The second largest stablecoin issuer announced it is becoming the official sponsor of Chelsea FC, one of the biggest football clubs in the English Premier League.
USDC stablecoin logo will be front and centre on the football shirt for both men’s and women’s games throughout the 2026/27 season. Also, Circle puts Chelsea’s fanbase at around 500M fans.
Based on previous deals, it is expected that Chelsea had an asking price of around £40-50M in mind, although no official numbers were confirmed.
USDC’s Global Reach
In the UK, it is estimated that 35.7M people watched the Premier League last season. Globally, this number increases to 1.9B and is shown to viewers in 189 countries.
Not including other domestic and international tournaments, each team plays around 36 matches a season.
Recently, Circle disclosed its latest earnings results already showing an increase in marketing expenses. In Q1 2026, spend was around at $6.7M, while in Q2 this rose to $8.6M.
Although the Chelsea deal is not included in these reports, it illustrates that leadership recognizes the importance of broadening Circle’s message.
USDC is now shown as new money for regular people.
Adding to an existing basked of use-cases across DeFi, enterprise, B2B, and agentic commerce.
It also signals that Circle wants to shorten the gap with Tether’s USDT, which always positions itself as the original digital dollar designed for the everyday person worldwide.
Significantly, it reiterates that the U.S. Dollar is the leading currency in the stablecoin game. It will be a while until there is a stronger EUR or GBP stablecoin contender arises.
