Spribe makes Alexandre ‘Cannibal’ Pantoja a brand ambassador in Brazil
Spribe, the creator of crash game Aviator, has named Brazilian Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight Alexandre ‘Cannibal’ Pantoja as its latest brand ambassador.
Pantoja will participate in global campaigns throughout the next year, promoting Aviator to his fans in Brazil and beyond. Aviator is a crash-style casino game where players place bets and attempt to cash out before a rising multiplier crashes.
The collaboration is part of Spribe’s wider Ultimate Fighting Championship marketing partnership, featuring Aviator branding in the Octagon and a brand ambassador fund.
Spribe Chief Commercial Officer Giorgi Tsutskiridze said, “Alexandre Pantoja is considered one of the greatest flyweight fighters in UFC history, so to have him promoting Aviator to his fans is a major coup for us.”
He added, “Aviator is quickly becoming one of the most popular casino games in Brazil, a place where Alexandre is considered something of a hero. This makes the partnership hugely powerful for the Brazilian market. But his fanbase is truly global, and we are excited to be making more people aware of the thrill ride Aviator provides via some great campaigns we have planned with Alexandre.”
Pantoja joins other Ultimate Fighting Championship athletes promoting the crash game, including Michael ‘Venom’ Page, Arman Tsarukyan, Diego Lopes, Alex Pereira, and more.
Since its multi-year Ultimate Fighting Championship partnership, Aviator’s active monthly players have risen to 60 million, with over 400,000 wagers per minute placed across over 5,000 gambling operators.
Charlotte Capewell brings her passion for storytelling and expertise in writing, researching, and the gambling industry to every article she writes. Her specialties include the US gambling industry, regulator legislation, igaming, and more.
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The Backstory
How Spribe’s sports playbook set up the latest move
Spribe’s addition of a new Brazilian face to promote its crash game Aviator is the latest step in a strategy that has leaned hard into live sports fandom. Since striking a multi-year marketing alliance with the Ultimate Fighting Championship in late 2023, the studio has filled out a roster of high-visibility brand ambassadors and leaned on Octagon signage to push Aviator into mainstream sports culture. That approach has coincided with a sharp rise in reported users and betting volume, and it is increasingly tailored to regional fanbases where mixed martial arts stars carry outsized influence.
The company has positioned the UFC tie-up as both billboard and endorsement pipeline. Aviator’s branding appears in the cage during Fight Nights and pay-per-views, a backdrop that has helped Spribe sign athletes who can pitch the game to their own followers. The goal: convert sports audiences that crave real-time action into players of a product built around timing, risk and exit discipline. The new Brazilian ambassador fits that template and extends it to a market where UFC viewership is massive and loyalty to national champions runs deep.
UFC faces front the brand in the U.S. and Europe
Spribe began building its fighter lineup with names designed to resonate across North America and Europe. In March, the company tapped UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall to promote Aviator in campaigns alongside Alex Pereira, Johnny Walker and Merab Dvalishvili. The deal underscored how the UFC partnership functions as a talent flywheel, with the company touting Aviator’s presence across 4,500 online casinos and tens of millions of monthly users. Aspinall’s signing also signaled Spribe’s intent to anchor its messaging to marquee belts and pay-per-view storylines, which carry global reach. Read more on the heavyweight push in Spribe’s announcement of Tom Aspinall as an Aviator brand ambassador.
That roster-building continued with the addition of Michael “Venom” Page, a welterweight and middleweight known for highlight-reel striking. Spribe cast Page as a bridge to millions of social followers and framed the partnership as an accelerant to usage, saying Aviator’s monthly player base climbed from 10 million to 60 million during the UFC run-up. The emphasis on Page’s global audience reflected the company’s pattern: source ambassadors who can activate fans across geographies and direct them into crash gameplay built for quick hits. See the company’s positioning in its note naming Michael “Venom” Page as brand ambassador.
Creators widen the funnel beyond fight night
Spribe has not limited the outreach to athletes. The company signed UFC interviewer and creator Nina-Marie Daniele, known as Nina Drama, to front campaigns aimed at the sport’s social layers. With more than 14 million followers across platforms, Daniele gives Spribe a channel that runs through memes, backstage clips and short-form interview banter, not just event broadcasts. That distribution helps the studio keep Aviator in front of fans between fight weeks, where attention is fragmented and algorithm-driven. The company’s announcement underscored the intent to deploy “unique creative campaigns” that tap into her audience’s appetite for quick, high-energy content, the same rhythm Aviator tries to replicate. Details of the content push are in Spribe’s release on signing Nina Drama as an ambassador.
The broader tactic is clear: pair the UFC’s premium broadcast reach with always-on creator engagement to smooth conversion into gameplay. That two-track approach reduces reliance on event spikes and keeps the product visible in the day-to-day churn of sports social feeds. It also lets Spribe test messages, formats and incentives across different audience segments without diluting the core fight-night halo.
Cricket opens a second front in India
While UFC drives global awareness, India’s scale and love of cricket have made the sport an obvious second pillar for Spribe. The company turned to some of the game’s most familiar names to localize Aviator’s pitch. Former India international Suresh Raina joined as an ambassador in a campaign tailored to cricket fans who associate pressure, timing and split-second decisions with the crease. Spribe’s messaging framed Aviator as a high-risk, high-reward experience designed to mirror what fans see on the field. More on the tie-up is in the announcement that Suresh Raina joined Spribe as an Aviator brand ambassador.
The company then added Harbhajan Singh, another household name with World Cup credentials, to extend reach into different cricket constituencies and regions. In that update, Spribe cited more than 50 million monthly players and 5,500-plus global partners, figures that point to rapid expansion even if the counts vary across releases. The through line is sustained growth tied to sports-led marketing and market-specific ambassadors. Read Spribe’s rationale in its note that Harbhajan Singh would promote Aviator in India.
Audience math and the UFC halo effect
Across these announcements, Spribe has consistently argued that the UFC partnership is a growth engine. In the Page signing, the company said monthly active players rose from 10 million to 60 million during the tie-up, with Aviator branding in the Octagon at major events helping awareness. In other posts, Spribe has cited 42 million or 50 million monthly users and thousands of operator partners. Differences aside, the trend line is up and to the right, and the sequence of deals shows how the company is trying to balance global star power with regional credibility.
Each new ambassador fills a specific lane: champions like Aspinall deliver top-tier visibility on pay-per-views, action stylists like Page drive clip-friendly content that spreads fast, and creators like Daniele keep the drumbeat going between events. In India, cricket icons deliver cultural legitimacy that a fight sport alone could not. The pattern suggests a portfolio approach to customer acquisition, where each figure plugs into distinct media channels and fan rituals but all point back to the same short-burst gameplay loop.
What to watch next
For Spribe, the stakes extend beyond signings. The company is chasing durable engagement in a crowded real-money games market where competitors can copy mechanics but not necessarily brand equity. The sports-first strategy is a hedge against commoditization, using famous faces and league assets to keep Aviator top of mind. Expect the company to keep layering personalities tied to upcoming UFC title defenses and regional sports calendars, and to test more creator campaigns that can turn casual viewers into repeat players at lower acquisition costs.
The message through the last year of deals has been consistent: sports fandom is the funnel, ambassadors are the accelerant, and Aviator’s simple premise is the hook. As the roster expands across fight sports and cricket, watch how Spribe calibrates the mix of champions, crowd favorites and content-first influencers to sustain growth in markets where cultural cues differ. The next phase will show whether that formula can keep the curve bending up without saturating audiences already surrounded by sports-betting and casino pitches.
