World-famous football clubs and superstars are making a grand entrance to the crypto world by issuing fan tokens and releasing unique NFT collections. The timing for this crossover couldn’t have been more perfect.

The pandemic widened the gap between fans and sports clubs. It was challenging to develop activities to spur fan engagement on a digital platform. Even the football clubs were in a tough spot, albeit over 2.5 billion fans worldwide. To overcome these challenges and delight fans with new experiences, clubs began pursuing new ventures in the crypto space.

Some of the wealthiest football clubs in the world, including Barcelona, AC Milan, Manchester City, and PSG, jumped on the crypto bandwagon and launched a limited supply of fan tokens through blockchain launchpads. Meanwhile, the superstars of these clubs went on to make record sales in the NFT landscape.

With no platform enabling digital fans to interact with their favourite football club or player actively, they had only stayed spectators of the game for a long time. But crypto tokens and blockchain promises to change that forever.

As crypto platforms remove entry barriers, any fan with the internet can participate in club-related activities. In 2021, NFTs were the most significant revelation that showed the world how communities could grow and mutually benefit everyone. To bring that same energy into the football world and introduce fans to NFTs, projects are launching limited sets of digital collectables and sports cards.

Football players are releasing a series of NFT collectables that highlight their best career moments in the same breath. For example, Messi launched Messiverse in partnership with a famous artist, Bosslogic, and Ethernity Chain. The super rare, 1/1 art piece called “The Golden One” sold for nearly 1.1 million dollars. Projects like Sorare and Wrapped Strikers also witnessed remarkable sales and attracted a whole new fan base into the NFT world.

To take fan engagement a step further, football clubs are now issuing fan tokens and expanding fan offerings with voting rights and membership perks like VIP stadium tours and signed jerseys. This resonated well with the majority of football fan bases. As a result, the value of these fan tokens rose quickly, bringing the total market cap of fan tokens over $200 million.

NFTs are here to stay, and so are fan tokens. So the key to maximizing revenue opportunities and fan engagement for a football club and fans is a digital football marketplace. A marketplace that combines the best of both worlds and provides memorable fan experiences is needed in this emerging football trend in the cryptoverse.

Projects such as First Eleven, SoRare and more capture the essence of these moments perfectly, providing platforms for football enthusiasts to buy unique NFTs and participate in IDOs. This offers fans and the community a chance to be closer to the clubs and sporting stars they love the most.

Fan tokens that back these projects also provide utility by introducing a series of features such as staking. First Eleven’s ($F11) token serves to be a perfect example with its upcoming NFT marketplace and staking roadmaps in 2022. Several projects also allow fans to vote and predict outcomes of games for club-curated rewards. It provides unique features such as launchpads that provide liquidity from fans for clubs to finance its activities to foundations such as the F11 foundation, impacting real-world issues.

It is a positive sign for the whole ecosystem, as non-crypto natives are now exposed to NFTs and different marketplaces. However, the need to maintain a perfect balance between sports and blockchain utility to provide fans with what they want remains preliminary. So fan-first marketplaces like First Eleven will be the primary drivers of mainstream crypto adoption in the football world.

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