Crypto: Socios.com partners with 13 NFL teams as league expands blockchain sponsorships
Socios.com, a blockchain company with a flagship fan-token product prevalent in European soccer culture, is partnering with 13 NFL teams, the company told Yahoo Finance.
More than a month after the NFL cleared the path for teams to seek blockchain partnership, Socios.com is making a splash in America’s most popular sports league.
“In the U.S., it's been a long process of education and finding comfort,” Socios.com Chief Strategy Officer Max Rabinovitch told Yahoo Finance. “In our specific case, educating the NFL on exactly what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it and how a blockchain is incorporated into that, and why essentially it's safe or sustainable and why we're a good partner if they were to say yes.”
The teams involved include the reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, and the Chicago Bears. The company previously established a strategic partnership with Kraft Sports Group, which owns the New England Patriots, in November 2021.
According to the company, though, the partnerships are marketing-focused and won’t bring Socios.com's fan token model to America’s biggest sports league just yet.
A reward-based system
In Europe, Socios.com creates blockchain-based fan tokens connected to each team it serves including Paris Saint-Germain F.C. and Juventus FC.
With the purchase of a token, fans become part of an exclusive club and are welcomed into an immersive rewards program. The more a fan interacts on the app, the better chance at winning rewards.
In the fan token model used in Europe, token owners would earn these experiences by participating on the team's app through checking in during games and voting in fan polls. It’s meant to be a mutually beneficial partnership between Socios.com and the sports team that drives further fan engagement and allows non-local fans to engage with their favorite team.
Socios.com intends to bring the same fan experiences to its U.S. partnerships and integrate itself in American sports culture in the process. The company expanded from two employees in the U.S. in 2021 to 24 currently, and will be launching a U.S.-centric app this summer. Eventually, Socios.com hopes that app can have fan tokens for American sports leagues, too.
With many U.S. sports leagues wary of entering unfamiliar cryptocurrency-based projects, team-based tokens haven’t been approved for major U.S. sports franchises yet. In the meantime, some teams are selecting rewards at random.
“That was one of the benchmark ideas when we thought of the product is what if you could intelligently grind your way to that [reward],” Rabinovitch said. “It's not just you got chosen because you're lucky but if you have just one or two fan tokens but you've done every single poll, you've done all the predictors, you're there every single day, you've checked in for every single game, you put yourself in a really, really reasonable spot to get whether it's a ticket, if that's what you want or to compete for a gameday experience.”
One Cleveland Browns fan won a full-expenses-paid trip to the NFL Draft. Former San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Joe Staley surprised a fan with a meet-and-greet, tickets to a 2022 game, and inclusion in a pregame segment on NBC Sports Bay Area prior to a 2022 game.
Finding fans around the world
Amid ballooning valuations across professional sports leagues, international expansion and creating fans outside of the traditional local market has been front of mind for franchises.
Front office sources within the NFL have told Yahoo Finance that the next untapped for the league is monetizing international markets and the significant amount of fans that might follow a team on social media but don’t live close enough to attend to a game. Socios.com hopes to bridge that gap.
“There hasn't really been a very scaleable, or in that sense I guess eloquent system, to say listen we're creating a capped membership and it can work anywhere in the world and you have this thing that you own, we're going to track you and the team is going to know who you are,” Rabinovitch explained. “If you're the world's biggest Chicago Bulls fan but you happen to live in Spain, we'll know that and the team will know that and you have a chance to get rewarded. It could be tickets if you're willing to travel. It could be something that we can ship to you.”
Last year, the NFL announced a large international marketing plan that includes target markets for select franchises and an increased emphasis on international games.
“We have all these amazing partnerships, and the promise and the plan is we're going to leverage all of these to educate mainstream U.S. sports fans and North American sports fans on what we do, so that's what we have to do now,” Rabinovitch said.
Josh is a producer for Yahoo Finance.
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