Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

It is still in the early stages of trying to make fans a "football manager".

Messi finally led Argentina to win the Golden Cup of Hercules at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which ended not long ago.

The funniest joke is not "Messi finally stopped panicking", but a netizen suggested when "Boss Mei" will play in Paris Saint-Germain, France. "then everyone will go to see his brother, right?" ".

The irony of "limiting fans during the World Cup" aside, under the influence of the epidemic, the decline of European football clubs cannot be saved by a star winning the championship.

Last year, when the cryptocurrency industry was still hot, various cryptocurrency exchanges were keen to name stadiums. On the flip side of Tuhao's name, some companies are indeed trying to use Web3 tools to run football clubs and put the sports industry on a "decentralized" high-speed train.

With the global sports industry in the doldrums, can Web3 realize its grand dream of "For the fans,By the fans"?

01. European "Super League" Dream broken fans without masks and full stadiums in the World Cup constitute the scene of the restoration of life order after the epidemic, but they cannot save the increasingly fragile football system under the influence of COVID-19 's epidemic.

Under the influence of COVID-19, the structural problems of football economy are becoming more and more prominent. According to a UEFA report in 2022, the COVID-19 epidemic cost European football 7 billion euros, while 42 per cent of the club's cash flow needs had to rely on third-party debt during the epidemic. Even though most countries have already lifted the ban on games, the financial sustainability of the club and the fragility of the entire football ecosystem are still issues in front of people.

This systemic dilemma also led to the initiative of 12 top European clubs (Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Inter, AC Milan and Juventus) for the European Super League (The Super League) in 2021.

Under the vision of the European Premier League, the founding club will be permanently qualified and will never face relegation, and five more clubs will be eligible to join each year in accordance with the performance of the recent domestic league season.

The envisioned "European Premier League" was finally stillborn. There is a very direct reason for the launch of the Skysports league. Even the top clubs have suffered huge losses due to the interruption of the game and the lack of spectators.

Premier League clubs lost a total of 1.05 billion pounds in 2020 in the 21st season. The founding clubs of the European Premier League will receive a grant of 3.5 billion euros from JPMorgan Chase, an investment bank, and they will become more valuable and stable companies by eliminating the risk of demotion or missing out on the Champions League.

After opposition from fans, clubs, national institutions, UEFA and FIFA, the project was finally declared bankrupt 48 hours after it was proposed.

One objection is that it creates a closed system for Europe's most elite clubs and makes it more difficult for other small clubs to survive. Many people see the European Premier League as the Americanization of football-without promotion or demotion, rich owners have great power, clubs will lose their local traditions and fans will lose their voice.

The failed project also directly triggered the British government's investigation into the football system. "Football needs a new approach to corporate governance to support the long-term sustainable development of the sport," the survey wrote.

Web 3 brings a new profit model for companies and clubs, and its promise of "decentralization" shows fans the opportunity to create a "For the fans,By the fans" football system.

Although it is not clear what the "new approach to corporate governance" is, companies, clubs and fans have already spontaneously tried to use web 3 to find answers to the problem.

02. New business: a study by fan monetized UEFA shows that COVID-19 's epidemic has cost European clubs 7 billion euros, but the wages of top players have risen by 2%.

As a result, clubs are looking for wealthy investors, with the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United as an example. In the past few years, the club has also accepted the support of the "newly rich" cryptocurrency industry, which has also received huge revenue potential from fans.

The most famous of these companies is Socios. It combines the sports and cryptocurrency industries, triggering a wave of imitation.

Socios, founded by former online gambling tycoon Alexandre Dreyfus (who also founded blockchain company Chiliz), works with more than 145 clubs in 25 countries, including Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan.

"of course it's money-driven," Dreyfus said. "teams need to pay players, and players are getting more expensive, so you need more income. We are a new source of income. "

International Football Club Brand currently partnered by Socios | SociosSocios pays the club a minimum amount and part of the income from the phased sale of fan tokens (converted into euros). In the initial stage, tokens are sold at a fixed price. If the initial sale reaches a minimum, Socios will draw about 50 per cent of the subsequent sale of each token. After that, tokens will be issued in batches until they reach the maximum (which reflects the maximum number of fans the club may have). Clubs can choose to limit the number of votes a person can cast, thereby preventing token hoarding.

At a time when broadcasting fees are difficult to increase and ticket and sponsorship costs are limited, the cooperation with Socios does provide the club with considerable income and international influence. "my job is to monetize 99% of the fans who are not in the stadium," Dreyfus said. "

In 2021 alone, fan tokens created $200 million for participating clubs.

Socios allows fans to buy club fan tokens by buying their own cryptocurrency Chiliz, and fans tokens can receive additional rewards (such as VIP access and signed merchandise during the team's home game). By owning tokens, fans can also vote on certain team matters, including, but not limited to, designing jerseys and deciding what song to sing when the team wins.

At the height of the epidemic, fans of a Turkish team voted with tokens and installed thousands of cardboard in the stadium. Each cardboard represents a fan who cannot enter the game.

Socios and Chiliz want to create "fan-controlled" and ultimately "fan-funded" organizations in sports and e-sports.

