Chiliz and UFC Partner to Foster Greater Fan-Engagement Through Blockchain
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the world-leading mixed martial arts (MMA) organization has partnered with blockchain sports company Chiliz to foster greater engagement between UFC fans and their favorite fighters.
Chiliz Goes MMA With UFC Partnership
UFC announced the news of the partnership via a press release issued on May 7, 2020. According to the press statement, Chiliz will aid UFC to tap into a captive audience of enthusiastic sports fans the world over. The exclusive partnership will also help create countless opportunities to grow the UFC brand through promotional activity on the Socios.com platform.
As part of the partnership, owners of both, Fan Tokens and $CHZ – the native digital token of Chiliz – will have access to UFC merchandise. Notably, they will also be able to buy tickets to UFC MMA fights.
For the UFC hierarchy, the collaboration with Chiliz is part of the efforts to expand the MMA brand around the world. In recent years, the UFC has catapulted the MMA scene into one of the most successful sports entertainment brands with over 318 million fans worldwide and its athletes like Conor McGregor and Khabib Nuramagomedov recognized the world over.
UFC will be hoping to leverage the growing popularity of cryptos in general and the Chiliz platform in particular to spur fan engagement. Chiliz and its voting and rewards app, Socios.com, has been at the heart of leading cryptocurrency adoption in the sports scene.
Commenting on the new deal with Chiliz, UFC vice-president global partnerships, Nicolas Smith, remarked:
“Chiliz and Socios.com are industry leaders in blockchain based fan engagement and our two companies share a common philosophy to always ‘be first,’ so we are thrilled to begin this new partnership. UFC continually strives to enhance the fan experience and we are looking forward to working with the team on innovative and unique ways to achieve this goal.”
UFC has a history of promoting crypto adoption with the Litecoin Foundation partnering with the company back in 2018 to sponsor one of its events. Earlier in the year, the combat sports franchise also inked a deal with Dapper Labs to create UFC-branded tokenized collectibles.
Tokenizing the Global Sports Arena
The UFC partnership is only the latest in a string of strategic collaborations with sports brands across the world. As previously reported by BTCManager, Chiliz has partnered with many popular European football clubs like Juventus, Galatasaray, and Paris Saint Germain.
Back in February 2020, the blockchain sports company inked a deal with Spanish football giants Barcelona to launch a digital fan engagement program. With the Barca Fan Token ($BAR), Chiliz allows fans to participate in the club’s decision-making process.
While creating avenues for tokenized sports merchandising, Chiliz is also working modalities for increasing the utility of these tokens. Back in February 2020, Socios.com launched a blockchain-based verification solution dubbed SociosID for easy transactions with the company’s native $CHZ crypto.
