According to the Financial Times, Sam Bankman-FTX Fried was in the final stages of negotiating a sponsorship agreement worth more than $100 million with Taylor Swift, but discussions with the pop diva fell through only months before the exchange’s demise in November.
The conversations between FTX and Taylor Swift, as well as the nine-figure payment being discussed, highlight the crypto group’s ambition and reach prior to its bankruptcy last month. FTX has signed contracts with US football star Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, tennis sensation Naomi Osaka, and basketball star Shaquille O’Neal and Steph Curry.
The story also cites insiders who deny Taylor Swift would have agreed to an endorsement arrangement with the exchange.
“Taylor would not, and did not, agree to an endorsement deal. The discussion was around a potential tour sponsorship that did not happen.”
According to those familiar with the negotiations, the process also revealed FTX’s unconventional internal decision-making and disagreements between Bankman-inner Fried’s circle and more experienced executives brought in from outside.
Bankman-Fried, 30, originally supported the transaction, in part because he is a “fan of Tay Tay,” as one employee put it, Swift’s nickname. Former colleagues saw Claire Watanabe, a senior executive in FTX’s business development division, as a driving factor behind the pursuit of Taylor Swift, who was also a lover of her music.
Several members of the marketing team were opposed to the agreement. According to one person acquainted with the negotiations:
“No one really liked the deal. It was too expensive from the beginning, the price was very high . . . really fucking high. That’s front of the soccer jersey level prices”.
Swift avoided association with FTX, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware last month, owing money to up to 1 million creditors and revealing a billion-dollar shortfall in client assets. Bankman-Fried has blamed the collapse on serious management failures, but he is being accused of misusing client funds, which he denies.
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