The premier Italian football league system, Serie A has announced a partnership extension with a next-generation fan engagement and incentives firm, Socios.com.
The renewed agreement would deliver further perks to league fans through digital fan tokens.
Socios, a division of the Chiliz Group, first collaborated with Serie A in 2021. The Italian top flight embarked on the agreement in order to increase fan engagement and allow fans to own a piece of the club’s history by obtaining Game-Scored Balls from Serie A and Coppa Italia matches.
188 balls have been gathered and obtained by fan token holders from Socios’ Serie A partner clubs via the exclusive app over the last two seasons. The balls were claimed by fans from 16 countries spanning three continents.
With this new expansion, fans will be able to obtain Game-Scored Balls from 100 matches this season, including both cup and league games. This reflects a spike of 56 matches over the previous season.
Serie A, CEO, Luigi De Siervo, said, “We are very pleased that the relationship with Socios.com can continue for another 3 years. A league as important as Serie A must continue to feed the passion that unites our fans with the protagonists of the Championship. Given the great success of past seasons, starting this year we will give more and more fans the chance to win goal balls, unique and original items that represent an extraordinary collector’s opportunity.
“Owning memorabilia of one’s favourite team’s memorable moments represents the ultimate achievement for a fan. From this year, moreover, by simply scanning a QR code during the match, it will be possible to receive all the information to participate in the auction to obtain the balls.”
This season, spectators will be able to monitor the course of the balls owing to the addition of a QR code, which will be displayed on the screen after each goal in all countries where Serie A matches are televised.
The Game-Scored Balls will continue to be verified by Chiliz’s blockchain technology. Each ball will also be tagged with an NFC chip. By scanning the chip, the ball’s owner will have access to the certificate of authenticity as well as the goal’s clip.
Alexandre Dreyfus, Founder and CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com, said, “This partnership has played a strategic role in the journey of the Chiliz project and its vision for the future of fan engagement. Serie A and Socios.com have shown the sports industry some of the multiple ways in which blockchain can bring value to brands and fans. The successful Game-Scored Balls activation is just a sample of how innovation and technology can make a difference. In this new stage, we’re aiming to deliver more and even better opportunities.”