FC Barcelona has signed a new global partnership agreement with Maltese startup Chiliz, the sports and entertainment fan engagement platform based on blockchain. The agreement will give fans an innovative way for fans to interact with the football club and its activities, via the new ‘Barça Fan Tokens’.
Gzira-based startup Chiliz ($CHZ), founded in 2012, generates a digital currency for sports and entertainment platforms. It fuels the world’s first scalable, tokenized voting platform, Socios.com where fans can buy, trade and execute voting rights in their favourite sports teams. So far, the Chiliz project has raised €60.8 million from some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges and leading crypto funds in Asia, including Binance, OK Blockchain Capital and Ceyuan Ventures. Furthermore, at the beginning of 2020, Chiliz obtained 2 licenses for Socios.com, meaning it can now offer fiat and cryptocurrency exchange services on the Socios.com app, and fans can buy Chiliz ($CHZ) direct, without the need for a third-party exchange.
Thanks to this new partnership with FC Barcelona, its fans around the world will be able to vote on different topics, be rewarded for engaging with the Club, collect tokens periodically for free, and purchase ‘Barça Fan Tokens’ through an innovative process known as a Fan Token Offering (FTOTM). These new Barça Fan Tokens (known as $BAR within the Socios.com app) will be available in Q2 2020, with 40 million being launched, each costing €2 at the initial point of sale. Additionally, fans will be rewarded for every different action taken on the platform, climbing up leaderboards and receiving reward points which can be exchanged for exclusive merchandise and unique once-in-a-lifetime experiences linked to Barça.
The new FC Barcelona and Chiliz partnership announcement was made official at an event held at the Camp Nou Stadium attended by Josep Pont, Board of Directors Member and head of the Commercial Area of FC Barcelona, together with Alexandre Dreyfus, Chief Executive Officer of Chiliz, who was presented with the new FC Barcelona 19/20 home jersey.
The agreement is part of FC Barcelona’s global expansion strategy, as well as its commitment to leading the way in the field of partnerships and sports marketing. Josep Pont, FC Barcelona Board Member and Head of Commercial Area, commented: “We are proud to welcome Socios.com to the Barça family as a new global partner. This agreement will give us the chance to set up innovative marketing and partnership activations with a clear focus on the digital realm to take the Club closer to our fans around the world. This agreement also forms part of FC Barcelona’s goal to become associated with leading brands that can help us consolidate our new commercial and digital strategy, with the development of new streams for the generation of resources helping to make us a benchmark both on and off the field.”
Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO & Founder of Socios.com & Chiliz, said: “We are very excited to welcome FC Barcelona to Socios.com, and even more excited to start engaging with their massive fan base around the world. With over 300 million fans worldwide, Barça’s fandom spans countries as well as cultures. The Club is without a doubt the most renowned and the most supported football club in the world and we can’t wait to see their fans start to influence Club decisions. Adding FC Barcelona fans to the Socios.com global community takes us one step closer to our goal of mainstream adoption of blockchain. Every time a fan downloads the app, we are furthering education, and every time a fan buys a Fan Tokens, we are strengthening the use cases of this innovative technology.”
