Elizabeth Napolitano is a news reporter at CoinDesk.
The value of tickets catering to sports fans soared this week after major publisher Socios.com said on Thursday it had received regulatory approval to operate in Italy.
Following the announcement, the Santos FC fan token shot up more than 150% of its value the day before, to a peak of around $15, while Chiliz, the main currency of the fan platform, rose around 12%. Paris Saint-Germain, FC Barcelona and Juventus tickets were also up, gaining somewhere between 23% and 29% in value between Wednesday and Thursday.
By Friday, the market had cooled down a bit with Chiliz and Paris Saint-Germain tickets giving back around 7% and the value of FC Barcelona falling by 5.6%. But the tickets remained well above their pre-approval range, indicating that Thursday’s massive pumps at least have some staying power with football fans.
Socios.com founder and CEO Alexandre Dreyfus says the site’s regulatory approval has boosted confidence in fan ticket rewards, which in turn has fueled ticket prices to surge.
“Regulation builds consumer confidence,” Dreyfus told CoinDesk. “Fan tokens as a very powerful digital asset class in their own right [are] growing, and with more confidence and visibility comes more demand.”
Socios.com received regulatory approval to offer virtual currencies and digital wallets for its fan engagement and rewards platform from Italian regulators on August 5, expanding the multinational’s presence in southern Europe. The company, which currently serves 1.5 million users, has already started to make progress in Italy, one of Europe’s biggest sports markets, through a partnership with football clubs AC Milan, Inter Milan, Napoli, AS Roma and Juventus to create team-specific fan tickets.
The global fan ticket market cap is just over $440 million at the time of publication, up about 97% since last month, according to data from fan ticket website FanMarketCap.
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Elizabeth Napolitano is a news reporter at CoinDesk.
Elizabeth Napolitano is a news reporter at CoinDesk.
