PlayersOnly
3 min readDec 20, 2021
PlayersOnly NFT

Cryptocurrencies have helped people around the world understand inflation better. With the inflation of fiat currencies at an all-time high, cryptocurrencies have become a haven for the investment world.

Apart from helping beat inflation, cryptocurrencies are also assisting to connect the gap between the sports industry and the fans. This article will have a closer look at this and explain how the crypto market has helped bridge this gap.

The Past:

Until very recently, the only way to get more involved with the clubs and players was to either be a highly influential person yourself, be an early supporter, or just get lucky.

While the fans of various sporting clubs did come out in the masses to support their team, there wasn’t much of a connection between the fans and the players or the club they supported.

While many don’t see this as an issue, the problem is that the retention of these fans would get worse over time. New fans of the club or player will only come in from time to time. However, learning to retain the older fans not only builds loyalty, but helps reduce the issue of fan retention.

Cryptoassets, to some extent, have already helped encourage the fans to be more involved with their favorite players and clubs.

How have the Cryptoassets helped increase fan involvement?

1- Fan tokens: Well, giving every fan Bitcoin or Ethereum does not sound unique, right? There is no differentiation between the investors of cryptocurrencies and the fans of the clubs. So, the clubs partnered with various crypto firms to develop fan tokens.

What are fan tokens? These are tokens that represent a club. So far, the most prominent ones are those of various football clubs, which have gone on to offer these tokens on the Binance Launchpad.

Fans of these football clubs can hold these tokens to show their support for their favorite club. Since this is packaged as a cryptocurrency, more fans would also be exposed to cryptocurrencies as well.

2- NFTs: NFTs have been around since 2017. However, they only got insanely popular in 2021. With several famous sports personnel bringing these digital images, NFTs brought in a lot of investors from the celebrity world.

NFTs have also helped bridge the gap between the players and their fans. Several sportspeople have partnered with various crypto companies to bring out their NFT collection. Fans can go ahead and buy these NFTs on specific platforms.

Since these NFTs are very limited in number, they give their owners some added perks. One such example of a recent NFT launch was that of the retired NBA star Shaquille O’Neal. While holding such a rare piece of collectible is by itself a collectible, there were some benefits as well. These benefits included a private video call with Shaquille O’Neal, receiving a pair of his signed shoes, and a dinner table reservation.

With NFTs, the holders get a sense of exclusivity and feel that they are part of a much larger sporting family. Thus, helping bring both worlds to each other.

While these are great ways to get their fans involved, getting into the fan tokens as well as NFTs is not something everyone would be capable of doing due to the complexities involved.

The Solution: PlayersOnly

This is where PlayersOnly offers a great solution. Accessing various sports-related NFTs on its platform makes it easy for fans to be part of the sport. By using the native PlayersOnly token on their platform, you will be able to buy the various NFTs out there. Additionally, as this is a sports social media platform, you can interact with other fans. Ultimately,this helps every sports fan feel like they are surrounded by like-minded people and brings them closer to each other.