How a Football Club Onboarded Thousands of Fans to Web3 With One Tap

About Eintracht Frankfurt

The German football club Eintracht Frankfurt is renowned for its dedicated fan base and innovative approach to enhancing the fan experience. EintrachtTech GmbH, its digital subsidiary, is behind a number of cutting-edge initiatives, including developing its own club software, data analytics, IoT projects, running its own esports academy, and organizing a tech conference ‘Block im Park’ that brings together blockchain experts and enthusiasts across different industries.

The Challenge

• Let fans own a piece of the club's history as a physical object (a stadium seat) and its digital representation (a non-fungible token)
• Equip tech-agnostic audience with blockchain wallets without relying on complex jargon-laden tutorials or requiring extensive technical support

The Solution

• Blockchain wallets hidden in a branded card that give users access to their digital collectibles on Polygon PoS 
• Onboarding is a single tap of the Eintracht Frankfurt x youba wallet against the smartphone using the ubiquitous NFC interface

The Result

• Close to 4,000 wallets created, each equipped with its own digital seat collectible
• A deeper bond forged between the fans and the club thanks to technology

Stadium Seats and Their Digital Twins

When the stadium underwent seat refurbishment, Eintracht saw an opportunity to let fans own a piece of the club's past and future history in the form of a physical seat and its digital representation. The digital collectibles allow fans to more easily showcase and compare their dedication to the club using only their smartphones. In order to accomplish this, blockchain's complexities had to be abstracted for a lay audience to maximize the conversion rate.

The blockchain wallets were hidden in branded cards that fans could tap against their smartphones for one-stop onboarding to Web3. A Eintracht Frankfurt x youba_ wallet interfaces with the mobile phone’s NFC chip to generate a private key. The private key is written to the card's microchip, while youba_'s backend receives the wallet's public address to assign a new owner to the digital seat. At the end of the season, every owner of a digital seat will receive an airdrop based on his or her stadium visits during the 2023/24 season.

"What was crucial for us was that fans didn't need any prior knowledge of blockchain technology or cryptocurrency. Thanks to youba's innovative approach, we were able to achieve exactly that." -- Julien Zamberk, Managing Director of Eintracht Frankfurt Stadion GmbH

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