What do football fans think of fan tokens?

In recent years, a number of elite football clubs have started partnering with cryptocurrency firms to offer “fan tokens”: digital assets that use blockchain technology to provide supporters with exclusive content, rewards, experiences and (in some cases) even voting rights. There’s some evidence to suggest the offerings have been commercially successful: BBC reporting indicated that £262m had been spent on the virtual currencies as of December 2021.

But with the new Premier League campaign underway, YouGov polling of 2,000 football fans shows that most supporters don’t own fan tokens, don’t know what they are, and haven’t even heard of them. Some three-quarters (77%) say they are completely unfamiliar with the concept of fan tokens – while 8% say they recognise the term but are unable to precisely define it, and 9% say they recognise the term but are not entirely sure what it means. Just 5% say they know what fan tokens are, and less than 1% say they personally own them.

Among football fans who have heard of fan tokens, opinion leans more negative than positive. While one in nine say they would have a better opinion of a club that offered fan tokens (11%), one in three (29%) say their opinion would worsen – although nearly half say it would make no difference either way (46%) and 14% simply don’t know.

With this in mind, it’s perhaps unsurprising that just 6% of those who have heard of fan tokens say they are likely to buy them in the next year, with 73% saying they are unlikely to do so.

Among those who have heard of fan tokens and have some idea of what they are (removing those who have heard of them but have no idea what they are and those who have not heard of them at all), nearly two-thirds say they represent poor value for money (63%), with just 7% saying they represent good value for money.

Methodology

YouGov polled 2,000 British football fans online on 31 July between 14:57 and 17:47 BST. The survey was carried out through YouGov Direct. Data is weighted by age, gender, education level, region, and social grade. The margin of error is 2% for the overall sample. Learn more about YouGov Direct. 

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