The World Cup is targeted by Web3 on a global stage

The Football World Cup, this four-year sports feast is attracting the attention of the whole world, whether you are a fan or a non-fan. Watching the World Cup, it is not difficult to find that various Web3 elements covering blockchain and Crypto are appearing on and off the field in various ways.

The banner advertisement of Crypto.com, an encrypted asset trading platform, appeared on the green field; Adidas showed its NFT digital brand image Indigo Hertz in the World Cup advertisement; Budweiser and FIFA (FIFA) cooperated to launch a real-time scoreboard NFT “Budverse x FIFAWorldCup” Live Scoreboard”; Qatar World Cup partner Visa launched an NFT collection of classic goal clips commemorating Michael Owen and other five stars in the World Cup…

In addition to manufacturer brands, participating stars are using NFT to market their personal brands. Portuguese football superstar Ronaldo announced a partnership with Binance to release an NFT series that records important moments in Ronaldo’s life; Brazilian star Neymar will launch the NFT series “Beastmode Metaverse x Neymar Jr” during the World Cup ”; Argentine football star Neil Messi announced his investment in football chain game Sorare and served as brand ambassador…

Traditional brands use Crypto to show that they have kept up with new trends, while Crypto brands hope to achieve global exposure through the World Cup. So, besides marketing, what other Web3 applications were active during the World Cup?

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Fan Token Hype Falls Back

According to CoinGecko, an encrypted asset data platform, on the opening day of the Karl World Cup, the total market value of fan tokens in the football field fell by more than 35%, and is currently at 280 million US dollars. As of November 27, the football sector of fan tokens has declined to varying degrees. Among them, the Portuguese national team token POR has fallen by 40.3% in the past 7 days to $3.7; the Argentine Football Association token ARG has fallen by 50.5% in the past 7 days , oscillating around $4.2; the Brazilian national football team’s token BFT fell by 58.6% in the past 7 days to $0.43…while the underlying Token CHZ of Chiliz, the protocol for issuing fan tokens, fell by 29.7% in the past 7 days, hovering at 0.17 around the dollar.

Trend of Fan Tokens

The surge in the football sector of fan tokens did not occur during the World Cup. Instead, it occurred one month before the start of the game, when a large number of fan tokens rose in price, revealing the characteristics of hype.

Fan Token (Fan Token) is an encrypted asset, which is usually issued by a star or organization with IP attributes using a blockchain network or protocol. It is one of the products of the fan economy, and its functions generally include providing fans with exclusive benefits. Specific to the field of football, some clubs, teams or players issue tokens to fans. While raising funds, they connect with fans and give token holders some rights, such as participating in meetings, voting on some club affairs, and so on.

In the previous fan economy, whether it is a team or a band, the economic relationship with their fans is mainly based on consumption, such as buying tickets for watching games or performances, and authorized peripheral products. After the emergence of blockchain and encrypted assets, some IP subjects tried to use Token issued on the public chain network to expand capital operation space, reduce intermediate agents, break the geographical restrictions of fans, and change the payment method of IP consumer goods.

Of course, there are also some IP entities that endow Token holders with rights and interests, but from a practical point of view, fans have very limited decision-making power over the entities, but it brings growth to the entities’ economic benefits. Teams or clubs that issue fan tokens directly use tokens to obtain cash from fans. In addition to raising funds, they bypass brand agents and allow external parties to directly use tokens to complete brand consumption, such as exchanging fan tokens for broadcasting rights and naming rights for football games. Use fan tokens to purchase peripheral goods and services launched by the club, etc.

According to data from fan token app Socios, various fan tokens generated $200 million in revenue for partner clubs in 2021. At present, Socios has issued more than 50 types of fan tokens, including Argentine Football Association token ARG, which is a national team attribute fan token, and Manchester City fan token CITY, Barcelona fan token BAR and other world-renowned football clubs. Fan tokens. With fan tokens, Paris Saint-Germain fans can get a VIP experience provided by the club; Manchester City fans can vote for which player can hang a photo at Wembley Stadium, and Inter Milan fans vote for a goal celebration song.

Socios is built on the Chiliz public chain, the underlying blockchain facility specially designed for the sports and entertainment industry, to provide customized fan token issuance, transaction and operation services. It can be seen that from the underlying network to application products, the fan economy already has a set of Web3 infrastructure that can be implemented.

However, judging from the trading market during the World Cup, the hype attribute of fan tokens is still prominent. When speculation acts on the market, fans who hold tokens may suffer economic losses, which will affect the fans’ holding experience.

Football NFT focuses on collection attributes

When fan tokens exposed speculative attributes during the World Cup, non-homogeneous encrypted asset NFTs tried to attract fans with collectible attributes, highlighting the commemorative significance of the World Cup, and some platforms are launching such NFTs.

• FIFA+Collect, the official NFT platform of FIFA

FIFA+Collect is an NFT collection platform launched by the International Football Federation on the blockchain Algorand network. The platform has been officially launched in September this year. It plans to record the wonderful moments of this World Cup and other historical moments in other football games on NFT for football fans to buy, collect, trade, and transfer.

