The big-name Spanish soccer team seeks to create a cryptocurrency of their own, along with NFT collections and a ‘Barça Metaverse’. According to Joan Laporta, President of Barcelona FC, the club acknowledges that blockchain will be important in the future and they don’t want to stay out.
The big bet: in order to mint its own crypto, the club will build a research and tech department, by partnering with startups, universities, and development & innovation centers.
“We are a cutting-edge club, we use the social networks”, “We are adding clauses to the player’s contracts to control the new NFT world, and the Metaverse…we are in it” relays Joan Laporta.
The reasons to do it ‘in-house’ include competitiveness in a business world that is woven around new technologies, competition, on and off the pitch, with soccer clubs that are owned by colossal corporations and foreign investors while Barça financially survives as per revenue generated in the sports industry and recently, good financial news have not been plentiful. “The Club does not hold in sponsors and shareholders, the club is owned by members and fanatics, therefore it is compelled to innovate and find novel means to stay connected with more than 300 million fanatics across the world”, said Laporta.
Right now, the use cases that the crypto could undertake include a fan token, an associate token, and a means of payment to purchase tickets and league products, however, more details remain confidential until there is more progress.
This is not the first time the soccer team seeks to enter the crypto space. Since 2020, the club issued through socios.com, a fan token, BAR, which allows owners to access VIP experiences, opine about decisions of the team and get premium products.
Similar fan tokens exist in AC Milan and Legia Varsovia of Poland. Also, last year, the club attempted to auction an NFT collection via Ownix marketplace, nonetheless, the deal terminated days before the debut due to alleged liaisons between a crypto mogul who was arrested and the platform.
In an act of coherence and signals that the project is for real, Barcelona FC rejected over € 70 million of sponsorship from reputable exchanges and blockchains such as FTX, Binance, and Polkadot, deciding to accept sponsorship from the celebrated music streaming platform, Spotify.
