By Bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack combined his love of Bitcoin with a childhood dream to own a football club and bring it into the premier league.
With the strategic support of renowned Bitcoin companies such as Gemini and Casa and a £750,000 sponsor raise, McCormack was able to acquire Bedford FC last December and promised to take it to the Premier League.
The strategy to bring Bedford FC into premier league was made public, or “open sourced” as Bitcoiners would say:
At Bedford’s matches you can pay for tickets, food, beer and merch in Bitcoin. They have raised enough funding to install new boarding, add pitch irrigation, improve the changing rooms, and install new signage among many other improvements.
Unlike the many other clubs who are embracing crypto by associating themselves with shitcoins, this is a genuine bitcoin sponsorship program, not just silly fan tokens taking advantage of people’s ignorance of cryptocurrency investment.
Many European clubs now have their fingers in the fan token pie. Manchester City, Barcelona, Juventus, Arsenal, Leeds United, and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) have all launched a club-themed crypto aimed at fans. Most, if not all, have “partnered” with companies (who will make a load of money for themselves) instead of simply making their own tokens (it’s not difficult, after all!). Thus the clubs show their own ignorance too.
McCormack is using Bitcoin as it was intended to be used, not inventing silly money to make a fast buck.
“It is important to separate Bitcoin and crypto. Firstly, we aren’t some group of crypto bros from America buying a random team, I am from Bedford, my team is from Bedford and we have the goal of doing something great in this town,” he said to Bedforshire Live.
McCormack seems to be on track to deliver on his promise. As of the date of this article, the team are at the top of Spartan South Midlands Football League Division 1 and seem to be on a roll. He says that Bitcoin is the standard they operate their finances on, which seems to have baffled a few journalists. There may be a clue in this statement on their website:
“We know bitcoiners are generous people and therefore we are accepting Bitcoin and Lightning donations towards grassroots football in Bedford. We will provide a record of all donations in our monthly transparency report and donate all funds received to local footballing projects.”
Transparency and decentralization; fundamental standards introduced into the world of currencies by Bitcoin. McCormack has said that something is obviously broken with a lot of clubs in debt, and many going out of business altogether. Perhaps someone with a real-world knowledge of how to make money and business work for people rather than for corporations will make a difference here.
