The Dallas Mavericks have become the second NBA team to
accept Bitcoin payments, BitPay has confirmed.
The basketball franchise joins the Sacramento Kings, which announced
plans to accept Bitcoin for tickets, alongside promotional products, as far
back as 2014. The NBA itself is also open to experimentation with blockchain
technologies; earlier
this month this publication reported on NBA Top Shot, a new platform where
basketball fans can collect and trade moments in the league’s history. The
transactions are being handled on a blockchain by Dapper Labs.
“The Dallas Mavericks have been an outspoken advocate for Bitcoin,
opening up opportunities for the team as it starts to accept Bitcoin for ticket
sales and merchandise,” said Stephen Pair, CEO of BitPay in a statement.
This may come as something of a surprise given the Dallas
Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, had previously been something of a crypto sceptic
to say the least. This extends to more recent proclamations – Cuban said last
month that Facebook Libra was a ‘big mistake’ – yet his position has cooled
over time.
Plans for the Mavericks to accept cryptocurrency were mooted
as far back as January last year. “If [the fans]w anted to pay in blueberries
and I thought it made economic sense, I would let them pay in blueberries,” Cuban
Forbes at the time.
“We want our fans who would like to pay with Bitcoin the
opportunity to do so,” Cuban said in a statement. “BitPay allows our global
fans to seamlessly make purchases with the Mavs.”
The NBA and its clubs continue to advance their technological offerings. The Golden State Warriors and LA Clippers – the latter owned by former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer – announced major cloud contracts, with Google and Amazon Web Services respectively, earlier this year.
