Spanish La Liga football club RCD Espanyol teams up with NFT marketplace Fayre for Web3 adoption
Fayre, a global NFT community for brands and fans, has scored an exclusive NFT multi-season partnership with one of Spanish football’s oldest and well supported clubs, La Liga’s RCD Espanyol.
In an industry first, the Catalan club based in Barcelona and founded more than 120 years ago, is leading the way for its fans by bringing them into Web3 through in-stadium activations using Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
RCD Espanyol boasts two million followers across social media and an increasing fan base that saw an increase of 15% last year as the club won La Liga 2 and were promoted back into La Liga. The club estimates their audience will reach approximately 100 million viewers for the current 2021–2022 season.
Fayre will create unprecedented NFTs that bridge the digital world and real life experiences for the Espanyol fans. The NFTs will provide fans with exclusive access to certain elements in the stadium, the team and many other perks to be announced in the weeks ahead.
The Espanyol leadership expressed how thrilled they are to partner with Fayre in exploring NFTs as an innovative way to increase fan engagement:
“We are constantly working to open up new business models that help RCD Espanyol grow and we believe in the NFT model”, said José María Duran, CEO of RCD Espanyol. “Soon we will enter fully into the world of NFT collectibles with limited collections. There will be different designs of historical assets and the Club’s mascot, a reference for the parakeet fans.”
Luis Carranza, Fayre CEO and Founder, assured that “the association allows Fayre to show how the utility and access to NFTs can help increase community participation. It’s also a powerful tool for increasing revenue.”
RCD Espanyol has two million followers across social media and an increasing fan base.
“The partnership allows Fayre to showcase how utility and access to NFTs can help increase community engagement,” added Fayre CEO and founder Luis Carranza.
The sports and music industries have always relied on fan engagement to generate revenue and create opportunities around their businesses. The NBA has since it first dove into NFTs has seen the extraordinary benefits of digital collectibles. In February alone, NBA top shots generated over $250 million worth of transactions.
A Verified Market Research report revealed that the overall sports trading card market, valued at just under $14 billion in 2019, is predicted to grow to nearly $100 billion by 2027, dominated mainly by mainstream sports such as baseball, basketball, and association football.
“These statistics and the natural evolution of digital marketing underscore the importance of brands, sports clubs, and artists’ involvement in the non-fungible token space as a vital channel for community engagement growth,” summarised Carranza.
About Fayre
Fayre is an NFT community connecting brands and fans. Their upcoming NFT brand dashboard will allow brands to communicate and engage with their NFT holders. Managing NFT communities will be as easy as managing brand pages on social media. This membership club has minimal fees, including 0% on transactions and low marketplace fees for holders of the FayreCard NFT. Its mission is to increase brand engagement. Fayre is the seamless pathway to the next 10 million NFT owners, starting with brands and existing fans. Fayre will make it easier for brands to leverage NFTs as an engagement vehicle and more accessible for fans to own NFTs.
About RCD Espanyol de Barcelona
RCD Espanyol de Barcelona is one of the most ancient and prominent Football clubs in La Liga. In 1900, Ángel Rodríguez founded the Sociedad Española de Football, a club of university students keen to play a new sport that had been recently imported from England. He called it Sociedad Española de Football to differentiate it from other clubs in Barcelona. After some slight changes in its name, the Club became Reial Club Deportivo Espanyol in 1912, when King Alfonso XIII bestowed them with the “royal” title. For well over 100 years, Espanyol has had globally famous players, including goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora, Alfredo di Stefano, Kubala, N’Kono, and Raúl Tamudo. The team holds four cup titles. In 1929, the team won its first Spanish Cup, which would win again in 1940, 2000, and 2006. In 1988, the Club was the UEFA Cup runner-up. In May 2007, the Club reached the UEFA Cup Final against Sevilla FC.
