Coinbase Gives Out $120,000 Worth of Bitcoin to WNBA Players

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase awarded $120,000 worth of Bitcoin to WNBA players on Tuesday as part of its ongoing sponsorship of the women’s professional basketball league.

At the WNBA’s Commissioner’s Cup Championship on Tuesday, each player was awarded $5,000 in Bitcoin from the exchange. Players on both teams—the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces—had the crypto funds deposited into their personal Coinbase accounts. Each team has 12 players.

WNBA players are also offered crypto educational content from Coinbase, which expanded its partnership with the WNBA in 2022 after the company became the WNBA and NBA’s first cryptocurrency sponsor in September 2021. As part of the expansion, the exchange helped all of the league’s players set up personal crypto accounts.

Coinbase is the presenting partner of the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship, which streamed live on Amazon Prime Video. The Commissioner’s Cup is an annual competition that takes place during the WNBA regular season, awarding players additional funds while also raising money for charity.

The Liberty won Tuesday’s final at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, where fans were also offered NFT collectibles from Coinbase to commemorate their attendance. Fans who received the NFT were also given a 25% discount to the WNBA’s online store, and a free single-game viewing pass for the WNBA League Pass streaming service.

Coinbase’s WNBA partnership was criticized by some fans during last year’s crypto market crash that saw the collapse of several crypto industry companies and projects that had inked sports sponsorship deals—including major exchange FTX, crypto lender Voyager, and cryptocurrency project Terra.

In addition to Coinbase’s WNBA league deal, the exchange also sponsors the Liberty and the Seattle Storm, and has individual deals with star players Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd.