On April 7th, 2022 a new, historical chapter has officially begun when Crawley Town F.C. announced their takeover by an investment group, publicly known as WAGMI United. Why is it such a big deal? It’s rather simple, it marks the beginning of a new era in sports ownership.
As with most English clubs, Crawley Town F.C. possess a rather rich history. Officially established in 1896, and later on renamed to its current name in 1958, the West Sussex club have had their fair share of ups and downs, with an unfortunate amount of the latter ones affecting the club financially. You can read the whole story of the club here.
Club acquisitions by foreign individual investors or funds, aren’t anything new. Few of the most notable include the Glazers family takeover of Manchester United, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney acquiring Wrexham A.F.C., or most recently Todd Boehly’s purchase of Chelsea F.C. With their 5th consecutive seasons in English League Two and sure enough the club would be acquired by a certain American cryptocurrency investment group.
Who exactly are WAGMI United? In short, it is a collective of investors, most of which made their fortune in cryptocurrency or NFTs. The group members consist of quite a number of well-known members, among whose we can spot Web3 social media giants like Gary Vaynerchuk, Gmoney or Preston Johnson. Sports fans may find another member of particular interest to them, Daryl Morey — president of Philadelphia 76ers. For the curious bunch, here’s the list of members.
Crawley Town F.C. is not the first football club that WAGMI United tried to takeover financially. The group initially aimed to acquire a majority stake of Bradford City A.F.C., but were unsuccessful in doing so. With majority of the club’s supporters feeling negative about the acquisition, Stefan Rupp, the club’s chairman, outright denied ever progressing with talks (Bradford City A.F.C. Chairman rejects WAGMI United’s bid; Bradford City A.F.C. Statement: WAGMI United LLC), which led to a public dispute between the two sides (Bradford City reach settlement with … WAGMI United over takeover row).
With quite a lot of noise leading up to the inevitable takeover, WAGMI United at last acquired controlling shares of Crawley Town F.C. on Thursday, 07/04/2022. Both sides quickly became trending on Twitter as the news made waves across various social media channels.
Naturally, a huge number of got extremely hype about it. But the new club owners weren’t done yet.
On June 27th, a second major news got announced: Adidas were to become the new kit sponsors for the Crawley Town. The German brand have already been involved with NFTs for a longer while now, releasing their own “Into the Metaverse” (ITM) project back in early 2022.
Leading up to the mint, holders of the ITM NFT were presented with 1,2500 spots for holders to get a chance to mint the WAGMI United NFT (2 per spot). Both the announcement, as well as the pre mint list created a massive FOMO for a large number of the members of the NFT community, resulting in the NFT supply to rapidly sell out.
Why is it such a big deal?
While football NFTs are not such a completely new thing, WAGMI United’s project differentiates itself from the rest by allowing their community to own a part of the club. Similarly to platforms the likes of Socios.com, where users can purchase fan tokens to partake in voting on various decisions, acquire merchandise or collectibles.
The main difference between the two is that through owning a WAGMI United NFT, you get to be closer to an actual club, by owning a “part” of the club. What’s more, the club itself interacts with the fans through their community managers and moderators, ensuring the close relationship with the fans.
While the big clubs like F.C. Barcelona, PSG, A.C. Milan or Manchester City F.C. all have their own fan tokens, you do not feel any closer to the management. On the other hand, smaller clubs such as Crawley Town F.C. can use NFTs and fan tokens to provide financial assist that they often need, while giving back to their fans.
If interested, you can read through the multiple benefits and impact, that came or will come with the NFT, on the WAGMI United website.
Since sealing the deal with the American investment group, Crawley Town F.C. have introduced a significant amount of changes. Recently, the club signed a partnership deal with XCAD Network, a platform created to support various content creators, as well as seeing some success on the pitch — recently beating Premier League side, Fulham F.C.
Are sports, and football NFTs the next big thing in the Web3 space? It’s difficult to say; however, it is still quite a niche segment, yet to be properly explored.
“WAGMI United” floor price — 0.14 ETH via Opensea.io.Total Volume — 603 ETH