Stephanie Douse 
As the world embraces the metaverse, the sports industry and football clubs alike have also joined the trend of establishing a metaverse presence. This article gives an insight into some of the football clubs in the metaverse creating a niche for themselves.
The metaverse is portrayed as the future generation of the internet, a virtual environment that is similar to that of a video game. Consider the metaverse to be a vast virtual environment where you can work, learn, make art, shop, attend concerts and football games, socialize with friends, and engage in a variety of other real-life activities.
Consumers and sports fans alike will be more immersed in virtual places as the Metaverse becomes a reality. It’s a place where sports organizations, along with their athletes/players and partners, can use their virtual imaginations to see what kind of content and new types of tales they can create and how they can do it best.
Football clubs are the most recent participants in the metaverse, as they seek new methods to engage with their supporters and provide them with a unique experience.
Web 3 empowered metaverse is providing football clubs with various new ways to engage with their supporters and provide new marketing opportunities. “Fans will no longer be watching the game, but experiencing it,” says Dhwani Mehta, a member of the Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC) and the chief of staff at NFT Labs, a metaverse solution provider.
The Metaverse and NFT
While some aspects of the metaverse market remain hazy, others, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have evolved as a foundation for the system’s internal architecture and economy. People use NFTs to buy virtual land plots, event passes, avatars, and other digital products in the metaverse.
The combination of Metaverse and NFT will produce a football experience that includes “living the best memories of matches,” a metaverse stadium, and players’ virtual selves that will live forever. It will also let fans communicate with the artist,” says Dileep Seinberg, the founder and CEO of Thinkchain, crypto, NFT, and blockchain advising firm.
List of football clubs in the Metaverse
- Manchester City
- Birmingham City
- Paris Saint-Germain
- Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
- Barcelona
- Liverpool
- Rangers FC
- AC Milan
- Juventus
Manchester City
Man City will be the first club in the world to recreate their home stadium in the metaverse’s virtual worlds. Manchester City FC and Sony have teamed together to create a realistic metaverse recreation of the Premier League champions’ home stadium, the Etihad, that fans all around the world may visit via their avatars.
Sony, which characterizes the effort as a proof-of-concept, is seeking to plant flags in the locations where it hopes consumers will eventually converge en masse. Sony is already heavily invested in sports and has major interests in music, games, and entertainment.
The partnership is expected to be a three-year deal, with Sony personnel working hard to digitally map every area of Etihad Stadium in order to recreate it entirely in virtual worlds where fans’ digital avatars will be able to inhabit.
Birmingham city
Birmingham City will be the first club in the English Football League (EFL) to enter the Metaverse. The Blues’ St Andrew’s stadium will be replicated in virtual reality as a result.
The development will allow fans from all over the world to accumulate digital real estate in the form of NFTs (Non-fungible tokens), as well as take virtual stadium tours and watch virtual reality recordings of Birmingham matches in a facility that replicates the 29,409-seat stadium.
Work on scanning and mapping a digital reproduction of St. Andrew’s Stadium began in December 2021. Once completed, Birmingham City’s own digital metaverse will provide commercial opportunities for the club, as well as options for Blues supporters to engage and entertain themselves, as well as fundraising opportunities for the BCFC Community Trust, Academy, and other charitable causes.
Paris Saint-Germain
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) has applied for a new trademark to establish an online presence in the Metaverse. On March 16, the French behemoths submitted a trademark application for non-fungible tokens (NFT) and Metaverse products and services.
The trademark application covers downloaded multimedia assets (text, audio, video, and so on), virtual clothes, sports gear, electronics, and cryptocurrency wallet software for both the online and offline virtual worlds.
This filing is the appropriate next step in protecting the brand as it expands into the Metaverse. PSG clearly recognizes the Metaverse’s potential and is drafting a trademark for the virtual economy that will come to rule it.
Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
The Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama, a professional Brazilian football club based in Rio de Janeiro, has teamed up with MetaSoccer, the world’s first soccer metaverse game, to form a licensed team comprised of NFT players born in the metaverse.
More real-world sports will be replaced by virtual sports in the near future, which can be advantageous and convenient “Mudrex, global algorithm-based crypto investing platform, stated Edul Patel, CEO, and Co-Founder.
