Are you a huge fan of a particular sports team or athlete? If so, how do you show your fandom? In today’s world, there are many ways to participate and engage with our favourite sports, teams and athletes.
We show our conviction by watching the sports on TV, buying tickets to events, wearing merchandise, and discussing them with friends. You could say the biggest impact a fan can have on an athlete, team or sport is through vocalising their feelings and paying with their dollar. If you want to support a sports brand, how better to do so than by investing in them, right?
Chiliz is trying to create a bridge to further connect fans with their favourite teams and sports by allowing them to participate in governance. Imagine you’re a huge MMA fan and the organization/brand you’re most interested in is the UFC.
Right now, you can only express your fandom by watching and buying merchandise. Now imagine you go online, connect your crypto wallet to the UFC website and vote on the fights you want to see!
Or, let’s say you’re a Manchester City fan, you spend thousands of dollars a year on their clothes, and you love the team. What if you could buy a token that allows you to earn a percentage of revenue from Man City merchandise sales! It would be incredible, right?
What umbrella term can we use to describe these types of assets? For this piece, I’m going to call them ‘fan tokens’. This is what Chiliz is trying to implement. Right now, the project already has partnerships with the likes of UFC, Manchester City, Barcelona FC, and more. By investing in CHZ, fans can unlock access to these fan tokens.
It’s the ultimate way to show support and invest in your favourite sports entities.
CHZ Token: the bridge connecting fans to their favourite sports entities.
What type of governance do fans have?
Right now, governance is primitive. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just early.
Sports organizations tend to be very centralized, it’s how they have been able to become so big. They take a cut-throat capitalist approach to make their mark, and handing over serious governance to fans may not be the best for business.
Fans can currently govern by voting on minor things, such as the captain’s armband or a logo’s colour.
But imagine when fans get to a place where they can implement real change and have real influence over their projects!
I am a UFC fan. I think they have a fantastic business model, and I love their product. However, I don’t agree with all of their practices. UFC fighters earn 17% of revenue, compared to the 50% of the revenue that athletes earn in most other global sports organizations.
They also repeatedly host events in the same cities rather than spread to new markets. Finally, and the biggest thing for me, is I don’t get to see the fights I want sometimes. Imagine the day when I and other fans can vote on the things I just mentioned. I don’t know if it’s possible, but it sure sounds exciting.
How does it work?
As a fan, you start by buying CHZ tokens. You then log in to a custom platform and exchange your CHZ for a native fan token. You can then use your fan tokens to participate in polls and votes.
CHZ is the bridge currency, and the fan tokens are governance tokens—the ultimate ‘voting with your dollar’ process.
Chiliz and its partner companies do this via blockchain technology and by leveraging smart contracts. As Chiliz partners with more companies, they’ll hold IFTO (initial fan token offerings), in which users participate in and buy tokens like they would in an ICO.
What are the Tokenomics of Chiliz?
The total supply of CHZ is 8.8 billion, with the following allocations:
The token sale – 34.5%
Treasury reserve – 20%
Strategic Acquisitions – 15%
Marketing campaigns – 15%
Seed investors – 7%
Advisory board – 3%
CHZ is compatible with Ethereum, Binance and Tron. This is pretty cool, as they aren’t relying on the success of one Layer 1 blockchain. If Ethereum fails, Chiliz is okay; same if Binance fails.
When CHZ is used to buy fan tokens, the CHZ tokens go to both the team and the partnering organization.
This means it is neither deflationary nor inflationary. But, as demand for fan tokens increases and more fan tokens become available, CHZ will be a more in-demand utility/governance token.
