XRP Logo Lands on Kansas Jayhawks Jerseys as Ripple Inks Multi-Year Deal

Ripple, the payments company whose founders created the XRP cryptocurrency, has inked a multi-year sponsorship deal with the University of Kansas Athletics that will place the XRP logo on the jerseys of all Kansas athletic teams. 

As part of the agreement, XRP also becomes the official cryptocurrency of Kansas Athletics. 

“This era of college athletics demands innovative, forward-thinking partnerships,” Director of Athletics at the University of Kansas Travis Goff said in a statement. 

“Ripple recognizes the unique reach and passion of the Jayhawk community, and we’re proud they have chosen Kansas Athletics as a premier platform to introduce XRP to millions of sports fans,” Goff said. 

Beyond the jerseys, Ripple will also fund educational programs focused on traditional finance and digital assets for Kansas students-athletes, while seeking to connect KU graduates to careers in technology. 

“It’s a critical time in college athletics to be bold, and that’s what is being accomplished with today’s announcement,” Kansas Men’s Basketball Coach Bill Self said in a statement. “We will make sure our guys understand the significance of the partnership and why it is beneficial for them moving forward.”

The deal reconnects the Jayhawks and University of Kansas with Ripple President Brad Garlinhouse, who graduated from the university and previously described watching Jayhawks games as a “guilty pleasure.”

The crypto industry has a long, and at times controversial, history of sponsorship deals in the sports world.

FTX, the collapsed crypto exchange whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted for fraud, famously bought the naming rights for the stadium that hosts the Miami Heat NBA franchise in 2021—only for the FTX logo to be torn down less than two years later. Terra, a crypto network that similarly collapsed and whose founder is also behind bars, signed a five-year sponsorship deal with MLB franchise the Washington Nationals in 2022, and its logo still adorns the ballpark.

More recently, though, crypto companies have been wading back into sports marketing, with leading U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase holding a long-standing sponsorship deal with the NBA. In June of last year, the Paris-based digital asset security firm Ledger also landed a sponsorship agreement with the San Antonio Spurs, which prominently placed the Ledger logo on the Spurs jerseys and arena floor throughout the NBA season. 

If the marketing spend for Ripple is to make a positive market impact for XRP, it won’t be felt immediately. The price of XRP today fell around 4.2%, as the cryptocurrency clings to a top 6 spot among digital assets with a $67 billion market cap. The Ripple-linked token notched a new all-time high of $3.65 last year, but has since fallen nearly 71% to trade around $1.07.