While playing in the MetaSoccer metaverse, players can manage their clubs and earn money. They will earn MetaSoccer crypto by fulfilling specified actions such as winning a match, selling a player, and a variety of other activities.
Barcelona
The Catalan giants have joined the rising trend of clubs embracing technology. Barcelona’s president Joan Laporta announced the club’s plans to establish their own cryptocurrency, NFTs, and metaverse in order to survive financially’ against the sport’s elite.
Barcelona, on the other hand, has turned down similar offers in favor of developing their own digital currency and metaverse in-house, just like they do with their own footballers.
“We’re building our own metaverse,” Laporta stated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, “which is why we turned down the option to be linked with any cryptocurrency enterprises.”
“We want to make our own cryptocurrency, and we’ll have to do it on our own.” We are unique in that we rely on the revenue generated by the sports business to support ourselves.
“We are not backed by large corporations or shareholders.” This forces us to be creative, original, courageous, and ahead of the curve in many aspects of the sports sector.”
Liverpool
The LFC Heros Club, created by Liverpool in collaboration with Sotheby’s, is a new collection of NFTs that brings supporters closer to the action on the field through digital assets and access to a larger community both online and offline.
The NFT collectibles are based on 24 members of the men’s team, albeit some aspects of their appearance are generated at random by an algorithm to create distinctive looks, and some are rarer than others.
Fans who purchase an LFC Hero NFT will enjoy access to a community forum, LFC experiences, virtual gatherings, competitions, and discounts on LFC merchandise, among other things.
In a news statement, Drew Crisp, Senior Vice President of Digital at Liverpool FC, commented, “We wanted to build a genuinely accessible collection of NFTs that are truly unique to LFC, and simply provide fans with an opportunity to explore this new and emerging topic.” “Most importantly, we want to give fans the option of purchasing one while still supporting the LFC Foundation’s wonderful work.”
The LFC Heroes Club limited edition sale and Legendary 1/1 auction ran from March 30 to April 1 on the Sotheby’s Metaverse NFT marketplace. The LFC Foundation will get 50 percent of all Legendary earnings, 10% of Hero proceeds, and 10% of any future resale royalties.
Rangers FC
In June 2021, Animoca Brands and Queens Park Rangers Football Club announced that they would collaborate to create and launch non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on the popular English football team.
Animoca Brands and Queens Park Rangers Football Team’s holding business, QPR Holdings Limited, signed a collaboration deal giving Animoca Brands a global license to create and publish NFTs for the club.
Chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, Yat Siu, said:
“We are ecstatic at the prospect of working with Queens Park Rangers and look forward to expanding our engagement options for the club’s illustrious supporters.”
AC Milan
In conjunction with BitMEX and FanSea, AC Milan has announced a new NFT concept. A limited-edition 3D NFT of a special Rossoneri jersey from South Sudan has been released by the club. The funds will go toward the NPO’s charity endeavors around the world, including its work to assist alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in war-torn Ukraine.
Starting April 14th, fans can purchase one or more of the 75,817 recognized pieces of digital memorabilia. Users will be able to access the 3D NFT on the platform’s app version two weeks after it launches.
The limited-edition NFT is inspired by a tattered AC Milan shirt from a South Sudanese boy that ended up in a Milan museum. When Danish photographer Jan Grarup visited South Sudan to chronicle the effects of floods in the landlocked east African country, he came upon the unique shirt.
The first 10,000 fans who pre-order the NFT will also receive an additional benefit, which allows users to get trading discounts and other benefits on BitMEX.com, thanks to AC Milan’s partner BitMEX, which has committed to contribute to the project by making a donation to Fondazione Milan through the purchase of a large number of the special NFT.
Juventus
In June 2021, Juventus released a non-fungible token and dropped three NFTs on their team shirts.
The first NFT begins with the auction of a 3-D reproduction of the team’s home shirt from 2021-22. The signatures of the present members of the team will appear on the shirt.
The NFT’s theme commemorates ten years since the opening of Juves F.C.’s home ground, Allianz Stadium. The NFT also recognizes the team’s outstanding players.