FC Barcelona secured €120 million from investors to develop its Web3 projects by selling a stake in Barça Vision, a company involved in their development.
FC Barcelona officials said that 29.5% of shares of Bridgeburg Invest, the holding company of Barça Vision, were sold to Libero Football Finance AG and Nipa Capital BV. The deal gave the club €120 million, which will be used for Web3 initiatives.
Barça Vision is involved in the development of several areas of Web3 technologies as part of the Espai Barça digital project. Specifically, the Spanish club is interested in integrating all digital content into the Web3 sphere, working with fan tokens, releasing NFT collections, and building a presence in the Metaverse.
FC Barcelona’s new strategic partners are German company Libero, which specializes in advising soccer clubs on financial matters, and Dutch VC fund Nipa Capital. The soccer club’s shareholders must approve the deal. It’s expected to close before the end of 2023.
In August 2022, 24.5% of Barça Vision shares were acquired by Orpheus Media, a firm focused on the commercial use of audiovisual content, and Maltese company Gzira, which owns the sports-oriented blockchain network Chiliz and decentralized app for fans Socios. Both deals were valued at €100 million and aimed at developing the club’s Web3 initiatives.
Thus, FC Barcelona has already released fan tokens available on the Socios app. Additionally, the club has become a validator in the Level 1 blockchain network Chiliz. The club partnered with Plastiks to issue a green NFT collection, Unleash Your Passion, which included 3,000 tokens. The project concept suggests that its implementation will collect and recycle 35,000 tons of plastic.
The first NFT issued on behalf of the club, Masterpiece #1 In A Way, was sold in July 2022 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York for $693,000. The second token, Masterpiece #2 — Empowerment, was sold on the NFT marketplace OpenSea in June 2023 for just over $300,000.
The club also signed an agreement with Mountain & Co. I Acquisition Corp, which focuses on digital media and technology. The plan is to merge all of Barça Vision’s digital and audiovisual content divisions under the Barça Media brand. The initiative is meant to access capital markets in the U.S. to raise additional funding and develop opportunities to distribute content globally. The club’s management expects Barça Media to emerge as a major source of revenue, with the company’s estimated value reaching $1 billion.
Individual soccer clubs and major championships are also mastering Web3 technologies. For example, Chinese technology companies created a Metaverse that allowed soccer fans to watch live streams of FIFA 2022 World Cup matches in virtual space. Meanwhile, professional soccer players become shareholders in sports Web3 ecosystems, planning to promote more global adoption of blockchain by their example.
