One of the most important football clubs in the world, FC Barcelona, recently launched a fan token via the Ethereum-based tokenization platform Socios. Demand far outstripped supply.
The token ($BAR), which went on sale on 22 June, was sold out within two hours. The total quantity put into circulation amounted to 600,000 tokens, which were issued at a fixed price of $2.25 US dollars.
After two minutes token worth over 777’000 USD sold
The blockchain company Chiliz, which arranged the issue of the tokens, announced after the first week that the demand for the $BAR token far exceeded the initial supply limit. According to the company, tokens worth $777,000 were sold within the first two minutes. After the fan token became tradable, the traded price of the token quickly rose from its initial price of $2.25 to $12.05. This was followed by a decline to 6.25 dollars. The trading volume on the first day was around twice as high as the $1.3 million earned from the sale of the token.
According to the tweet from Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus, the buyers of the $BAR token come from 106 different countries, which impressively confirms the relevance of the project for football fans around the world. The tokens are intended to give the club’s fans the chance to participate in football club voting. The tokens can also be used to purchase exclusive seats in the stadium, for example. The fan tokens can be purchased via an app.
“Fan tokens” are increasingly being discovered as a marketing tool
The issue of so-called “fan tokens” is an interesting marketing tool for sports clubs. With the issue of club tokens, fans not only get the feeling of being part of club life, but also have voting rights for certain club decisions and can also be paid for actions. The tradability at a market place offers an additional incentive to follow the events.
The introduction of fan tokens is not only a marketing measure, but also helps to spread crypto-currencies to new users. In these cases, regular football fans are introduced to crypto-currencies.
The provider Chiliz, which cooperates with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), among others, has not only launched fan tokens of FC Barcelona, but also cooperates with seven other football clubs. These include current French champions Paris Saint Germain, Atletico Madrid, West Ham, Juventus Turin and Turkish club Galatasaray Istanbul.
Last year, Juventus took a revolutionary marketing step in the sports sector with the issue of JUV tokens. For example, the first “Bianconeri” voting system allowed fans to vote on the first poll to decide which song should replace Chelsea Dagger, which is played every time Juventus score a goal at Allianz Stadium.
*Originally published in German at CVJ.ch
