The LIV-PGA Tour match just got a matching sponsor

Coping — a made-for-TV golf matchup pitting two PGA Tour stars against two LIV stars — enters the golf market with as many questions as answers.

We only know a little about who’s running the show. We’re still wondering how the whole arrangement works. There seems to be one LOT the money after her, coming from mostly unknown sources. And a small subsection of super-engaged social media users seems downright euphoric about its existence.

Star Power? Turbulent past? Uncertain future? High upside – and high risk? Coping IS perfect match for her title sponsor, announced Tuesday in a slick press release: Crypto.com.

Yes, the news IS true, the matchup with Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler against Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka will be called Crypto.com Deal, and the winners of the event will be paid … in Cronos, the official cryptocurrency of Crypto.com.

“Crypto.com’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, and today’s announcement is our latest effort by introducing the world’s first major golf tournament with a purse in cryptocurrency CRO,” said Crypto.com CEO, Kris Marzalek in a release announcing the news. “This is a testament to our confidence in the future of the US crypto market and the power of sports to bring fans to the world’s most licensed crypto platform – Crypto.com.”

The news tells us a little more about the state of The Showdown, scheduled for Shadow Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas on December 17. The event will not only provide appearance fees for the four players involved – rumored to be around $4 million each – but will also pay a “million dollar” prize to the winner in cryptocurrency. When McIlroy and DeChambeau first introduced the event, they did so as a gift BACK for fans surrounded by golf’s unrelenting money mania — but it’s clear that the contestants are collecting on multiple fronts. In the era of golf’s fabulous wealth, four of the most important players alive don’t sign up for a tournament just for the sake of the game.

The money will come from sponsors like Crypto.com as well as advertising revenue for the broadcast on Turner Sports, which will carry the event in the United States. Trevor Immelman, David Feherty and Charles Barkley are among those expected to be part of the television crew for the event. That team previously worked on broadcasts for The Match, which was a separate entity but also carried over to Turner’s family of broadcast networks.

Matchmaker Bryan Zuriff and EverWonder Studio are the organizers of The Showdown. Zuriff, an old friend of Phil Mickelson and the creator of the famous TV series Ray Donovanhas revived the made-for-TV match format in several different iterations over the past decade. EverWonder, led by former CNN chief Jeff Zucker and backed by private equity firm RedBird Capital, has quietly exerted a growing influence on the world of sports entertainment in the past 18 months. As recently as this fall, Redbird backed David Ellison’s $2 billion acquisition of Paramount, owners of CBS Sports and announced a $3.7 billion war chest for investments in sports, entertainment and financial services.

What about the title sponsor? Crypto.com is enjoying a renaissance of its own in the waning months of 2024, the latest surge in a tumultuous half-decade for cryptocurrency existence more broadly. After explosive growth during the first wave of crypto in 2020 fueled lavish marketing budgets for many of the biggest exchanges, Crypto.com suffered heavy losses in 2022 when several high-profile Cryptocurrency scandals shook investor confidence. Last year, Crypto.com appeared to be in retreat, announcing that it would close its US-based institutional operations due to limited demand.

But the US election sent cryptocurrency markets into a tailspin earlier in November, when a second Trump administration signaled openness to decentralized currencies. Crypto.com, which kept its consumer-facing businesses in the US, was a particular beneficiary of the crash. Hers The Cronos coin skyrocketed to its highest value in more than two years in the days following the election, the biggest swing since the coin lost more than $1 billion overnight during the collapse of crypto markets in 2022. With its sponsorship confrontation, Crypto.com seems to be trying to capitalize on a second era of good times in the cryptocurrency business.

Will it find a sympathetic audience in the world of golf, where cryptocurrencies have largely avoided spending in recent years? It is difficult to say. (Cryptocurrencies have largely aimed their marketing efforts at younger investors with campaigns in sports like the NBA and NFL.)

But given the current state of golf turbulence, it’s hard to imagine a more perfect partner for Crypto.com than The Showdown.