The Pomp Podcast - #725 Changing The Name Of The Staples Center To Crypto.Com w/ Steve Kalifowitz

Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Steve Kalafowitz is the CMO, the Chief Marketing Officer at Crypto.com. In this episode, we talk about all of their sponsorship deals, including Formula One, the UFC, Syria, and their brand new announcement that they are now going to pay $700 million for a 20-year sponsorship of the Staples Center. I really enjoyed this episode, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into the episode, though, I would love to tell you about our sponsors. First up is Crypto.com. They're helping to mainstream the crypto industry, signing major global partnerships with multiple

Starting point is 00:00:43 sports, including Serie A, the Italian Football League, the UFC, and my personal favorite, Formula One. With over 10 million users around the world, Crypto.com offers an easy way to buy and sell more than 100 cryptocurrencies you can even buy bitcoin with as little as one dollar new users enjoy zero percent credit and debit card fees in their first 30 days as well crypto.com also pays some of the most competitive interest rates in the industry you can find out how much you can earn by visiting crypto.com crypto.com is also visa's biggest crypto card partner my listeners across north america europe and most of apac can apply for a slick metal card offering up to eight percent back on most purchases and comes with amazing perks like 100 rebate on your netflix

Starting point is 00:01:21 spotify and amazon prime subscriptions get 25 bucks when you download the crypto.com app today using code pomp again 25 when you download the crypto.com app today using code pomp go check them out crypto.com not only do they have a great url that's the place where mass adoption is happening next up is matrixport have you lost your way in this low yield environment while searching for a better store of value to beat inflation look no further invest with matrixport to get more from your crypto with the potential for up to very high yields on certain products Matrixport is Asia's fastest growing digital asset platform founded by crypto veterans Jihan Wu and with 10 plus billion dollars in assets under management and custody Matrixport offers one

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Starting point is 00:02:43 on the show to talk all things miami including his excitement for a project that's really caught my attention miami coin this is the first token to be released by city coins a community-driven initiative built on top of bitcoin yes it is built on top of bitcoin using stacks and smart contracts city coins aims to give people around the world a new way to support their favorite cities in short the city of miami was given seven million dollars and is now grown to over 20 million dollars and counting by private citizens to improve the city with no strings attached a city government embracing crypto instead of fighting it was a historic event you want to get involved, follow them on Twitter at MineCityCoins or go to CityCoins.co to join the

Starting point is 00:03:19 community discord and contribute to the movement. CityCoins.co. All right, let's get into this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right. I want to talk about a couple of different things. First, let's start with everything else you guys have done in the past, specifically around your marketing strategy and

Starting point is 00:03:56 a number of these sponsorship deals that you guys are doing. Maybe we can start with the UFC deal. Kind of tell us what that deal exactly is and then why is that so attractive to you all? Sure. So first of all, it's a 10-year partnership. If you're into UFC, I don't think you can miss us. We're UFC's first fight kit partner. So every fighter that walks into the ring and every fighter who wins puts on the shirt. This logo is right here in the middle. You see us on the mat. Every piece of gear, I think there's like 40 pieces from hats to sweatpants to the shorts to everything. The sports bras for the women, the singlets. It's a really all-encompassing partnership. and one that we recently expanded to include a series of NFTs for the next few years. And it's a space where Endeavor, who owns UFC, and UFC specifically, are an incredibly innovative company. They started this sport from nothing and have grown it to what continues to be one of the fastest growing sports in the world. So our partnership with them is 10 years long, and it's designed to continue to innovate together as we go. So you're going to see really interesting things coming from from both of us in the next few months.

Starting point is 00:05:06 And one of the most exciting things about it is that it's a truly global sport. It goes all year round. And, you know, from a TV viewing perspective, you know, we're getting a Super Bowl's worth of people watching the events on a monthly basis, if not a biweekly basis. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. And I think that to your point about it's not just like, hey, we flash our graphic up on the screen or whatever. There's actually the kits and a bunch of these different things that they hadn't done before. Another one is the F1. We, my brothers and I, love Formula 1. And when we saw this deal, we were like, wait, that's like, what are they going to do here? And then we watched one of the races, and obviously there's all of the signage and all that.

