3. Liga launches NFTs together with FANZONE
The 3. Liga is joining FANZONE, with every team getting their own NFTs. The league is widely popular amongst the fans, with roughly 5000 fans watching each game. With the smell of barbecues inside the stadium, everything is very close and family friendly! At FANZONE, we are very excited to present to you every team from the 3. Liga as NFTs that will be authenticated on LUKSO blockchain! In this article we will take a look at some history, stats and what makes the league so special.
The 3. Liga was founded in 2008/2009 to provide a better platform for young upcoming athletic talent. The first game happened on July 25 2008 between FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt and the SG Dynamo Dresden. The champion of the first season was Union Berlin. True fans would know that they moved up to the Bundesliga a couple of years ago and are currently playing in the newly founded UEFA Conference League. In contrast to the 2nd and 1st Bundesliga, the league is not managed by the DFB (German Football Association) but by the DFL (German Football League).
To fulfil the purpose of giving young, upcoming talent a better chance to move up and gain experience the Under-23-rule was set in place. In case you don’t know what this means here’s a small explanation: Every club needs to list at least 4 players under the age of 23 in their squad for a game. This way it guarantees young players get experience on the pitch as well. With secondary teams, the rule is a little different. In a game they can only have 3 players that are above the age of 23 on the pitch at the same time!
Dynamo Dresden and the VfL Osnabrück have each won the title twice and moved up to the 2nd Bundesliga. Robert Müller has the most games in the 3. Liga, having played 347 games, while Anton Fink has scored an astonishing amount of 136 goals. In the 13 years of existence, 63 clubs have played in the 3. Liga, with the SV Wehen Wiesbaden having played 11 of the 13 seasons. For this season three newcomers have entered the competition to go to the 2nd Bundesliga, with the TSV Havelse, the FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin and the second team of the Bundesliga club SC Freiburg.
Even as the 3rd highest football league in Germany, the 3. Liga still has more revenue than the Austrian Football League and the German Basketball-, Handball- and Ice-Hockey-Bundesliga. The spectator count averages over 10,000 per game across all clubs showing their popularity amongst fans. In the 2015/2016 season Dynamo Dresden averaged an impressive 27,500 fans per game! The overall record of most fans was set in a game between Fortuna Düsseldorf and Werder Bremen II, where 50.095 fans were cheering on their favourite team.
This popularity is partly a result of clubs with a rich history in German football. Two of them are the 1. FC Kaiserslautern and 1860 München, which we’ll be taking a more in-depth look into in the following paragraphs.
The 1. FC Kaiserslautern was founded in 1900. After some successful years in the first half of the 20th century, they were one of the founding clubs of the Bundesliga in the 1960s. Since the inception of the Bundesliga, they won it 4 times and the DFB-Pokal twice. During their time in the Bundesliga, the team from the South-West of Germany were named the “Red Devils” due to their all-red attire and “playing like the devil”. Contributing to this image is their stadium, the “Betzenberg”, which is infamous for their frenetic atmosphere and passionate fans. No wonder 40,000 fans come to support the team at their home-games!
A club with an equally long and prolific history is 1860 München. The main club was founded in 1860, with the football department being founded in 1899. With 22,976 members, it is one of the biggest sports clubs in Germany. Like the 1. FC Kaiserslautern they were also a founding member of the Bundesliga. Their biggest successes came shortly after that foundation. They won the DFB Pokal in 1964 and went into the final of the European Cup of Cup Winners, winning the Bundesliga in 1966. In recent history they have been in the shadows of their city-rival FC Bayern München. Fittingly for the content of this article the clubs from Kaiserslautern and München have a fan-partnership, with the slogan “History Unites”.
Somebody who resembles the spirit of the 3. Liga better than anybody is Sascha Mölders. Although he is 36 years old, his determination and competitiveness always shines through. He came alive in the 3. Liga, having played in Duisburg and Augsburg in the Bundesliga before. After leaving Augsburg and going to München he helped them move up to the 3. Liga again, scoring 19 goals in his first season there. By September 27 he has played 186 games and scored 73 goals for the team. Initially he announced his retirement in 2019 before revoking it and signing another contract. In the following season he had 15 scorer points (goals and assists) and was convinced to play another season, in which he scored the most goals of anybody in the 3. Liga with 22 and was elected “Player of the year”!
We hope you enjoyed this little round-up of the 3. Liga. If we have made you excited, check out fanzone.io, where you can buy NFTs of your favourite teams and players from the 3. Liga.
Follow us into the future of digital collectibles. This is only the beginning! Join FANZONE.
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ABOUT FANZONE
FANZONE Media GmbH develops and operates a novel fan experience platform that combines digital trading cards and fantasy sports gameplay on the blockchain. On fanzone.io, users can buy, collect, trade digital trading cards of their favourite sports stars. Porsche’s company builder, Forward31, is the strategic partner of FANZONE.
Founders Dirk Weyel, Claudio Weck and Björn Hesse bring decades of experience in games, sports marketing and blockchain technology to the table. More on www.fanzone.media
For media inquiries to FANZONE, please use Björn Hesse’s contact bjoern@fanzone.media / +49–162–4046257
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