OnlyFans rumored to be in talks to sponsor Ryan Reynolds’ Alpine F1 team
F1 has a vast history of controversial title sponsors through the decades.
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Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly, and Ryan Reynolds (images via IMAGO)
F1 has witnessed a sudden boom in the last few years, increasing its audience multiplefold. Subsequently, this led to a huge boost in the team’s evaluation, which led actor Ryan Reynolds and many others to buy a stake in Alpine. The French team has multiple sponsors but BWT retains the spot for its title sponsorship. However, this could soon change as online subscribtion-based platform OnlyFans is reportedly closing in on a deal to replace the Austrian firm as Alpine’s title sponsor.
OnlyFans was founded in Britain eight years ago. The content-sharing platform gave creators the option of a paywall for consumers to access their content. This feature was soon utilized by adult content creators, which has led to multiple lawsuits being filed against the internet subscription service.
Despite such allegations, the Alpine F1 team has recently taken many controversial decisions, and it seems this sponsorship deal if finalized, would add up to the tally. It must be noted that OnlyFans refers to itself as a subscription-focused online platform with messaging features.
The reports emerged as the former team principal Bruno Famin departed the Enstone-based outfit, allowing Oliver Oakes to take up his role. With a change in the leadership, drastic changes are rumored including the speculations of OnlyFans making a significant investment in the team.
This is not the first time that OnlyFans has partnered up with a team in the motorsport industry
Though this would be the first time the online platform would sponsor a manufacturer in F1, it would not be the first time in the motorsport industry. The platform has earlier sponsored multiple GT Racing teams and has been a sponsor in the bike racing sphere with the British-based service supporting the American Racing Team. OnlyFans even sponsored Renee Gracie to get back to racing after she became a creater on the platform.
Rory Skinner, a former racer for the team gave an insight into how OnlyFans is a great sponsor.
OnlyFans are very passionate about the sport side of things, singer-songwriters, athletes - I think that’s the best thing about it. People will use it for different things and maybe they got to OnlyFans earlier than other social media accounts but at the end of the day, you see what you want to see, you find what you want and a lot of people are using it to get closer to athletes.Rory Skinner said in an interview with The Sun
The Scottish racer claimed that the English firm is considerate about the motorsport side of things. He then further explained that while there are preconceived notions about such a platform, they are entirely different from reality.
Despite this, after Stake-Sauber, Mission Winnow sagas, F1 teams often find loopholes to attract investment which helps them gain more money. Thus, a core problem lies in the paddock which the FIA/FOM needs to regulate stringently else a repeat of Tobacco sponsorships might also return in the championship.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)