Starting point is 00:05:46 But you also have come up with some pretty cool awards, like the Takeover Award and all that. Maybe describe a little bit about the Formula 1 deal that you guys did. Yeah, exactly. So Formula 1 is another one that we're super excited about. similar to ufc another extremely global sport goes on about nine months a year and again not only is it a very global sport but we get more than a super bowl's worth of audience that shows up for every event and you know like you said we really care about being integrated uh to be additive to the experience of the viewer and to help our partners really take things forward and

Starting point is 00:06:23 And so when we met with Formula One and we put the deal together, you know, we said to them, wait, but overtaking is such an amazing part of every race. It's one of the most exciting parts of every race. And the things that go into overtaking when you're driving several hundred kilometers an hour and having to take over and being behind somebody where the cars today are designed to dump air behind them. So when you're from behind, it's really hard to pass somebody. It takes a lot of strategy and it's actually quite dangerous. it lines up quite nicely with our tagline fortune favors the brave and so we came to them and said hey we don't just want to put our logos around we want to really deepen our partnership and and get woven into the fabric of the sport and take the sport forward and so we're bringing a lot of focus

Starting point is 00:07:05 to the overtaker of the year so at every race there's now a new ranking for the overtaker of the race you may have seen last week lewis hamilton you know was disqualified in one of the prelims was all the way in the back and just did an incredible job you know to get to the front had to overtake almost everybody um and at the end of the year there'll be an award there'll be a trophy presented to the overtaker of the year so we're super super excited about it and when you think about the aston martin deal that you guys did uh explain this because this isn't necessarily a sports type deal that that people would think about and that uh that's uh uh nature what exactly are you guys doing with them so with aston martin that was actually the the first deal

Starting point is 00:07:45 we announced we announced that uh in early march uh you know it was the first that we're really excited about that kicked off you know what you're seeing in the whole world from all these crypto companies right so that was the first big sports deal that was cut um and for us it was it was really putting a stake in the ground you know aston martin was coming back to formula one after over 60 years of being away from the sport um you know as a brand you know part of our job uh with a name like crypto.com we we feel like we represent the industry not just ourselves uh and so working in a in a trustworthy and regulated manner in building our business is core to who we are and when we look at our partnerships we look for partners who can extend that

Starting point is 00:08:29 and you know when the opportunity came up with aston martin who was again coming back into formula one we saw an opportunity to work with a with a brand that was refreshing itself um but that has a strong heritage and and really bring that to life and and i think that really kicked off a lot of things that made everybody uh look at us in the industry a bit differently i remember when cnbc met with the ceo when he was on tv talking about you know when they unveiled the car and that's when they showed everybody that our logo is nice and big right on the side of the car um the second question was you're working with the crypto company and this was back in march which feels like years ago. Um, but, uh, but yeah, that, that was really, uh, uh, it was a

Starting point is 00:09:11 milestone. Talk to me about the Matt Damon commercial. I think when people saw that, they were like, Whoa, this is a whole different ball game in terms of production quality, et cetera. And part of what I wanted to talk to you is, uh, I think that you generally, uh, appreciate the craft of marketing, but like there's a skillset to figuring this stuff out. It's not just the ideas, but the execution. And I think people could really see in that commercial that that was a whole different level of craftsmanship, if you will, or thought that goes into it. So what was the idea there and why Matt Damon versus me or my brothers or anybody else that you could have picked? Oh, we're coming up with other ones.

Starting point is 00:09:50 So we want to leave space for others. Now, you know, Matt Damon, there aren't many people like him. And, you know, a quarter of who we are as a company. We've been around and we've said since day one that we're here to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency. But we as an industry and everyone in crypto needs to recognize that a lot of what we do to sort of build up the industry and support the people in it is sometimes exclusive and pushes others away. You know, when when crypto people call themselves Dejans and they call people who are not into crypto normies, you know, that it's not very attractive to mainstream the industry. And so me as a CMO, I've been focusing a lot on how do we mainstream the industry? How do we invite people in? How do we start a conversation? So, you know, when you see us woven into UFC, not just another logo in the octagon, but right here on the shirt, when you see us as one of seven global partners with Formula One, you know, showing up in a big way in the word crypto, not just our name, crypto.com, but the word crypto is featured really prominently in a Formula One race.

Starting point is 00:11:02 Now, you know, with what we announced last night with what's now the Crypto.com Arena, you know, where the Grammys will be broadcast live around the world from the Crypto.com Arena. The Emmys will be broadcast live from the Crypto.com Arena. You know, Lakers, Kings, Clippers and all the concerts, they're all going to be at the Crypto.com Arena. It really puts crypto into the zeitgeist. It makes people start to talk about it and think about it. And so when we thought about our first brand campaign and introducing who we are and what we're about, there's really no one like Matt Damon. There's no one who is as globally well known as him.