Their names and ideas come from Real Madrid's team ownership system. Unlike most La Liga clubs registered as private limited companies (PLC), Real Madrid is registered as a non-profit sports organization owned by its members.

According to the 2020-21 annual report, Real Madrid has 91701 members. Real Madrid members, known as socios, can vote for the club's chairman and board of directors. Every four years, the socios elect a general meeting of about 2000 members for a term of four years, mainly to make decisions on the club's financial affairs and to take disciplinary action against the club president. The structure of Real Madrid ensures a high degree of fan participation.

Socios platform exclusively uses Chiliz tokens | SociosSocios and Chiliz think they can go further than Real Madrid. They wrote on their official website:

The monetization of voting rights eliminates the operating expenses that may be wasted by previous "fan control" programs.

Chiliz provides sports / e-sports organizations with monetization methods based on their wishes (their tokenized voting rights change hands among fans). This allows small clubs not to lose their edge against large clubs.

The Chiliz platform is open to inter-organizational mobility. The team does not just need to rely on the size of direct fans to create an active voting base. They need to exist in their own competitive ecosystem and have a place on the battlefield in the vertical field. Chiliz means they have access to every user (that is, potential fans).

Chiliz plans to provide direct fan support to emerging and established e-sports and sports brands. This means that fans are not only responsible for helping to manage their favorite organizations. They can become active participants, energize the organization, and thus gain voting rights and ownership interests.

But the club's partnership with Socios sparked protests from organizations such as Arsenal, Leeds United and the English Football fans Association. Fans object to being monetized, thinking that they don't need money to participate in their team, and are worried that Web3, whose future is not yet clear, will become another kind of speculative business that belongs to Monopoly.

In addition, this kind of membership "voting right" does not give fans the same actual power as Real Madrid members. The voting issues the club gives to fans through Socios are not the biggest concerns of fans, such as player transfers or tactics, but trivial matters such as the choice of theme music and social media logos. There is no doubt that such a thing does not need to be done with Web3 at all.

There is some reason for fans to be worried.

Socios has issued fan tokens in cooperation with Argentina, Portugal, Italy and other national football teams. These tokens attracted a lot of criticism for their "rumor buying, news selling" performance during the World Cup. The price of ARG, the token for Argentine fans, continued to rise before the match. The ARG fell sharply when Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia on November 22, and then fell when Argentina beat Mexico 2-0, Poland 2-0 and Australia 2-1. A similar thing happened to the Portuguese fan token POR.

03. Fans' Dream: reshaping the broken sports management model with Web3 some Web3 practitioners believe that the traditional club business model has been unsustainable, and Web3 can help create a new sports management model.

In April this year, WAGMI United successfully acquired English Serie B team Crowley Town Football Club (Crawley Town FC). Crawley Town also became the first British professional club owned entirely by Web3.

WAGMI United is an avant-garde investment institution in the United States, founded by two well-known figures in the NFT field, Preston Johnson and Eben Smith. Johnson is known as the co-founder of "Pixel Vault" and "PunksComics". Smith is the founder of Digital Collectibles Agency.

They want to bring Crowley Town Club to the Premier League and "reshape the broken sports management model" through the dynamism of social media and emerging technologies in Web3, such as digital fan tokens, NFT and blockchain.

The two founders boldly promised that if the team did not qualify for Serie An in their second season in charge, they would organize a fan vote to decide whether they would stay or not.

Within three months of WAGMI United being acquired by WAGMI United, Crawley Town Football Club had a new manager (former Arsenal youth coach Kevin Betsy), a new assistant coach, a video analyst, a fitness coach, a goalkeeper coach, and a data scientist.

"We want Crowley Town Football Club to become a community club that anyone who uses the Internet can access," Preston Johnson said. This means giving our fans a real say in decisions that really affect the game and writing a new chapter for the club with a legendary history of 125 years. If you want to comment on how your favorite team works, this is your chance, this is your club. "

WAGMI United has jointly released NFT with Adidas. In addition to receiving club subsidies and exchanging physical and digital goods created by Adidas, NFT holders can also vote on key issues facing the club.

However, owning NFT does not mean owning shares. Like owning fan tokens, NFT represents a kind of membership. The right to vote is also given to local fans. In the first vote in Crowley Town in July, NFT holders and season ticket holders voted together to select the position the team should recruit.

The picky English Football fans Association commented: "this is the first example we can think of of a club owned by supporters consulting fans directly about on-site strategy." This is not the norm for community clubs. "

But in the final analysis, this is not the first practice of democracy in a football club.

Under the dictatorship of the Brazilian junta in the 1980s, Brazilian player Socrates, together with his players, launched the Corinthians Democratic Movement, which gave all club members the right to vote on team affairs.

The sport is marked by a unanimous vote on everything from cleaners to coaches to team members who can decide when to have lunch, from player hiring to team bonuses. The system not only allowed Corinthians to win S ã o Paulo championships in 1982 and 1983, but also cleared the team's debts.

Does Web 3 technology necessarily represent the future way of football governance? It is still too early to tell.

But there is one question worth thinking about: how can Web 3, which is "decentralized", realize the dream of democratic football for fans for a century in a way that is responsible to the whole football ecology?

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: geek Park (ID:geekpark), author: Chen Yaoge, Editor: Jingyu

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