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The first competition is the Premier League opener against Fulham on 16 August. It is fully based on the real-life actions of Manchester United players, including goals, assists, tackles, and saves.
Popular football club Manchester United (Man U) has introduced an innovative project that Integrates Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with an interactive football experience. Dubbed “Fantasy United”, Man U plans to leverage this project to deliver integration and commitment to its fans. Notably, this marks the Premier League’s first Web3 fantasy football game.
Introducing Fantasy United and Player Trading Cards
With Fantasy United, which is built on the Tezos blockchain, fans can collect “Player Trading Cards” and form fantasy squads. In the long run, this leads to enhanced fan engagement and modernized football fandom. The cards feature all first-team players from the men’s squad in Classic, Rare, and Ultra-Rare editions.
Noteworthy, those who own the club’s original digital collection also known as Devil Holders, have had access to the cards since July 29. Other fans can now begin to collect theirs. The Player Trading Cards are sold in packs of seven for £3 which is approximately $3.84. For every pack opened, a fan could get all members of Erik ten Hag’s senior squad, including new summer signings Joshua Zirkzee and Leny Yoro.
Each card carries a unique hand-drawn design. As the real-time stats change throughout the 2024/25 season, the cards are updated to carry the same data. Fans can create a five-man squad to earn points in the brand-new Web3 fantasy football game. Squads then compete against squads in a mini-league across all competitions to earn more in-game points.
The first competition is the Premier League opener against Fulham on 16 August. It is fully based on the real-life actions of Manchester United players, including goals, assists, tackles, and saves. Along the line, fans will receive updates on who the most selected players are across the community.
Partnership between Manchester United and Tezos Blockchain
It is worth noting that Manchester United’s partnership with Tezos blockchain has spanned for a couple of years. In 2022, the UEFA Champion League winner unveiled a £20 million per year training kit sponsorship with Tezos. At the time, Man U saw the deal with the blockchain company as a confidence booster. It confidently noted that the partnership will go beyond the training kits to explore the technology space. This includes Web 3.0 and Metaverse to maximize opportunities.
Their alliance has not scaled up without a few hurdles. Less than a year after the £20 million deal, Manchester United and Tezos blockchain faced an NFT infringement suit. The duo were accused of copying monsters’ NFT traits belonging to Lucrece for the Manchester United 7,777 digital collectibles. The suit ended amicably with Lucrece stating that the resolution should be beneficial for everyone involved.
This latest introduction of Fantasy United and Player Trading Cards is an indication that the football club still has its foot deep in the Web 3.0 ecosystem. It also reflects the progressive fusion of blockchain technology and other sectors, in this case, sports.