Starting point is 00:11:41 And we wanted to make a spot that both spoke to the crypto world in a way where anyone who's into crypto would get all the signals and people who are not into crypto would see something for themselves as well. And so even when you look at the ending and that, you know, Matt, who's this shaman type character who's telling you, unraveling this truth, which is fortune favors the brave, a line that was created by the Romans thousands of years ago and has lasted the test of time. You know, he reveals at the end that he's also one of the brave ones. He's not just a storyteller. Now, for people who aren't into crypto, they might get the idea that he's going back to Mars, right?

Starting point is 00:12:18 He won an Oscar for being the Martian. People who are into crypto understand the Mars reference. And we littered the spot with Easter eggs, which people on Twitter in the last few days have started to find, which I invite everybody to go check it out and check the spot out on YouTube and find them. There's actually a really special Easter egg that has a prize if you can find it. Talk to me about the Staples Center. $700 million is a lot of money. 20 years is pretty standard for these types of deals. One, why that specific location before we get to any of the other details?

Starting point is 00:12:50 there's few venues on earth that have as many events flowing through them and that are as globally recognized as this one and which can be renamed right like no one's gonna you know you could try to rename uh fenway park or msg but you know no one's gonna call it anything but fenway park or msg um you know the staples center you know staples is a business has gone the way they've on. And, you know, the opportunity to rename it and really bring this location, this iconic place and this incredible city, Los Angeles into the future is something that we jumped on as soon as we could. And when you start talking to these folks, is this a thing where like you like call them up and you're just like, Hey, by the way, we'd like to spend a hundreds of millions of

Starting point is 00:13:36 dollars with you. Do they call you like, walk me through, like, how does this happen? I don't think anyone understands how naming rights occur, regardless if it was this deal or another, like, What is the process in doing this? So in certain cases, we call people and others, they call us. We've now developed a pretty strong reputation in the market for being great partners. And that's really our focus here. I don't look at any of what we've done as sponsorships. I look at all of it and I refer to all of it as partnerships because we're going to

Starting point is 00:14:03 be in it with these people for a long time. And like I said, in regard to UFC or even F1 and many others that we've already announced, um you know it's a genuine partnership we're working together our industry you know every month it evolves and so we need to have partners who we can work with closely uh to innovate in terms of how we engage with our fans we know crypto is going to seep into every part of our lives uh and so we want to be there and work with great partners to bring it to the forefront and connect with people who are passionate about it and so to your point on how these deals happen again sometimes we get calls sometimes we do outbound calling uh in this one um you know we

Starting point is 00:14:40 were brought together there was interest in both sides um and they were interested in talking to us we were interested in talking to them and uh you know enough of the market knows it's a small market at the end of the day in terms of people who work on these kind of deals who shoots first you guys throw out a number or they do um usually usually we let people put put put and then when they throw a number out is this like a negotiation or is this a take it or leave type situation in these negotiations again it's it's not a fire sale um this isn't like buying a house where you have agents in between and and they they i mean some people use agents we tend to work direct on all of our deals because it's about developing a relationship again it's all

Starting point is 00:15:26 about the the relationship and the partnership begins during the negotiation and if the negotiation goes well and if it's amicable then we know we have a partner that you know when things get tough we'll be able to to to rely on to work together uh if the negotiation starts off bad then it's usually something we walk away from okay and then once you start to think about uh the number whatever that number ends up being uh we were looking earlier sofi paid like 620 630 million dollars for their deal of sofi stadium uh the this deal is 700 million do you just like stroke up a 700 million dollar check up front do you pay on an annual basis do they invoice you uh like How do you get the money out of your account into their account?

Starting point is 00:16:09 And what is the periodic payments and stuff look like? So in terms of the contract and those kind of things, we tend to be confidential. All right. That's fine. I'm assuming you're not striking a $700 million check up front. If you are, then you guys are killing it. My brother is looking at it. My brother is like, damn, okay.

Starting point is 00:16:28 $700 million up front. I don't think that's how it works. from your earlier conversation i don't think we operate like the government don't worry there'll be money left over if you did that you write the check and then they can get some back yeah um all right and then the only other question i have for you is when you think about uh paying for these types of things is there a conversation around them taking bitcoin or cryptocurrencies or any of that as part of the payment or for the we know teams have become interested in this we know players have become interested in this what about the venues themselves

