Coinbase on Thursday deepened its ties to the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association), and many basketball fans were far from excited about the news.
The U.S. crypto brokerage, rapidly inking more sponsorships across pro sports, already became the official cryptocurrency platform of the NBA and WNBA last October. Now it has added partnerships with the WNBA’s player union (WNBPA), the Seattle Storm and New York Liberty, and two of the league’s stars, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd.
As part of the deal, every WNBA player will be set up with a Coinbase wallet. The WNBA and Coinbase jointly held a “Crypto 101” Twitter Space today, where New York Liberty guard Betnijah Laney joined two employees from Coinbase’s training team to discuss crypto from a beginner’s point of view.
But fans on Twitter aren’t pleased by any of this.
Coinbase’s announcement tweet on Thursday afternoon was close to getting ratio’d with replies, most of them negative, ranging from cynical to outright angry—with many calling crypto a “scam,” “gross,” or a “ponzi scheme,” and some expressing concerns about Coinbase’s business in light of its 70% stock price dip this year. Others took the news as a chance to critique the WNBA itself.
One of the most popular negative tweets slammed the WNBA for “framing their dumb sponsored crypto chat as female empowerment.”
I hate that the WNBA is framing their dumb sponsored crypto chat as female empowerment
— no its becky…
