Champion NBA Franchise to Pay Players and Staff in Bitcoin

1951 NBA champion; Sacramento Kings announced Yesterday that their players and staff could now receive any portion of their salary in Bitcoin.

Well renowned clubhouse member and a regular moderator at Café Bitcoin, Neil Jacobs, broke the news that the Sacramento Kings is enabling their player and staff to receive any desired portion of their salary in bitcoin, he took to Twitter and quote the statement from Vivek Ranadivé, Sacramento Kings’ owner:

BREAKING: Chairman of the Sacramento Kings: “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.” – 

BREAKING: Chairman of the Sacramento Kings:

"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." – @vivek@SacramentoKings
@NBA

— Neil Jacobs (@NeilJacobs) April 5, 2021

It is to be noted, as a blog post from the franchise reminded, that the Sacramento Kings has been supporting crypto since 2014. Back in 2014, the franchise had allowed their fans to purchase Sacramento Kings’ merchandise through Bitcoin, and for that very purpose, they had struck a partnership with Blockchain payment processor BitPay.

Such announcements, at the least level, increase the public interest in crypto. While it might not affect the coin directly, it would certainly have some significance as an optic.

In December last year, one such news has come from the football arena. When Russel Okung; Carolina Panthers’ offensive tackle said that he was receiving some portion of his $13 million salary in Bitcoin. The news was later corrected that actually he was not getting paid directly in bitcoin by the franchise rather he had converted some portion of its salary in bitcoin by himself.

So, given if they actually execute the announcement, Sacramento Kings is going to be the trailblazer in connecting the sports arena with the crypto market.

Lastly, BTC is currently trading at $58,896, up by a percent since yesterday.