President of the NBA's Sacramento Kings speaks out on Clubhouse: All employees can choose to receive their salary in Bitcoin, including the players!

Despite their poor record, the Sacramento Kings, one of the top NBA teams in terms of blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption, the team's CEO recently revealed on Clubhouse that players will be able to receive their contract salaries in Bitcoin in the future, with the option to determine the percentage of Bitcoin they wish to receive.

Bitcoin Payroll

NBA Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé recently participated in a Clubhouse event hosted by venture capitalists and Bitcoin advocates Tim Draper and Bruce Fenton. He revealed some positive news that is about to be announced:

In the next few days, I will announce that all employees of the Kings will be able to receive part of their salary in Bitcoin, and this includes our players, regardless of how much they want to allocate.

This information was disclosed by Neil Jacobs, a listener of the Clubhouse event and a regular host of "Café Bitcoin" on Clubhouse. The news has been confirmed by the media outlet CoinDesk. The Sacramento Kings and Vivek Ranadivé have not made an official statement regarding this yet.

BREAKING: Chairman of the Sacramento Kings:

"I'm going to announce in the next few days that I'm going to offer everyone in the Kings organization, they can get paid as much of their salary in #bitcoin as they want, including the players." – @vivek@SacramentoKings
@NBA

— ⚡Neil Jacobs⚡ (@NeilJacobs) April 5, 2021

Sacramento Kings and Blockchain

In fact, the Sacramento Kings have been actively promoting the adoption of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in recent years. As early as 2014, they started accepting Bitcoin payments through BitPay and were recognized as one of the most innovative companies in the sports industry by Fast Company in 2017.

In 2018, they collaborated with mining service provider MiningStore to launch a project called "MiningForGood," where they mined Ethereum in the center of the arena and donated all proceeds to educational scholarships.

In 2019, the Kings partnered with the blockchain platform Blockparty to launch the prediction game "Call The Shot" with built-in reward programs. They also collaborated with blockchain developer ConsenSys to launch a real-time auction platform for sports memorabilia the same year.

Previously, Ryan Montoya, the former Chief Technical Officer of the Kings, shared an interesting story about the early days of accepting Bitcoin for tickets:

Fans from all over the world were very excited, buying jerseys, tickets, and various merchandise with Bitcoin. We even had a Bitcoin ATM on site. However, when the price of Bitcoin rose from $800 to $1,200, they would opt out of using Bitcoin for payments.

Dallas Mavericks Embrace Cryptocurrency and NFT Memorabilia

When it comes to the NBA and Bitcoin, many people think of the Dallas Mavericks and their billionaire owner Mark Cuban. The Mavericks also partnered with BitPay in 2019, accepting payments in BTC, BCH, ETH, USDC, GUSD, PAX, and BUSD, and added Dogecoin in March this year.

Mark Cuban is actively involved in the NFT space, believing that using NFTs as tickets is a great opportunity to disrupt traditional ticketing mechanisms. He launched an online digital art gallery called "Lazy.com," claiming it to be a platform where the public can easily showcase their NFT art pieces.