The volatile but lucrative cryptocurrency boom has created vast fortunes practically overnight, and to new cash flooding sports and entertainment in aggressive brand-building efforts.
But the latest twist involves Peter McCormack, a Bitcoin (BTC-USD) investor and podcaster, who has opted for a different approach. He bought his hometown soccer club (or football, as it’s called in the United Kingdom), in a bid to attract money to build the squad into a powerhouse.
Bearing hallmarks of AppleTV+’s breakout series “Ted Lasso,” McCormack has become the new chairman of Bedford FC. He’s now setting out to take his club to English football’s highest competitive circuit, the Premier League.
Born and raised in Bedford, McCormack told Yahoo Finance, it’s a childhood dream that ultimately can help him build more hometown pride — and turn the team into a contender.
“Bedford is an area that really hasn’t seen any major growth apart from people moving back from London who can afford to buy bigger houses, and I was like ‘what’s the one thing I can do?'” McCormack explained to Yahoo Finance.
“I’ve got a Bitcoin community of these crazy 100 million Bitcoin users around the world who will get behind the project. We can create success in the town with a football team,” he added.
But Bedford FC is “not a crypto club. This isn’t about getting people to buy cryptocurrencies or [non-fungible tokens] or any of that nonsense,” McCormack said.
“What we are is a football club that will be run as a professional business” that attracts sponsorships to create the money to spend on players, equipment and facilities,” he added.
No ‘flash in the pan’
Last year, companies bulging with fat with profits from a booming cycle for crypto confronted a new problem: Rapid growth didn’t translate into name recognition.
To remedy that…
