but not great, since there are way too many bowl games.
Calling it a "Major Bitcoin Sports Deal" is quite a truckload of positive spin. Why is the Wall Street Journal working so hard to promote Bitcoin?  :)

4 years deal @ 350k $ per year. I think it is the biggest advertising deal in the bitcoin scene up to date.
Great news IMO.

Amazing news.

I hope to see more of this type of promotion through sponsorship of major entertainment events.

Very nice. Being a huge college football fan, I like seeing this.

great initiatives. Later on the BTC will be known well as coke cola and Nike.

I read an article that had a headline of "Bitcoin sponsors football game"

It was not until towards the bottom of the article was it revealed that it was actually bitpay that was sponsoring the game

I remember thinking "are the miners giving up part of their block rewards to pay for this" while reading the article

(Almost) No one would object to Bitpay sponsoring a bowl game and using the word 'Bitcoin', but what if someone "truly objectionable" sponsors (for example) illegal dog fights and uses the words "Bitcoin K9 Battle".
^^^
Who controls the usage of the word Bitcoin, and what gave Bitpay the right to use it?  (keeping in mind that someone "bad" might also want to use the word in a sponsorship)

Are we going to see a Bitcoin/Bitpay ad in the SuperBowl a few weeks later? : )

Wht makes you think so?

We might :D

I was wondering how long it would be until we get the bitcoin logo on something. I'm not sure how effective it'll be at advertising this early on but I'm glad someone is doing it.

bitcoin is not owned by anyone and therefore not controlled by anyone. Using the word "bitcoin" is like using the word "dollar" as anyone can use it.

There is one level of protection from this kind of issue as most "sponsorees" do not want to be associated with nefarious entities or actions. If someone were to advertise illegal (or legal) bitcoin dog fighting then most events would not accept the sponsorship as they would not want to be associated with dog fighting.

Is this a real sponsorship deal
Looks its a WSJ article nice
Wow that is awesome I am really surprised that there is a bitcoin stadium
Thanks for making my day great stuff is going on in Bitcoin

Holy shit, this is awesome.. It costs a lot of money to be a major sponsor of a bowl game, let a lone the naming of the bowl. This will be a game changer, no pun intended.

Who has the right to the word "Dollar"?

This is great for visibility for sure. I have a new favorite bowl to watch.

I should have been more clear:
If "someone" is intentionally trying to damage the reputation of BTC, then they can use the word "Bitcoin" when most of use would not want them to.....It's just a word//  never mind...

No one does many countries have "dollar" as the name of their currency (not the US dollar, but their own dollar)