Los Angeles Football Club Launches Loyalty Club, Utilising Blockchain

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Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) have launched a loyalty program that looks to incorporate blockchain technology.

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Los Angeles Football Club Launches Loyalty Club, Utilising Blockchain

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Loyalty is the buzzword that is pulsating throughout the Web3 world right now.

And to be honest, I didn’t think we’d see too many sports examples in the short term.

This is for a plethora of reasons but mostly because the sport industry is so far behind when it comes to tech.

This newsletter covers:

⚽ LAFC Loyalty Program Breakdown🤔The loyalty conundrum in sports🟢The Greenfield advantage🧠 Concluding thoughts

👾 LAFC Loyalty Program

NEAR Foundation, the foundation behind the layer 1 blockchain NEAR, have announced a partnership between Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) and Dropt — a fan engagement platform built on the NEAR.

This is to ‘support the club’s vision to rewrite the playbook on the fan experience’

The collaboration kicks off with LAFC Gold — a Loyalty Club. 

The press release read:

LAFC Gold has started by launching a ticket giveaway to a game between LAFC and Inter Miami, including the experience of holding the American Flag during the National Anthem before the match.

(Of course, every MLS team is looking to capitalise when Lionel Messi comes to town!) 

For the last three home matches of the season, including the local derby against LA Galaxy this past weekend, LAFC Gold has given away 4 premium tickets with pre-match field access to winning LAFC Gold Members.

But what exactly is LAFC Gold?

The ‘Loyalty Club’ is aimed at enhancing the fan experience for LAFC fans.

Fans are prompted to choose from one of five tiers, one of which is a ‘global’ membership, aimed at fans that are not local to LA.

The five tiers include 1) free membership 2) local ($199) 3) global ($99) 4) youth ($49) and 5) Season Member → which is aimed at season ticket holders, or those who want to become season ticket holders.

Upon signing up for a free membership, you’re automatically enrolled into a draw to win 2 tickets with pre-match field access, and post-match player access to LAFC’s next two fixtures.

Beyond that, as a free member, the only other listed benefit is presale access to BMO Stadium concerts and other stadium events, such as international football games.

Upgrading to the global/local memberships (paid) gives you a plethora of benefits such as free/discounted tickets to LAFC 2 (the B team) matches, preferred pricing on regular season tickets and exclusive access to playoff tickets. It also gives you access to exclusive watch parties and youth team ticket priority. Global members get fewer benefits because some of them are limited to local members as they require some in-person participation.

What is Dropt, the digital engagement platform they’re using?

Dropt pitches themselves as a bridge between Web2 and Web3.

Web2 UX on crypto rails.

Their offering allows enterprises and brands to create digital scarcity, and integrate games and engagement tools → both in the digital and physical worlds.

They allow for the creation of blockchain-powered loyalty mechanics to be embedded seamlessly into fan/user journeys. They are keen to ensure users feel no friction and blockchain isn’t obtrusive to their fandom.

🤔The loyalty conundrum in sports

Football is it in the weird position where it has the most obvious target audience for a loyalty program.

Sports fans are a captive audience.

I care more about my football team than I do Starbucks, Lufthansa or British Airways but the maturity in the loyalty programs offered by all of those brands is far, far superior to my local football team.

My fandom isn’t measurable.

For many, that doesn’t matter.

But for many, it does and it will.

Your relationship as a sports fan with your team is incredibly personal. Whether you’re local or global, you express that fandom in multiple ways.

Attending games, buying merchandise, watching games, posting about games on social media, talking to your friends about the weekend’s fixtures - or having to get up at 5 a.m. to watch a game because timezones are unkind or you’re travelling.

If you’re a sports fan, you know what I mean. 

But there isn’t something mature and sophisticated enough for sports fans by the team they express that fielty to, that allows us to encompass that fandom into one journey.

There’s no consistency or flow, and no reward for your loyalty as a fan.

We as fans are a captive audience from our relationship with a team alone, and we are exploited. But we are exploited in a very fragmented, quite broken way and it feels weird.

🟢The Greenfield advantage

What LAFC are trying to do here is piece that fragmented journey together.

Blockchain could be the answer here because of the immediacy it can deliver via digitally native, ownable content… or because of its provenance and permanence… or even authentication (ticketing/merchandise).

But it does feel like tech in sports is so far away, that making the leap direct to Web3, seems, well… an even bigger leap.

And now, this is much easier to do when you’re LAFC, who have a history spanning to 2014, 6 years after I first got Facebook. In fact, MLS as a league is quite young. The league was founded in 1993 and many of the franchises within it, like LAFC, were founded in the last 20 years.

In 2005, MLS began a significant expansion phase, nearly doubling in size from 10 teams in 2004 to 19 teams in 2014. Since then, the league has expanded from those 19 teams to a 29-team league in 2023.

If you’re in this bucket, your tech stack is not old and you’re not trying to reconfigure old plumbing.

You’re not hindered by 20-year contracts with vendors who have no incentive to transform your digital experience.

LAFC, like many MLS franchises, are in a position where they can reimagine the fan journey from the top down because… they’re new.

They have the opportunity to create something that allows fans to have a competent fan journey that connects the disparate ways they express that fandom.

🧠 Concluding thoughts

So far, this launch is most definitely an MVP.

The press release does outline that this is the beginning and that there will be more here, but one constructive bit of feedback I have is the lack of perks for free members.

The jump from free to paid seems huge in terms of the offering, and aside from the raffle for free tickets, there is little incentive for you to join as a free member other than to look around, as I did!

I also think this feels quite ‘old school’.

There is a lot of focus on the actual team and game, merchandising discounts and such but there doesn’t seem to be anything that allows for LAFC fans to express or track fandom in a meaningful way that may lead to experiences/perks in the future.

There’s a lot of ‘here’s what you get’ and perhaps not enough of the gamified, Gen-Z style framing that goes a little like ‘you get this once you ____’. 

I’m sure that will come, with time - but for now, the perks themselves seem fairly standard and what you’d expect from a football membership. But, considering there is a partnership with a blockchain and a sophisticated digital vendor — you'd expect this to develop substantially over the next 12 months.

I will be honest though, when I first heard Loyalty Club, I thought of something more radical.

More transient. More out there, generally.

So let’s see if we get that down the line.

With a blockchain, LAFC can start connecting the dots internally — but also start to join them up externally. The partners they have, and will have in the future, can be connected from the ground up with their fanbase.

The missing ingredient I feel for many sports teams exploring loyalty is that they’re thinking too much about them.

That feels weird I know, but what if your LAFC fandom gave you rewards and opportunities, or connected you to LA-based brands in a permissionless way?

Your on-chain proof of fandom suddenly becomes a physical ticket or a digital pass that opens a plethora of doors, all permissionless through an LAFC open-source loyalty program.

Far-fetched, or the future? 

I’m not sure.

I think the former, but perhaps something along the lines of what LAFC are trying to build will surprise and delight in the near future.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how blockchain is integrated into the loyalty club and just how much of the activations and perks are digitally native.

I’m especially curious to see if there’s anything that LAFC do for global members specifically that can utilise digital content to engage them and attract new fans.

Either way, this is definitely not the last league or team looking at blockchain from a loyalty perspective.

When execs of these entities see the likes of Nike, Starbucks and Lufthansa moving quickly (and successfully) in this space, you have their attention.

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