Serie A has agreed a partnership with cryptocurrency platform Socios.com which will become the official partner of the Italian league.
Activated tonight after the Inter Milan and Juventus tie at the San Siro, the collaboration also sees the brand named as the main sponsor of the Supercoppa Frecciarossa and Coppa Italia Frecciarossa Finals.
Luigi De Siervo, CEO of Lega Serie A, commented: “We are extremely pleased to announce this partnership with Socios.com, a leading brand in its sector that has been working with the excellence of sports for several years now.
“With this agreement Lega Serie A proves once again to be ready to seize the opportunities offered by new markets, projected towards the future and innovation and careful to respond to the needs of fans around the world.”
It comes as tokens and digital currency have experienced rapid growth as a tool for increased fan engagement, with the enterprise’s pre-existing partnerships include Inter Milan, Juventus, AC Milan, Napoli, FC Bologna, AS Roma and the Italian national team, the new deal looks to further expand Socios.com’s presence in Italian sports.
Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com, added: “In 2021 we grew our network by over 500% and welcomed over a million new users to our platform. We’ve got bigger aims for the next 12 months, so we’re delighted to begin 2022 with this major announcement that further solidifies our commitment to the Italian sports industry.”
Outside of the region, the platform has formed further football relations with FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Atlético Madrid, Valencia, Manchester City and Arsenal.
“We look forward to working closely with Serie A, spreading the message about Socios.com and building up our community of superfans both in Italy and across the world,” Dreyfus concluded.
In other sports, most significantly last year, Socios.com grew its brand in forming partnerships in the US. For example, National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise the Chicago Bulls signed a deal with the brand in order to enhance its fan engagement activities.
This saw Socios.com act as an official team partner throughout the 2021/22 season and onwards, working to provide fan engagement opportunities to Bulls supporters via monthly Twitter polls and serving as the presenter of the team’s halftime score updates on the social media platform.
This latest deal deepens the recent spell of sporting organisations engaging with tokenisation to enhance fan engagement and grow their demographic of supporters.
As NFTs and fan tokens have elevated, Socios has utilised a myriad of partnerships to accelerate its growth – with the latest collaboration marking the completion of the firm’s Italian expansion strategy.