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How Blockchain Helps Sports Fans Expand Their Fandom
Rachel Conlan, CMO of Binance.
Binance
Affiliations with the sports industry are hot for luxury brands and with Olympic fever in full swing, sporting heroes are luxury’s new bedfellows.
As a premium partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, LVMH has engaged athlete ambassadors both at group level and within the House, including Dior and Louis Vuitton.
The luxury group also launched immersive, gamified 3D platform The Maison of All Victories with Paris-based studio Cosmic Shelter to showcase the many facets of its partnership through photos, videos and 3D models with ambassadors sharing inspiration and updates from the editorial staff and social media while the games take place. .
It is these immersive experiences that make the visitor feel like they are participating in the action instead of simply standing on the sidelines. Technology facilitates this closeness and can also offer sports fans better access and opportunities to do so flex their fandom.
According to Rachel Conlan Global Chief Marketing Officer at leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, “Blockchain is the next-level way to create deeper interactions and ultimately enhance the fan experience beyond what’s in the stadium or on the gridiron.
Binance Forever’s worldwide NFT collection
Ronaldo engages with young fans.
Binance
Since 2022, Binance has been collaborating with Cristiano Ronaldo, probably the Pharrell Williams of socceron a series of NFT drops that aim to do just that.
The collection is connected to various cities that were important to the football star throughout his career, with a different story around each. Tokens include perks such as artwork posters and vintage jerseys, match tickets and even the opportunity to play with Ronaldo at a special training festival in Portugal.
There is also a collect-for-earnings mechanism where holders of multiple tokens can enter a draw to win a trip in Riyadh to watch one of the matches.
While Sunday’s special limited edition auction started at $777, digital collectibles generally come in at an affordable $35.
Over the course of the partnership, Binance shared special content, such as a filmed lie detector test to see if Ronaldo’s answers to a series of questions were true or an exercise in diplomacy.
“The goal,” says Conlan, “is to give people different rewards and incentives that they might never experience in a traditional giveaway. You need to make sure there are real-life benefits and usefulness.
Conlan has been a marketing professional for about 20 years. Before taking on the role at Binance in 2023, he spent five years overseeing global brand partnerships for the sports division of entertainment leader Creative Artists Agency (CAA). where he helped connect IPs like Formula 1 and teams like McLaren with big brands from airlines and technology to fashion.
It was through CAA that she began working in fintech and cryptocurrency, becoming attracted to the latter’s promise of financial democratization. Hence her move to Binance just over a year ago.
Synergy between cryptocurrency and sport
“I think there’s actually a very natural fit,” he says. “The crypto community is incredibly passionate about discussing digital assets, and similarly, we see sports fans being incredibly engaged and excited about their teams. So I think there’s already a natural synergy just based on those attributes.”
Sports and entertainment provide an incredible platform to introduce people to cryptocurrencies, he adds, “which is not just about the functionality and value proposition, but a much more emotional way based on telling shared stories and values and a opportunity to set the cultural agenda”.
Beyond engagement and storytelling, moving forward, another area of interest is fan tokens, which allow fans to vote on club decisions, and also the verification of memorabilia and tickets.
“Blockchain technology can optimize the entire purchasing process within sports clubs. It is a practical solution to the ticket black market, which is a big problem in the world of sports,” he explains, underlining that such authentication is relevant not only for sports, but for the luxury industry in general. For example, the LVMH supported the Aura Blockchain consortium recently announced that OTB will use its blockchain technology to provide customers with digital certificates of authenticity for all products from its luxury brands.
Education and advocacy
Conlan’s role at Binance also has an educational and advocacy mandate, promoting the broader benefits of using cryptocurrencies and striving to change public perception. For example, she is working with the government of Kazakhstan through a crypto university for which Binance is helping to shape the curriculum.
Its platform’s partnership with Farfetch It’s another proof point. The luxury fashion market launched Binance Pay, its Binance-based crypto payment facility, in 2022. The fashion and sports industries, it says, are often early adopters of emerging technologies because they always have to “anticipate what their customers want.”
Conlan reveals that Farfetch saw a 20% increase in cryptocurrency payments from Q3 to Q4 2023 and a 57% increase in transaction volumes in Q1 2024. “This just demonstrates the opportunity and potential of these real-life or real-life usefulness.” experiences people can have with cryptocurrencies,” he says.
While Binance hit the 200 million user milestone last weekend, he points out that the cryptocurrency is “still so nascent as an industry,” still only at 10%. “Partnerships like Farfetch are key to increasing penetration.”