In the spring, it was said that talks between Sam Bankman Fried’s exchange and the 11-time Grammy Award-winning pop star broke down.
The crypto exchange FTX, which has since gone out of business, was in the final stages of negotiating a sponsorship deal with Taylor Swift worth more than $100 million. It was known for having many high-profile partnerships with celebrities and sports stars. People who know about the situation told the Financial Times that the failed deal was about a possible tour sponsorship and included a ticketing system with digital certificates in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
One former FTX employee allegedly stated that the exchange had sought a “light degree of endorsement” from Swift on social media; however, Swift herself never considered endorsing the trade, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
FTX spent hundreds of millions of dollars on high-profile advertising campaigns, including deals with the NBA’s Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors, Major League Baseball, the NHL’s Washington Wizards and Capitals, and esports giant TSM. The company also signed sponsorship deals with individual celebrities.
Discussions started in the fall of 2021, but they broke down this spring. This probably came as a relief to FTX’s more experienced senior executives, who had argued with Bankman-Fried and his inner circle, who were in favor of the deal, but didn’t get along with them.
Discussions started in the fall of 2021, but they broke down this spring. This probably came as a relief to FTX’s more experienced senior executives, who had argued with Bankman-Fried and his inner circle, who were in favor of the deal, but didn’t get along with them.
“No one really liked the deal. It was too expensive from the beginning,” one person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times. According to them, the deal’s price tag was “very high . . . really fucking high. That’s front of the soccer jersey level prices.”
Many members of the FTX marketing team, as well as FTX.US president Brett Harrison and FTX.US general counsel Ryne Miller, a former partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, reportedly advised Bankman-Fried to abandon the negotiations.
Others allegedly questioned whether Swift, who just became the first female singer in history to spend 60 consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, would bring value to the FTX user base.
The SEC and DOJ are investigating Bankman-Fried, who resigned as CEO of FTX on the same day that the exchange and its connected entities filed for bankruptcy. He is not facing any charges. In a recent interview, Bankman-Fried revealed that he now has only $100,000 of his former fortune of $26 billion.
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