Bringing Player Empowerment to the Next Level with NBA Star Dennis Schröder
Los Angeles Lakers starting point guard Dennis Schröder teams up with Liquiditeam to launch blockchain-based fan community
Today is an exciting day for athlete and player empowerment as we can finally announce that Dennis Schröder of the LA Lakers is going to be the first individual athlete who will use our LT Fan Platform to create a new digital home for his global fan base.
Dennis will be launching his customized fan community on our blockchain-powered platform to create an engaging experience for his fans. The app is slated to launch before the start of the NBA Playoffs and will be free to access for all fans.
By integrating our technology, Dennis’s fans will have numerous opportunities to interact with him in the digital world. The platform will offer fans exclusive content and the unique opportunity to interact around interesting topics and decisions made by the NBA star. Thanks to the token mechanism, valuable contributions and user collaboration within the community will be incentivized and duly rewarded.
Another step toward player empowerment
Schröder’s tokenized community marks another milestone in the player empowerment era, a subject I’ve written about a while ago in The Unbundling of NBA Teams:
… athletes with big fan bases — which drive everything from viewership to ticket and merchandise sales — are more important to teams and the league than ever. Their internet-enabled autonomy and direct relationship with fans give them a lot of leverage and bargaining power. Players (and their teams) are aware of this reality. As a result, the power dynamics between teams and star players are moving in the players’ favor.
That development was made possible with the evolution of fan interaction on social media platforms. With LT Fan Platform, athletes now have a new tool to maximize fan interaction and foster a direct communication stream with their fans. This presents a logical next step: instead of relying entirely on the big social networks — where they have little to no control, no access to fan data, and where being de-platformed is a severe risk —our solution gives them their own state-of-the-art digital platform out-of-the-box, including full control, direct fan access and various tools to provide a premium experience to their fans.
Here’s what Dennis said in our press release from earlier today:
“A teammate of mine once famously said that we are more than athletes. So true. Many of my peers are not only ballers but also creators and even activists. LT Fan Platform is where sports and the creator economy merge. I am excited to launch and engage with all my fans, whether they come from my hometown Braunschweig, LA, or anywhere else. My new community will empower those fans to become co-creators in the whole experience.”
Nuff said.
Closing thoughts
Near the tail-end of 2020, we announced our very first use case when Borussia Dortmund’s BVB-FanToken App launched. Now, this new partnership represents another exciting progression in our company as we can bring in one of the most well-known and talented German athletes.
And that’s great news because player and athlete empowerment, to us, is more than just a pipedream. Our goal is to help sports teams, athletes, and organizations to create engaged fan communities that are a) attractive to digital-native fans and that b) do not suffer from many of the well-known problems in social media while also giving ownership and control to a community’s host. In doing so, we can help them to build a lasting and sustainable platform.
If you are interested to learn more, check out our website or schedule a demo. And visit the BVB-FanToken App to see the LT Fan Platform in action.
