Crypto FC: NFTs, hand dryers and big promises

Barely visible behind the trees that line the exit road from the motorway, the People's Pension Stadium in Crawley is not the obvious setting for a new frontier in the whirlwind romance between football and cryptocurrency.

But the fourth-tier English club that plays in the 6,000-capacity ground, Crawley Town, were bought out by US-based cryptocurrency group Wagmi United earlier this month. 

Daryl Morey, president of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, businessman Gary Vaynerchuk and YouTuber Bryce Hall are among those involved in the consortium, with co-founders Preston Johnson and Eben Smith taking the lead roles at the club.

"At Crawley Town, we're going to shake up the status quo, try out some new ideas, and build a worldwide community of fans new and old that can be excited to cheer on the Red Devils together — stretching from West Sussex [the county that Crawley is in] to anywhere in the world with an internet connection," said Johnson, a former sports betting analyst.

So, why Crawley? "That will be the first question I ask next time we speak," Steve Leake, from the Crawley Town Supporters Alliance, told DW. Leake has been a fan of the club for 66 years and was the fan representative to previous owner, Turkish steel magnate Ziya Eren. 

Questions, questions

When the question was posed to Johnson in a fan Q&A on YouTube released on April 16, he said: "The club has a tonne of untapped potential that hasn't been realized yet using the conventional ownership model. We think we can take it to the next level. It's important though to us that Crawley Town is a community club, we're committed to that."

It's not quite clear what is specific to Crawley about those factors. Leake said that the session answered some of the many questions fans had including: that the club was bought using cash rather than bitcoin, that it was not "tied to the volatility of bitcoin," and that Wagmi will clear the club's debts. But the fan representative feels "more clarity" is required, while noting that it's early days in the takeover.

Wagmi United tried to buy Bradford City, also in League Two but with a more successful past, before Crawley. But the deal broke down at the last minute, largely due to fan concern over the perceived role NFTs (non-fungible tokens) would play in the club's future. 

NFTs, essentially 'unique' digital assets such as videos or playing cards to be traded, and cryptocurrencies have quickly taken root at the top level of football. FIFA and UEFA both have crypto partners and clubs around the world have offered NFTs, some with fan experiences attached.

While some make the holders money upon sale, several have quickly lost up to 90% of their value in a volatile market. As such, there is a significant amount of skepticism about how quick an industry financially ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic has been to jump in to bed with a new, unregulated and decentralized currency.

The support of clubs and players is often seen as endorsement and legitimization of an asset that is anything but safe.

A new way?

"I know crypto is a scary word. NFTs, no one really knows what they are," admitted Johnson in the Q&A. "Hopefully people understand that this is still pretty formal, we've done it in the traditional way. We're just trying to bring some cool concepts and add them to the structure that already exists."

The English lower league is scattered with examples of clubs who have been taken over by ambitious owners with grand plans that have stalled, failed and then often been abandoned. Wagmi, for their part, have promised to get Crawley promoted by the end of their second full season and say they would hold an election for Johnson and Smith's co-chairman positions should they fail. However, it's somewhat unclear whether votes would come from the Wagmi board or club fans.

The takeover seems almost certain to redefine what a Crawley Town fan is and, if successful, could do the same to the sport in a broader sense. Unlike at the top end of football, Crawley have next to no fanbase outside their immediate geographical location and their average attendance is just over 2,000.

The town itself, 45km south of London, was built after the Second World War as the British government tried to move jobs and people out of the capital. It has a population of just over 100,000 and aside from being the birthplace of rock band, The Cure, and the place where England manager Gareth Southgate went to school, has little global or national presence.

With no broader profile to sell NFTs to a global audience, Wagmi's model essentially seems to be to leave the existing fans broadly as they are (with promises to improve the matchday experience) and try to cash in on the novelty of Crawley being the first crypto-owned football club in order to create revenue streams through customers attached to the crypto/NFT industry, rather than the club.  

Crypto or Crawley fan?

"It doesn't really work out trying to force NFTs on your existing fanbase," said Smith. "So what we're trying to do is different. We're not trying to sell NFTs to Crawley Town supporters, that would be crazy and arrogant, to be honest. We're bringing a professional football club, Crawley Town FC, to people who already love NFTs."

Leake, who has seen numerous owners come and go, some whose mismanagement brought Crawley points deductions and huge financial issues, is fairly relaxed about the new model, despite the possibility that crypto fans could become more important to the club than Crawley fans.

"[Previous owner] Ziya was a steel magnate. We weren't asked to buy steel. He used money from that to keep us going. To me, it's just another business."

Crawley's chequered ownership history, and the prevalence of English lower league clubs running at significant losses under current structures, seems to have made elements of the fanbase open to the idea of change. Wagmi have certainly not hung about, suspending and investigating popular manager John Yems a little over two weeks after taking control concerning "serious and credible accusations" over "discriminatory language and behavior toward our players." 

Decisions big and small

Wagmi have also made a point of emphasizing their committment to the community, to the local fan experience and to the area. But fan questions on hand dryers in the men's toilets, queues at the bars and the uses for the car park in the Q&A illustrate the importance of the more everyday issues.

How hands on Wagmi will be, and how much they will listen to the existing fanbase is unclear, though Johnson has notably stopped short of offering a fan presence on the board.

Steve Leake's son, David, added that, given that the council owns the club's stadium and they train at a semi-professional team's training ground, there aren't really a lot of assets to strip from Crawley. He believes this means the risk of them being the canaries in the crypto ownership mine is reduced, making the upside more enticing to some.

Pioneers and pitfalls

"A lot of opposing fans want us to fail. Because if it ultimately succeeds, it'll be groundbreaking in terms of football in this country," he said. "And that, I think, is the risk, isn't it? I think a lot of fans were probably as equally excited as they were fearful. Because it's such a new thing."

"I would have thought no one would be looking at us thinking 'there's a way to make loads of money'. I can only believe that they actually genuinely want UK football as part of their portfolio. And ultimately, they want us to be successful."

Steve Leake feels similarly, though father and son say a lot depends on Wagmi's answers to a number of outstanding questions. Johnson is due to visit Crawley next week and fans will be hoping for more clarity as the season winds up. But after 66 years watching Crawley at a number of different grounds and in all sorts of different leagues, stoicism is built in.

"There's an old cliche about this: it's the fans who make the club. Managers, players, chairmen depart at some point but we are still there. I think they're making all the right noises at the moment but we'll see what their actions are."

Suddenly, it's not just football fans from Crawley who want to find out what's next.

Edited by: Matt Ford