Why NFTs Are Game-Changers For Soccer Clubs

Soccer teams worldwide are adopting blockchain technology; they are using (NFT) non-fungible tokens to forge a strong bond with their followers.

The opportunity to build this digital link arrived at the ideal moment since the COVID-19 epidemic prevented any human connection between fans and their preferred side. This included the finest of all traditions: attending the stadium on match day to witness the action on the field.

Sports teams are not the only ones recognizing and capitalizing on the increasing possibilities of bitcoin and the blockchain. Online sports betting firms are likewise embracing the potential of this new form of payment. Many are now accepting a variety of cryptocurrencies and offering bonuses like the Bitcoin Bovada bonus to encourage users to choose bitcoin as their preferred method of payment.

Barcelona Is One Of The First Onboard

Barcelona, the legendary Spanish team, was one of the first big clubs to explore the potential presented by NFTs. Barcelona began selling its NFT supporter tokens in June 2020. The whole collection sold out in less than two hours, netting the club $1.3 million. The NFTs were created in collaboration with Socios.com, a fan voting and rewards platform, and Chiliz Exchange, the world’s first tokenized sporting exchange. To demonstrate the club’s global appeal, purchases were made across 106 different nations.

“Football is a worldwide sport, and support goes well beyond the club’s stadium, community, and nation,” CEO and Founder of Chiliz and Socios Alexandre Dreyfus, said in a release. “It’s a statistic we’ve mentioned often, however for the world’s greatest teams, 99.99 percent of their support comes from outside the stadium. The reality that $BAR Fan Tickets were purchased in 106 countries demonstrates this.”

Fan tickets are digital currencies that encourage fan interaction with the Socios.com app via voting and incentives. Fans may use their tokens to contribute to club-specific polling and enter to win digital and physical benefits such as presenting via a video connection on the stadium’s LED boards during a match, attending games as a VIP visitor in club hospitality, and meeting players.

Italy’s Juventus utilizes the voting powers granted to NFTs to choose items such as the club’s goal song for when Juventus scores a goal.

In general, such voting powers granted to fans who acquire NFTs — the more you own, the more influence your vote carries, similar to how holding stock in a corporation works — are ancillary to the team’s structure. It may be the team bus’ color, a great marketing slogan, or even the design of souvenir T-shirts. However, Greece’s Apollon FC took it a step further; they gave NFT holders the option of selecting the starting lineup and strategy for a pre-season friendly.

So Rare, The Business Reconfiguring Fantasy Football

For decades, people have engaged in fantasy football. The underlying idea is straightforward. Players create a team of their favorite players and then fight against similar teams created by other league members. Goals, assists, and goalie saves all earn points.

Fantasy football has also made its way onto the blockchain, courtesy to the business, So Rare. They are offering dual-purpose digital cards featuring soccer stars. They are digital counterparts to conventional cardboard trade cards. Additionally, they act as non-fungible tokens on the blockchain, enabling the creation of a digital edition of fantasy football.

As these athletes improve on the field, the worth of their digitized cards grows too. Identifying which young talent will develop into a soccer superstar may be as satisfying as keeping a cardboard picture of a player’s rookie card in the conventional trading card market. Players may trade, purchase, and sell such NFTs with other participants in the ‘Rare’ world, either for use in the game or as a collectible.

https://twitter.com/SorareHQ/status/1451113411207737346?s=20

The game has exploded in popularity. When So Rare began trading at the start of 2020, it had a trading volume of around $70,000. Today, the property is valued at over $30 million.