- The Sacramento Kings are to offer all staff the opportunity to be paid in bitcoin
- Kings CEO and governor Vivek Ranadivé made the announcement on Clubhouse
- The company already utilizes blockchain technology in a number of ways
The Sacramento Kings are to offer their staff payment in bitcoin in another example of the NBA team experimenting with cryptocurrency. Having already introduced a token reward system for fans and partnered with Consensys to auction off items worn during games, the Kings have gone bigger and offered to pay anyone who works for the organization in bitcoin if they wish. The offer is the brainchild of Kings chairman, CEO and governor Vivek Ranadivé, who was influential behind the Kings’ first foray into crypto, when they began accepting bitcoin for store merchandise in 2014.
Ranadivé Continues on Bitcoin Bandwagon
Ranadivé made the announcement on Clubhouse in a club called the ‘Satoshi Roundtable’ with Tim Draper. Neil Jacobs, a regular moderator for the Café Bitcoin club, broke the news on Twitter when he quoted Ranadivé:
I’m going to announce in the next few days that I’m going to offer everyone in the Kings organization, they can get paid as much of their salary in bitcoin as they want, including the players.
The news was met with less than an enthusiastic response, with some joking that the players would be too focused on their price of Bitcoin rather than their games while one commenter was worried about the “added sell pressure”.
Kings of Crypto
Ranadivé has been known as a keen proponent of cryptocurrencies for some time. Following the Kings acceptance of bitcoin for merchandise in 2014, the team struck a deal with Blockparty in 2019 to reward fans with a number of blockchain-based rewards, while three months later they announced that fans could buy merchandise used in games on a blockchain-powered auction site via a tie in with Consensys.
