Owning the Pitch: BSC Young Boys is Scoring and Winning With NFTs
An Interview With Reto Steffen, Chief Digital Officer of the Swiss Football Club
BSC Young Boys is ahead of the game regarding finding utility in NFTs. We chat with Reto Steffen, Chief Digital Officer of the organization, on how the football club is staying close to Blockchain innovation.
Reto Steffen is the Chief Digital Officer of BSC Young Boys, a popular Swiss top-tier football club and Champions League team last season. Reto is an experienced leader in digital strategy with deep experience in consulting various companies on staying innovative in their practices.
BSC Young Boys is also an innovator in leveraging NFTs in sports. Recently, they’ve been building up their NFT experiences and have been hard at work creating ways to engage fans via blockchain.
We worked with BSC Young Boys to help build a tokenized community — offering fans NFT player cards of their favorite athletes that they can keep in their digital wallets and view on a dedicated site. Now, Reto is looking to the future to develop even more exciting initiatives with NFTs.
We asked him some questions about his perspective on the industry and what’s next for his organization. Read the interview below, then find out how you can begin to implement your own marketing strategy using NFTs.
Q. Hi, Reto! Can you share your journey and how you’ve gotten to where you are?
I’ve been a consultant since I was 23, mostly in the SAP area. I was the founder and shareholder of the SAP consulting company, TeamWork Switzerland, and shareholder of the company TeamWork Management SA.
One of my consulting focuses was in IT strategy and process consulting — we’ve since developed our own model for this. Since we also had our office in the Wankdorf stadium, we worked with BSC Young Boys. I worked externally for BSCYB for two years, and we created a complete IT strategy by the end of 2018. In 2019, I left TeamWork and moved to BSCYB to implement this strategy and grow.
Q. What is it about NFTs that excites you?
I’m interested in all technical innovations, especially those that can be combined with business processes. Blockchain, tokenization, and NFTs are a great opportunity to dive back into a new technical, big development.
Q. How did BSCYB first get into NFTs?
In autumn 2020, we decided to implement our first Blockchain with fan tokens. This is primarily for three reasons:
- Our IT strategy stipulates that we aim to be one of Europe’s leaders in digital innovation.
- We absolutely wanted to gain experience and build up know-how in the Blockchain sector quickly and practically.
- We saw rapid, strong development in digital marketing.
During this time, we continued to seek technical ways to improve fan engagement. We struggled with conventional technology, but in the area of NFTs, we recognized exciting new possibilities. Our first decision was to publish our own NFT and completely implement it ourselves (without cooperation with an external marketer or company).
We analyzed the market for more than six months, determined the success factors for a successful NFT launch, and finally came across the Mint. Mint and YB share the same views regarding successful factors for implementing an NFT strategy.
Q. How do you believe marketing leaders should approach adding NFTs as a tool? What planning is involved?
It’s a big question! Here are some short answers:
- Use the incredible possibilities of Blockchain technology.
- Use the power of global development communities.
- Think carefully about how you can create added value (utility) for your NFT customers in the long term.
- Plan at least seven years ahead and consider the implications of promises and commitments related to NFTs.
Q. You’ve stated that you don’t think the 3D Metaverse is quite ready for mass adoption yet. What do you think the impact will be once it is ready?
In business, there are huge opportunities with Metaverse models. From my point of view, in a few years, we will no longer (only) be surfing in a browser, but will be moving into Metaverse models. In the area of fan engagement, there are, of course, very exciting and cool opportunities to let the fans participate even more closely in club life.
But, who knows exactly where this journey will lead?
Q. How do you approach making smart decisions, either with strategy, execution, or both, across the marketing and brand landscape?
We’re lucky that we’re interested in newer technical innovations. We get a lot of ideas externally and visit technical innovation events whenever possible. But it’s extremely important to have the necessary knowledge and practical experience in-house. This enables us to evaluate ideas correctly and determine our strategy.
Q. Where do you see NFTs a couple of years from now?
NFTs are wonderful tools that give customers, partners, owners, companies, etc., something unique and valuable. They’ll change the model of classic event tickets and memberships. Look at the music industry. Bands can add incredible value to fans by releasing exclusive NFTs. Such business cases can be applied to countless other industries.
Q. What’s next for BSCYB in the world of NFTs?
Our new player collection, 2022/22, will be on sale in autumn. At the same time, we’re launching a special edition NFT with a limited edition of 3,000 pieces. However, developing long-term reward systems and better visualizations of collected NFTs is very important.
In Switzerland, the regulations regarding gambling are extremely strict, and we had to adapt our rules of the game. Our fans will now be able to collect NFTs in Collector Boards and will be rewarded when their boards are full. There will be a Collectors Top Club which will offer very exclusive rewards in the stadium. Also, we’re developing a new microsite in 2D, where these Collector Boards will be displayed. Fans can log into this microsite with their wallet, and the Boards will automatically fill up with NFTs.
This is a big step for us, and we’re convinced that this visualization is a large success factor. Everyone is talking about the Metaverse, but there aren’t even 2D visualized applications with Wallet Connect on the market today. It’s another way we can be among the first in the market!
To learn more about how the Mint platform works, or to see it in action, visit the website and get in touch. Or, visit the Mint blog for more information on web3 and NFTs
