SNEAK PEEK
- The Mercedes team vehicles will no longer bear the FTX branding due to the rapidly deteriorating cryptocurrency situation.
- In September 2021, Mercedes and FTX agreed to a multi-year sponsorship agreement.
- Sam Bankman-Fried, the company’s founder and CEO, resigned. After many of its users began to leave over concerns about its financial stability, FTX filed for bankruptcy protection.
Days after admitting a liquidity problem and requesting to be acquired by Binance, FTX filed for bankruptcy protection. Mercedes-AMG Petronas announced that it had put a stop to its sponsorship agreement with FTX.
FTX invested heavily in sports sponsorships, and now that the company is collapsing due to a liquidity crisis. We are beginning to witness the effects of those deals. Mercedes-AMG Petronas, a well-known Formula One team, said that it is discontinuing its sponsorship agreement with FTX.
Crypto sponsors are everywhere in F1 nowadays
— FN (@FormulaNetflix) November 10, 2022
But let’s look at some results from the past year. pic.twitter.com/DjXjz3w29w
A Mercedes-AMG Petronas team representative told The Wall Street Journal that the deal would be put on hold “as a first step” while it assessed the effects of FTX’s demise before the company officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
For the So Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil this weekend, the team will take the FTX nameplate off of its car. The team announced that it intended to continue using the branding for this weekend’s second-to-last competition of the year.
