Cryptocurrency companies are signing multimillion-dollar contracts with leading athletes and clubs, hoping to attract a target audience in this way, CNBC writes. For example, Crypto.com paid a record $700 million for the 20-year right to name a sports arena where the National Basketball Association (NBA) club Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Kings hockey club and the Los Angeles Sparks women’s basketball team play their home games. Previously, cryptocurrency exchange FXT obtained a similar right in the case of the Miami Heat basketball club’s home arena for 19 years for $135 million.Crypto.com also signed a $175 million contract with mixed martial arts tournament organizer Ultimate Fighter Championship (UFC), and its logo will now be placed on athletes’ uniforms during competitions. The firm has also signed a $100m sponsorship deal with Formula 1.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Women’s Soccer League has signed a multi-year partnership agreement with crypto platform Voyager Digital. The amount of the contract was not disclosed, but the league said the deal was one of the largest in its history. Voyager already sponsors Dallas Mavericks basketball and one of the most famous players in American soccer, Rob Gronkowski.

“I’m very interested in working with women’s sports. It is a very important aspect for us because we believe that this market … can empower women to gain more control over their financial future through cryptocurrencies,” said Voyager CEO Steve Ehrlich.

Men are twice as likely to invest in cryptocurrencies as women, a CNBC survey with Acorns found. Meanwhile, digital currencies are also coming to more exotic sports – for example, platform Algorand will pay $100 million in a sponsorship deal with a league that organizes drone races. “Research shows that the community of interest in cryptocurrencies and the community of sports fans overlap in many ways,” Ehrlich noted.

The Morning Consult survey found that fans are on average twice as likely to say they are well-versed in the cryptocurrency market, and 24% of respondents who identified themselves as fans have already invested in digital currencies. Last year, the number of cryptocurrency investors doubled to 100 million, now numbering more than 220 million, according to Kevin Kane of marketing firm Navigate. He estimates the number of investors could double again next year. “When the customer base is growing so rapidly, brands will spend a lot on marketing to get heard about even before you want to invest in cryptocurrency,” Kane said.