Apparently, the NFL (National Football League) really does not care much for bitcoin. Either that or they just did not need Sean Culkin, the tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs. Culkin made headlines not too long ago when he announced that he was set to receive his entire annual salary as a football player in bitcoin, though now it looks like this dream is not going to become a reality.
Sean Culkin Cut By the Chiefs
At 27 years of age, Culkin signed a future contract last February with the Chiefs and agreed to an annual salary of just shy of $1 million. He was going to serve as a primary backup to six-time Pro Bowl tight end Travis Kelce. All seemed well, and Culkin, in many ways, was going to be just another big football star that accomplished great physical feats on the field.
But then, something interesting happened. As it turned out, Culkin was a fan of cryptocurrency, claiming in an interview not long after being drafted:
I fully believe bitcoin is the future of finance and I wanted to prove that I had real skin in the game – not just trying to make a quick buck. I will be converting my entire 2021 NFL salary to #bitcoin.
This was tweeted on April 26, just a few weeks before he was cut by the team. Had his plans for a bitcoin-based salary gone through, Culkin would have been the second football player in history to garner digital currency for his time on the football field, the first being Russell Okung of the Carolina Panthers, though Culkin had an advantage in that he was planning to convert his entire salary to BTC.
Okung – who’s payment was around $13 million when he was playing for the Panthers – announced in the year 2020 that he was only going to convert half of his salary into the world’s largest and most popular digital currency by market cap. Thus, he was playing it safe, and decided to keep nearly $7 million in cash to ensure that he could remain afloat should the entire industry disappear overnight.
What Will Happen Now?
Culkin, on the other hand, was willing to bet his entire financial stake on bitcoin and would have converted his entire $920,000 annual salary into the digital currency. Sadly, it is not to be now that he will not be playing for the Chiefs, and at the time of writing, it is unclear if he will sign with another team or if his football prospects have come to an abrupt and premature end.
Either way, even if Culkin never steps onto the field again, it looks like he has a few things to fall back on. He spent his earlier years garnering a BA in finance and is presently at work on his MBA.
