The recent announcement of Coinbase in which they mentioned that they were partnering with the WNBA did not go over well with everyone. The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is one of the most prominent sports leagues in the United States. Still, many basketball fans were unhappy that their league had partnered with a cryptocurrency trading firm during a market downturn.
Last October, the US crypto brokerage quickly won additional partnerships across major sports and became the NBA and WNBA’s official cryptocurrency platform. It now has partnerships with Seattle Storm star Sue Bird and New York Liberty star Jewel Loyd.
According to the agreement, every WNBA player will be given a Coinbase wallet. The WNBA and Coinbase hosted a Twitter conversation today in which Betnijah Laney of the New York Liberty joined two Coinbase employees to talk about cryptocurrency from the viewpoint of a newbie.
These acts have enraged WNBA supporters on Twitter. On Thursday afternoon, Coinbase’s announcement tweet was received with a flood of suspicious replies, ranging from outright outrage and calling it a “scam[atic] scheme” to others expressing alarm over the company’s 70% stock decline this year.
In response to the Seattle Storm team’s statement, one Twitter user said, “This seems somewhat awful from a team whose home facility is actually named the climate pledge arena.” Sue Bird, on the other hand, had a fan response stating, “crypto isn’t good since it exploits women’s sports and wildlife.”
