(Bloomberg) --
The Cal Golden Bears will play their home opener on FTX Field this year, the first in a 10-year, $17.5 million naming rights deal with cryptocurrency exchange FTX.US.
It's the latest sports tie-up and the second naming-rights deal for FTX, which was valued at $18 billion in its most recent round of fund-raising. The NBA's Miami Heat play in FTX Arena; the company is also the official crypto exchange of Major League Baseball. Football star Tom Brady took an equity stake in the company earlier this year as part of a long-term partnership.
FTX Chief Operating Officer Sina Nader was a walk-on member of the Golden Bears when he was an undergraduate; founder and Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried's father is also an alum. The deal is a new revenue stream for the university, which has been heavily subsidizing its athletics department for years.
On behalf of the university, Learfield, the multimedia rightsholder of Cal Athletics, will accept payment in cryptocurrency.
Considered one of the top stadiums in the U.S., Cal Memorial is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's located in Alameda County, the namesake of Bankman-Fried's trading firm, Alameda Research.
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