In brief
- House of Doge, the Dogecoin Foundation's commercial arm, acquired a controlling stake in U.S. Triestina Calcio 1918.
- The soccer club plays in Serie C, the third-highest league of Italian professional soccer.
- As part of the announcement, it added Toronto Blue Jays Vice Chairman Roger Rai to its advisory board to help with sports operations.
House of Doge, the commercial arm of the Dogecoin Foundation (DOGE), announced Monday that it has acquired a majority equity stake in European soccer club U.S. Triestina Calcio 1918.
The acquisition is made in partnership with Brag House Holdings, House of Doge’s publicly traded merger partner that will help the firm soon go public via a reverse merger.
“Our investment in U.S. Triestina 1918 is about much more than football. It’s about connecting Dogecoin’s global community with one of Europe’s most storied clubs and proving that digital assets can drive real-world value, culture, and passion,” said House of Doge CEO Marco Margiotta in a statement.
“This is a first step in bringing the spirit of Dogecoin directly into the fabric of the world’s game,” he added.
U.S. Triestina 1918 plays in Serie C, Italy’s third-highest division of professional soccer. The club is currently in last place, and was recently assessed an administrative penalty that deducted 13 points from its standings.
House of Doge telegraphed its deeper move into sports, telling Decrypt last week that it intends to tokenize multiple elements of mainstream culture, starting with sports.
It currently maintains multiple connections to the sporting world, highlighted by backers like the New York Yankees-owning Steinbrenner family and current and former NHL players including Tyler Seguin, Jason Arnott, and Ales Hemsky.
Earlier this year, House of Doge worked with IndyCar driver Devlin DeFrancesco to put the DOGE meme coin logo on his car for the famed Indianapolis 500.
As part of its equity stake announcement, the firm also shared that it is adding Toronto Blue Jays Vice Chairman Roger Rai to its advisory board to advise its sports operations on best practices and commercial partnerships.
House of Doge was founded earlier this year to help grow mainstream awareness and adoption of the world’s biggest meme coin. Since that time, the firm has collaborated with publicly traded CleanCore on a DOGE treasury chaired by Alex Spiro, the personal lawyer of DOGE-friendly billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk.
House of Doge said it is also working with Robinhood and 21Shares to develop Dogecoin yield products and alternative investment vehicles.
DOGE is up around 1.6% today and changing hands just shy of $0.20. The meme coin has dropped by 25% in the last month and is now more than 72% off its 2021 all-time high of $0.73.
Brag House (TBH) stock popped by nearly 10% today to $1.13, but is down nearly 31% over the last month.