April 23rd cause a flurry of excitement around both the sports and the crypto world as Justin Sun tweeted that Tron had been invited to partner with Liverpool Football Club. This would have been a massive step for the fledgling company as Liverpool is a media giant with hundreds of millions of fans around the world.
The storm immediately following the tweet showed just how fickle both crypto and football could be. There were heavy skepticism and unreserved joy from all parties.
It would seem that the skeptics have won out (for the time being) as Liverpool FC have denied any partnership with Tron. This has been a slap of cold water to crypto-enthusiasts who tweeted flamboyantly optimistic words such as “can’t wait to see Tron’s logo on the famous shirt.”
The real story is a bit muddled
A spokesperson for Liverpool told Decrypt Media that the letter was an informal invitation from the football club that was sent to many companies. This was done so that Liverpool would be able to understand the companies’ business better.
Cliff Edwards, spokesman for Tron, does not agree with the turn of events. He insists that the letter was more specific than that. He says there was no mention of “seeking to understand the business” and directly quoted the video as saying “to connect and explore a partnership,” which is precisely what Justin Sun had tweeted.
As per the critics, the problem was that Justin Sun has become defensive when replying to critics. Many told him that the wording used in the video was not about an official invitation but was somewhat more opaque than that. Sun insisted that the envelope was an official invitation. There were others who tweeted him emails received by many crypto companies that were obvious scams and even accused the Tron CEO of “lapping it up” instead of ignoring it as most people would.
The true story might be a little more nuanced. The Liverpool spokesperson did say that the red envelope was sent to various companies and it could be possible that they sent one to Tron as well. However, what Liverpool probably did not expect is Sun running off and immediately showing this initial stage of talks on Twitter. The consensus is that he reacted somewhat badly and that there will be no partnership due to his slip-up.
This is not the first time that the Tron CEO has come under fire for his PR decisions. Just earlier this year, in fact, critics accused him of pre-selecting the winner of a Tesla give-away that Tron was running. The competition was bungled, and it cast a negative light on the company. Many have accused Tron of plagiarizing its white paper to boot.
A Valid basis for partnership
There is, however, a valid basis for the partnership. Tron is foremost an entertainment platform that aims to get money in the hands of creators directly. They could live-stream Liverpool’s games or create video games based on the blockchain and a wide variety of other uses.
However, the problem is that the Premier League controls all streaming rights for league games. That means a partnership with Liverpool would mean nothing for the most important games in the season. We will just have to wait and see if this was a scam done very well, or if it was indeed a botched partnership from a young CEO.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.
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