- In November 2019, Juventus became the first to launch its official Fan Token, a trend that major sporting organizations, including Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, would soon follow.
- Today, 75 brands across five sports verticals and 23 countries use Chiliz-created digital assets to engage, reward, and monetise their global fanbases.
- The number of Fan Token holders has grown by more than 200 per cent year-on-year, with the average market cap of all Fan Tokens in 2024 standing at 260 million euros.
MADRID. NOVEMBER 28TH. November marks the fifth anniversary of the creation of Fan Tokens, digital utility assets designed to provide sports fans with a new way to connect and interact with their teams and a powerful tool for sports brands to engage with, reward and monetize their global fanbases.
Juventus, Italy’s most successful football club, was the first to embrace this groundbreaking innovation, which leverages blockchain’s decentralized and transparent nature to offer fans unparalleled opportunities—such as participating in club decisions through polls or accessing exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Almost 1,150 Juventus fans from 119 countries took part in the $JUV Fan Token Offering (FTO®) on the Socios.com platform. Immediately after purchasing, these Fan Tokens holders were given the opportunity to vote on a groundbreaking poll to choose the song that would be played to celebrate Juventus goals at Allianz Stadium, with “Song 2” by British band Blur outvoting all other options. This Fan Poll, the first of the 603 launched by Juventus to date, completely shifted the paradigm of fans’ role in football.
At the time, blockchain was hardly present in sports. Very few people in the industry understood its potential, and even fewer knew what a Fan Token was—a product created and patented by the Chiliz Group. However, the tremendous success of the $JUV Fan Token quickly spread throughout the industry. Sports organizations around the world began to recognize its potential.
Fan Tokens provided an all-in-one solution to some of the major challenges faced by top sports clubs: attracting younger digital-native fans, who were demanding more innovative and interactive experiences, and engaging and monetizing the millions of supporters they had outside their territory. Additionally, Fan Tokens gave clubs the opportunity to directly own the relationships with their fans, accessing valuable data to deliver personalized experiences to their diverse communities.
17,000 FAN POLLS AND 33,000 REWARDS
By the end of 2020, more than 50 sports organizations had launched their own Fan Token. The roster included global football giants like Paris Saint-Germain, FC Barcelona, Manchester City, AS Roma, and Galatasaray, as well as the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and the PFL (Professional Fighters League), among others. The Socios.com platform had already surpassed one million users.
Today, 75 brands across five sports verticals and 23 countries use Fan Tokens to engage, interact with, and reward their fan communities. Socios.com now has nearly 2.5 million users and the number of Fan Token holders is growing at an impressive rate of 215 percent annually. The average market cap of all Fan Tokens in 2024 stands at 260 million euros, with daily trading volumes surpassing 150 million.
STRENGTHENING ATTACHMENT AND REINFORCING FAN IDENTITY
Fan Tokens have enabled fans from these organizations to participate in over 17,000 Fan Polls, deciding team kits and merchandise designs, squad numbers for star signings, and the naming of new club facilities (stadium stands, training pitches, etc). Over this period, Fan Token holders have also redeemed more than 33,000 rewards, gained access to signed jerseys, VIP tickets for matches, meet-and-greets with players, coaches, and legends, as well as exclusive experiences like acting as the team’s official announcer at a home match or posing with the entire squad for the official season photo.
Multiple independent reports by leading consultancies have studied the impact of Fan Tokens on sports fan culture, highlighting their potential to act as catalysts for the next generation of loyalty programs, strengthening attachment to teams, reinforcing fan identity and providing exclusivity.
With Fan Tokens firmly established as one of the most widespread non-financial use cases for blockchain, in 2023 Chiliz took another major step in its mission to lead the sports industry’s transition to Web3. The launch of the Chiliz Chain, the first blockchain designed specifically for the sports industry, laid the groundwork and provided the infrastructure for the developer community to deliver cutting-edge blockchain solutions tailored to the sports world.
A TRULY WEB3 SPORTS ECOSYSTEM
To mark this fifth anniversary, Socios.com has made another significant leap, transitioning to a self-custody wallet model that will bring the Group’s vision of a fully Web3 sports ecosystem to life.
This new model not only offers users greater autonomy and security but will also unlock access to a new universe of decentralized applications (dApps), extending the utility of Fan Tokens far beyond the Socios.com platform. Through an integrated dApp Browser, functioning similarly to the iPhone’s App Store or Google Play, users will be able to access Web3 fantasy sports games, football manager games, immersive sports-themed ecosystems, social networks, DeFi platforms, and more.
“We are extremely proud of what we’ve achieved in these five years. We knew we could develop a truly transformative tool that would bring value to both fans and brands, and we’ve done just that. We’ve successfully consolidated a groundbreaking and disruptive product in a remarkably short period, thanks to the incredible work of our team and the invaluable support of our partners—especially the early pioneers who believed in our vision before we even had a product,” said Alexandre Dreyfus, founder and CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com.
“But what we’ve achieved so far is only a small glimpse of what’s yet to come. As technology continues to evolve, adoption increases and the Chiliz Chain ecosystem grows and strengthens, we’ll be able to deliver even greater value to our users and partners. We’re only 5, we’re just getting started.”