Starting point is 00:17:00 Is that part of the conversation? Do you think that you guys have any influence in terms of them accepting it inside of the stadium? Talk to me about the integrations or the payments with like the actual Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies rather than just cash. Sure. So, you know, we have an awesome product called Crypto.com Pay that's used by thousands of vendors all around the world to accept crypto. In fact, when Time magazine launched their ability to accept crypto for all of their products, they use Crypto.com Pay. using crypto.com pay and accepting crypto for payments and letting users engage with the teams is the teams the venues the leagues is definitely something that everybody's interested everybody knows it's the future it's it's inevitable and i'm not quoting elon musk when i say that it's it is inevitable and and that's part of what you know a lot of people are leaning in

Starting point is 00:17:52 they want to learn more they want to work with a trusted partner like us to help guide them on that path joe john what questions you guys got hey steve how's it going good good to be here yeah nice to see you uh so i got two questions my first would be so you guys paid a reported uh 700 million dollars for the deal over 20 years your token cro token went up gained about two billion dollars or more in market cap this morning is that ever part of the conversation with you guys of like hey this will impact our token value obviously you're looking for you know app downloads and all these things also. But was the token ever part of that conversation with you guys? No, no, we're extremely long-term focused. We don't really look at near-term fluctuations.

Starting point is 00:18:30 Gotcha. Yeah. And then secondly is like just around what you do after these deals are done, right? Like what metrics are you guys going to be looking at? How will you track success of a partnership like this? So number one is we look to how the fans and the communities that we engage with respond. You know, that's, that's number one. And it's a massive responsibility for us to make sure that, you know, crypto is still a new thing. A lot of people don't understand it as you guys well know. And you guys are doing great work in terms of educating people and helping them understand what it is. So number one is making sure that the fans and the communities that we engage with, you know, really accept it. Well, that's probably the biggest bar because if we

Starting point is 00:19:10 can engage with them and if we can show them that, you know, we're not just a logo in the background, but that we're an active participant and that we care about the sport or we care about the community. You know, from there, everything goes up. But certainly, you know, we want to see our business grow. We want to see chatter about crypto growing. You know, really the industry at large, we want to mainstream crypto. We want crypto in every wallet and that'll be what we're tracking. John, what questions do you got?

Starting point is 00:19:35 Yeah, Steve, nice to meet you virtually, obviously, but what, what are you guys going after? I mean, I've seen crypto companies and crypto.com specific go after athletes, go after venues arenas go after teams in specific like so what do you guys focus on on that note like moving forward so number number one is we focused on great partners right great partners with uh passionate communities around them right these are brands that we're that we're collaborating with right so you know in the case of the nba we worked with the sixers and they're just an incredible team and i was i was uh in philly um you know at one of the games last week

Starting point is 00:20:12 And I have never been more excited watching a game. The fans are insanely passionate. And, you know, the ability to partner with a brand like that and to connect with those fans is incredible. Same thing with UFC. I mean, you know, I used to be a TV producer at HBO. I was there in the early 2000s and I produced live boxing there. And, you know, at the time, people looked down on UFC. You go to a UFC fight today.

Starting point is 00:20:41 I mean, they're all sold out. The passion of the fans, you know, the number of pay-per-views that happen is just insane. And so we really focus on how to connect with those fans around their passion points and enhance their experience. Steve, what's next? Is there anything that you guys are eyeing up or trying to kind of focus on going into 2022? You know, we're going to, it's continuing to mainstream crypto. It's bringing it to more more places uh making raising awareness that crypto is here you know i mean the big message from all of these partnerships is that we're here you know again we're not just we crypto.com but our industry uh and then make sure that everybody knows it's not going anywhere all right i appreciate

Starting point is 00:21:25 you coming on where can we send people to uh to find you on the internet twitter is usually the best place you tag me in the post about this show uh at s kalifowitz it's the best place the best place to reach exactly there's a lot of people who come on here a lot of people who built big businesses who have done a lot of cool stuff i don't think we've had anyone come on here uh the day they announced that they're spending 700 million dollars though on something so i appreciate you uh taking some time out of your day coming on and explaining the thought process behind it um and uh you got a lot of fans by the way in la that you guys got to get on board because i saw them all they were all like hey this is iconic this is they're freaking out and i was

Starting point is 00:22:01 like, yeah, real quick, it'll change though. They'll, they'll start calling it a crypto.com arena before they even realize it. That's right. Is LeBron, are you like, can we get LeBron to do anything? Can you hook me up with LeBron to get him to come on? I'll see if I can make some phone calls. I appreciate the enthusiasm and the positivity. All right. Thanks so much, man. Appreciate it. You got it. Take care guys.

The Pomp Podcast - #725 Changing The Name Of The Staples Center To Crypto.Com w/ Steve Kalifowitz

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