Crypto Endorsing the World of Football: Sponsorships, Fan Tokens and NFTs
Football, also known in some parts of the world as soccer, is the most popular game in the world today, and fans all over the world are fiercely loyal to their teams, be it club teams or on an international level. In the past few years, the crypto world and football have come closer, with different offerings to connect the two, from fan tokens to actual sponsorships and partnerships with the teams.
Fan Tokens Bringing Decision Making in the Hands of Supporters
Chiliz is one platform that strives to be the leader in this sphere, with its pioneering services through Socios dApp which allows people to get their hands on fan tokens of their favourite teams. Through its innovative use of fan tokens, people can buy the official crypto tokens of their favorite teams and gain not only early access to official team merchandise and events, but also the right to vote on different decisions that will ultimately affect the team outcome. This enables users to have an ownership ‘share of influence’ on the team they support through owning the fan tokens, providing the right to vote on forward decisions of the team such as the tour bus design or the choice of which third kit style the team should have. This is a whole new era of integrating fans into the decision making cycle, bringing supporters closer to their teams. Notable teams have already had their fan tokens introduced by Chiliz from Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, and Barcelona.
Some fan tokens are only available through the Socios App and are listed on Binance, however, most recently the Lazio Fan Token was introduced to the football token world as Binance’s 22nd launchpad project. Surprisingly, Lazio Fan Token is not under the Chiliz umbrella, but is a token directly pioneered by Binance Launchpad and is created on the Binance Smart Chain network. This shows that other companies are looking to penetrate the evergrowing football fan market, competing with the market dominator — Chiliz.
Crypto and Soccer Relationship
The concept of crypto and football isn’t new, but it is picking up a lot of momentum recently. It is not just small players or unknown teams. Football phenomenon Lionel Messi changed his club in August this year, leaving Barcelona for Paris St-Germain for a two-year contract. Changing clubs isn’t new in the soccer world — until you find out that the roughly 30 million Euro deal includes a significant amount to be paid out in fan tokens. The PSG Fan Token is also a part of the ever-expanding Chiliz platform and integrated within the Socios dApp.
While the Messi news might have made it big, owing to the extreme popularity of the football player, there are other major developments over the years that have led to the current deal. Let’s look at a few other major deals in the football and crypto arena to give you an idea of how this market segment is expanding.
Watford FC, the Premier League football team, is not new to the crypto phenomenon. It had previously adorned the Bitcoin logo on their uniform when they had partnered up with the sporting prediction platform Sportsbet.io. With their latest sponsorship deal with Stake.com, the team will be sporting the cute Japanese Inu Shiba dog we have all come to love and associate with the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Crypto.com seems unstoppable with its drive to get more and more teams on board the crypto train. The platform has already sponsored the Lega Serie A and Coppa Italia Tournament this year in May, where Crypto.com created NFTs, the unique crypto tokens that represent digital art for the matches. It has also entered a deal in which it has become the Innovation and Technology Partner of Lega Serie A, helping in the use of Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR), in order to help make better decisions on the field through the use of slow-motion replays from various angles to prevent clear and obvious errors, and missed incidents. Crypto.com has been branching out to the world of football infiltrating heavily with partnership deals and multi-million dollar sponsorships. In September, they secured a 5 year partnership deal worth $15 Million USD with e-sports performance brand Fnatic.
Football Highlight Moments in Digital Interactive NFT Cubes
RealFevr builds on the NFT craze and offers fans from around the world to get their hands on famous “moments” in football matches. By bidding and buying the digitally unique tokens, the fans will get to have ownership of these instances in the matches, owning a slice of history. NFT owners will then have the complete right to view and share exciting moments with their friends and family.
A dedicated marketplace in RealFevr gives them the opportunity to capitalise on their memorabilia NFT, and with ever more rare moments and digital cubes in their hands, they can put these up for sale, making profits as the demand rises or a catalyst football event creates demand and buzz for a given team or player.
Is Crypto the Future of Football?
While the current wave of crypto sponsors and backing seems to be riding the crypto boom of this year, the fact of the matter is that this isn’t new. The first instance of the digital asset and football was way back in 2018, with CashBets becoming one of the official sponsors of Arsenal Football Club.
You will notice that in most instances, football teams are either backed by different prediction and betting platforms or through the use of fan tokens. Sports betting is huge, both in the formal industry and as an informal activity between friends. Fan tokens, on the other hand, allow fans to partake in small decisions concerning the teams.
Both of these sectors are cutting edge and there is still a lot of regulatory development to be done. Unless and until a decision is made, sports bets and team decisions using crypto are going to be on a much smaller scale.
One future possibility of cryptocurrencies making an even larger presence in football games is through the use of other entertainment technologies. Perhaps virtual or augmented realities will allow fans to immerse themselves within the game, watching their favorite soccer players make the right pass or goal from any angle they want, repeatedly! Cryptocurrencies and tokens will still come in handy here, possibly acting as a medium of exchange to allow limited viewership, with fans being able to pay in the fan or sponsored tokens, even a tipping mechanism can be introduced providing direct rewards from fans to players for performance.
The future of crypto tokens will be far more different than what it is today, but one thing is clear: crypto and football are now inevitably inseparable.
Don’t forget — The first monthly NFT Raffle is live on BurpToken.com! Users who have accumulated Raffle Tickets from staking are able to enter tickets into the raffle to be in with the chance to win some exclusive MealDrops or Sandbox NFTs. Be sure to check out the launch video and article for more information!
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