What makes crypto unique is its ability to incentivize and bind communities together towards a common end. Often, these communities are brand new, generally coalescing around an asset and technology soon after their creation. But what about existing, real world communities that already span the globe? Could they not stand to benefit from crypto as well?

Recently, I popped my head up from the usual crypto rabbit hole to relax and watch some sports, namely football (i.e. soccer for the Americans). Now, as a research analyst, I’m always looking for new ideas in unexpected places and as I gazed at the football match on my tv, one was staring me straight in the face – fan tokens.

Source: Inter.it

What Are Fan Tokens?

As the name implies, fan tokens are an asset issued by sports teams and sold to their fans. While the tokens don’t represent true ownership in the club, they do offer their holders unique benefits such as, but not limited to:

VIP treatment when attending home games
Influence over team sponsors and logos/designs
Meet and greet opportunities with players
Access to collectibles
and even choosing the music playlist within the team’s stadium

As you can see, these benefits are primarily non-monetary in nature at the moment (although, as we’ll touch on later, there is a speculative aspect even still). If you’re a DeFi hardo, you’re probably thinking to yourself – “pff what’s the point?” This is where a change in perspective can be helpful. Let’s think back to the points and questions we raised in the opening of this report. Namely, that, within crypto, communities are often newly formed. How do you get a group of strangers from around the world to care about something? Use a token to incentivi