Cryptocurrency investors with WAGMI United are said to have purchased League Two side Crawley Town, a professional soccer club. The organization had failed to purchase Bradford City last year and is now looking to make up for what it considers a missed opportunity.
WAGMI Has Entered the World of Sports
WAGMI says it is looking to unveil a new line of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on the team and its players to give fans a stronger method of connecting to their favorite athletes. Owners of the NFTs will have specific voting rights relating to team matters and have personal stakes in “telling their team’s story and shaping its future,” according to WAGMI spokespeople.
They also say their goal is to “reimagine how professional sports teams are owned and operated.” Should they fail, members will have the opportunity to vote leaders out. Fans can also be promoted based on their NFT holdings and levels of interaction with the team.
All this would seem fine, though according to Sam Jordan – chairman of the club’s supporters’ alliance – many fans have written in to complain about the new system or criticize the entrance of crypto into the world of sports. He said that many of them feel that with crypto being largely unregulated, digital funds could provide pathways for individuals to perform illicit acts and go unpunished in the process.
He commented in an interview:
The biggest fear for me, and I’m not massively into cryptocurrency or NFTs, is where is the money going to come from if we don’t succeed with the budgets they’re looking to spend, and their experiment doesn’t come off? What does that look like for making sure everyone gets paid and we can retain our football league status?
Why Is Everyone Afraid?
The new owners of the club are said to have provided their financial information to the EFL, which suggests some form of legitimacy for the crypto-based partnership. In addition, Jordan is set to meet the owners at the end of the month, and he’s hoping this little pow-wow will unleash additional data that can help settle fans’ fears. He stated:
We are interested in talking to them because it’s our football club. Managers and players come and go, but fans are always going to be there, and it’s important we’re comfortable. We would like to have a seat on the board that can convey the fans’ opinions. It will be one of the questions we ask whether we can have that.
The lines between the crypto world and the sports world are constantly being blurred as of late, with several professional athletes and sports teams joining hands with crypto and blockchain firms across the globe. Some names that come to mind recently include soccer star Lionel Messi and the Dallas Cowboys, a team in the NFL.
Source: https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/wagmi-crypto-investors-purchase-professional-sports-club/