“FIFA+” is a digital video playback platform launched by FIFA in April this year. It provides football match information, news and interactive games from all over the world. Generate a new medium for the connection. Register a FIFA+ account, select your favorite NFT, and you can buy it in legal currencies such as US dollars and British pounds.

As of November 25, FIFA+Collect has released 4 NFT series – Genesis (Genesis), FIFA Archives (FIFA Achievements), FIFA Archives 2, South American Flair (South American Style). These NFTs are presented in the form of videos, recording wonderful moments in football history, players’ iconic actions and other images, such as the greatest goals, saves, holding high trophies, etc. Holders will collect these moments in the form of NFT.

• Football Video NFT Platform RealFevr

During the World Cup, video NFTs on RealFevr were also sold well, and more than 145,000 have been sold so far.

RealFevr was originally a football game company founded in 2015, and its released fantasy league game (RealFevr Fantasy) has been downloaded more than 2 million times. In 2021, the company officially entered the Web3 track, hoping to use blockchain technology to reconstruct the business model of the sports market, and quickly launched the football video NFT market on the blockchain network BNB Chain.

RealFevr released video NFTs recording the wonderful moments of stars for fans to collect or trade. In order to obtain the copyright of the video, the platform has established IP partnerships with the Portuguese Football Super League, the Portuguese Football Association, and Torino Football Club.

If the NFT of FIFA+Collect is based on the historical game moments, the commercialized RealFevr captures the essence of IP and takes the wonderful moments of the stars as the core of the NFT content.

NFT is only the first step. As a game company, RealFevr plans to launch the “Play to Earn” (earn while playing) game FEVR Battle Arena, integrating the released NFT into the game, so that users can team up with their star NFT And compete with each other to obtain rewards, highlighting the “play and earn” feature of Web3 games.

FIFA uses the World Cup to cut into the metaverse

In addition to encrypted assets, Metaverse is also serving as a window to the World Cup, showing their respective charms. It is worth noting that FIFA has also begun to cut into the metaverse, and the bridge is games and social interaction. According to the official website, FIFA has authorized the launch of 4 Web3 applications covering games and social networking, namely Upland metaverse football exhibition hall, AI League metaverse football game, card game Matchday and Phygtl fan social section.

FIFA licensed games

• Upland’s Lusail Field Virtual Showroom

Upland is a metaverse game that manages virtual real estate, and the gameplay is similar to Monopoly. The buildings in the game are mapped 1:1 by the real city. Players buy land, build houses, sell or rent houses through strategies. The land and buildings are all NFT.

During the World Cup, Upland and FIFA cooperated to reproduce the metaverse space of the Lusail (Lusail) Stadium in Qatar, displaying brand villages and stores in cooperation with FIFA. Buildings constructed by Upland.

• AI League Metaverse Soccer Game

AI League is a 4-on-4 football game. The virtual players are NFT assets, with different 3D images and dresses. Players use their own NFT players to build teams and use AI technology to control their own characters (coach or club) Manager), command players to fight or run a team, and improve the ability of player characters by training players. In addition, players can also predict the World Cup match scores on the AI ​​League platform, earn points, and then unlock original World Cup elements for players.

Altered State Machine (ASM) is the development team of the AI ​​League game. They are trying to create a metaverse platform driven by artificial intelligence (AI), hoping to use machine learning to tap the possibility of avatars in the metaverse, such as by giving NFT The avatar is implanted into the AI ​​brain, making these “people” in the Metaverse intelligent.

• Soccer Card Game Match Day

Match Day is a football card game based on the blockchain network Solana. It casts player cards into NFTs that can be purchased and collected by players. It supports players to use these NFT player cards to form clubs, and players become “club managers.” “, run the team, participate in the game set by the platform, and get NFT or other encrypted asset rewards.

Recently, Match Day launched the NFT of player cards participating in the World Cup in Qatar. In addition to allowing players to purchase and participate in daily matches, the platform launched a World Cup score prediction game. Players who win the test can get points, and players with the highest points will be eligible to win prizes . Currently, MatchDay will give away some player card NFTs for newly registered players, allowing new players to participate in the game for free.

• Fan social platform Phygtl

Phygtl is originally a metaverse social platform, which aims to enable traditional consumers to experience the metaverse with the help of AR and Web3 technologies and then become ecological builders. During the World Cup, Phygtl and FIFA cooperated to launch the fan interaction center (page) in the form of digital Ballon d’Or.

The digital NFT of the Golden Globe Awards will be jointly produced by fans. The NFT is composed of various fragments. Fans can cast their photos, videos, and creative works related to the World Cup into NFTs to form one of the fragments of this award and upload them to Phygtl’s World Cup page, which ended up being a user-created digital NFT of the Golden Globes. Taking the global event of the World Cup as an opportunity, Phygtl hopes to enrich the creativity of NFT and demonstrate the global connection of Web3.

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