In the past 18 months, cryptocurrency-related brands have invested more than $2.4 billion in sports marketing. FTX exclusively sponsored the NBA Heat, OKX exclusively sponsored the Premier League Manchester United, Crypto.com sponsored the Qatar World Cup, and Coinbase also frequently appeared in top events such as the Super Bowl.

With the help of leading enterprises and capital markets, the integration of Web3 and sports is becoming more and more frequent and closer. In the current bear market, Web3 urgently needs to find a platform to demonstrate their technical capabilities and endorse themselves through the influence of their partners. The sports industry has naturally become such a high-quality platform**.

When the Web3 revolution collides with the passion of the sports industry, the open and inclusive spirit of Web3 itself is highly integrated with the hardworking, upward, brave and unyielding qualities represented by sports. Their common characteristics of high fan enthusiasm, high capitalization and high marketization give the two sides more room for imagination in their cooperation.

How does Web3 participate in the World Cup, which is watched by the whole world?

At this year's Qatar World Cup, we can see that the combination of Web3 and traditional sports is no longer a simple and crude issuance of tokens, but a combination from all aspects and in multiple places, such as football chain games, star NFTs, football betting platforms, fan social platforms, etc.

Visa, the world’s largest credit card brand, has announced a new NFT series called “Visa Masters of Movement” designed to inspire football fans during the World Cup in Qatar.

FIFA announced that it will jointly launch the official NFT trading market FIFA+ Collect with the public blockchain project Algorand. In addition, it also announced the launch of four Web3.0 blockchain football games. Currently, the two sets of NFT card packs on FIFA+Collect have sold a total of 176,000 sets, with a cumulative revenue of US$880,000.

Crypto.com and Budweiser have signed sponsorship agreements with the World Cup. The former is a cryptocurrency exchange, and the latter also has its own series of NFTs (Budverse).

In fact, the cooperation between Web3 and traditional sports has already begun. From the early success of NBA Top Shot and the football blockchain game Sorare, to the establishment of the fan economy platform Chiliz, to the frequent cooperation between NFT and F1 events. Public data shows that NBA Top Shots' sales in 2021 reached 661 million US dollars. Obviously, the high degree of fit between the sports industry and Web3 has quickly produced a chemical reaction between the two. At present, the development of sports NFT, blockchain games and other applications is quite hot. This is only in the early stages, and it may have a more profound impact in the future.

The rise of fan economy

The emergence of the Web3 concept has given fans more ability to participate than ever before.

For World Cup related projects, there are basically two directions: the guessing system and the fan system. The guessing system is easy to understand. Basically, it uses blockchain technology to realize the guessing of the World Cup. The fan system is the related fan tokens, including fan economy and star NFTs. The NFT that Binance and Ronaldo cooperated with is actually the gameplay of the fan system.

In my opinion, the emergence of the fan system has given fans more ability to participate than ever before, and has built another gaming platform for fans around the world to immerse themselves in sporting events.

Fan tokens, which serve as a bridge between fans and clubs, have risen 85% in the past three months, while the overall cryptocurrency market has fallen by more than 10%. Are fan tokens a new Ponzi scheme or a new way out?

Fan tokens are digital assets issued by sports clubs with the help of token platforms such as Chiliz and Binance. With the help of blockchain technology, fan tokens have changed the relationship between traditional teams and fans, providing a basis for online interaction between clubs and team supporters and building stronger connections.

Of course, fan token holders can participate in voting, such as which banner or jersey design will be displayed on a certain match day, participate in raffles, win official gifts, VIP tickets, etc. In addition, the club's game results will have a certain impact on the price of fan tokens. For example, the value of AFA tokens fell by 25% after Argentina lost 2-1 to Saudi Arabia in the opening match of the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Conversely, when a team wins a game, they will try to burn tokens, tying the supply of tokens to team performance.

In the football chain game, players can not only interact closely with star players in the game, but also form their own clubs through player cards to participate in chain events. Winning the game can obtain certain rewards such as player cards with scarce attributes, and player cards can be sold through the game market, allowing players to earn certain economic benefits while playing the game.

The concept of fan system utilizes blockchain technology to connect fan groups in a completely new way.

Summarize

Web3 is the trend of the future, and this is true, but it will take a long process after all. The key to achieving rapid breakthrough of web3 lies in realizing narrative marketing, and sports events that young people are keen on happen to be a good breakthrough point.