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McLaren Racing have been a pioneer in Web3, in the sports industry.

The breadth and depth of their activations is unprecedented and they have one of the most mature teams and strategies when it comes to Web3 in all of sports.

Formula 1 (F1) has exploded in popularity over the last 6 years, and teams have started to compete off the grid. That competition has spread to crypto partnerships and activations, with F1 being one of the sports where crypto marketing dollars are being spent. McLaren have so far put those marketing dollars to best use, for the most sustained period.

McLaren’s Web3 strategy spans back almost three years and continues on a far bigger stage to this day. For those unfamiliar, here is is a chronological breakdown of their activities in Web3 to date:

The Success of 23/23 Digital Collectibles

The key pillar for McLaren’s Web3 success so far has undoubtedly been 23/23, their free digital collectible program launched at the start of the 2023 F1 season.

The concept was simple.

At every Grand Prix in 2023, fans were able to log into a portal and claim a digital collectible poster commemorating that respective race.

The results throughout the 2023 season were staggering.

As per our McLaren Racing 23/23 report, McLaren saw over 2.8 million digital collectibles claimed, over 850,000 wallets (accounts) created with over 620,000 unique wallets (accounts) holding collectibles.

Some of this success is attributed to the simple sign-up process, allowing fans to sign up with any social media account or their non-custodial wallet.

To date, it is one of the most successful Web3 activations by a brand ever — let alone in sports.

The success has been funnelled into various digital channels by McLaren.

A large volume of new McLaren Plus sign-ups throughout the 2023 season is attributed to free digital collectible holders. McLaren Plus is their free-to-join fan engagement programme.

In terms of communication, McLaren’s Discord is their primary means of reaching existing collectible holders. This Discord server has reached 70,000+ people in size and is predominantly dominated by fans who have claimed McLaren digital collectibles. This server has more engagement than their 13m+ Instagram page.

McLaren have looked to build on their success in 2023 with another free collectible program in 2024, this time with crypto exchange and sponsor OKX.

Dubbed ‘Race Rewind’, fans can claim a digital collectible via a dashboard on a OKX dashboard.

Fans click on the relevant race and then click claim. They are then prompted to download the OKX/sign in via OKX, or connect via their wallet. Fans can claim the collectibles for 4 days, spanning from the day before race weekend, and the day after the race weekend finishes.

The proposition has been built on OKX’s blockchain, X Layer, and officially began during the Canadian Grand Prix on the 7th of June 2024, the 9th race of the 2024 season.

The Canada Grand Prix (GP) saw 112,209 free claims of the digital collectibles.

Since then, there have been five races with digital collectibles available:

The numbers here are solid, and in line with the type of activity that McLaren were generating per race in their 2023 season.

Each digital collectible is dynamic, evolving after each race into a specific rarity: ‘Classic’, ‘Rare’ or ‘Ultra-Rare’.

Classic collectibles do not have prizes attached to them and are simply commemorative. Rare collectibles unlock an exclusive tour of McLaren’s Technology Centre and Ultra Rare collectibles unlock a free McLaren cap. These perks must be claimed within 3 weeks of claiming.

This is a key difference between the two campaigns—the more instant nature of the prizes. In the 23/23 campaign, prizes were handed out to fans who had completed certain sets of collectibles at the end of the 2023 season, including the 23/23 full collection claimed by a few thousand people.

Further to their Race Rewind proposition — McLaren could look to their new partner Mastercard to diversify their Web3 strategy.

Although not confirmed to have any Web3 element to the partnership, Mastercard have recently leveraged partnerships with sports brands to include them in their ‘Pass to Priceless’ Web3 loyalty program. Right now, they have five different baseball-related live programs available and previously had ones linked to the PGA Tour and the UEFA Champions League. Considering the large Web3 literate audience that McLaren have built out, it would be a surprise to see Mastercard not create a program around select Grands Prix. (We have covered Pass to Priceless here and here).

McLaren Racing have executed at a very strong level up to this point when it comes to their Web3 propositions. They have clarity of thought, strong strategic abilities and most importantly have delivered pretty seamless experiences.

(Ps. I interviewed their Head of Web3 Max Wolfe in Season 1 of the Pod)

An improvement in their Race Rewind proposition compared to the 23/23 program is seen in the push of rewards during the program and not siloing them into a post-season activity. The instant nature of this gratification is wise because younger audiences are used to this with everyday uses of social media and gaming. There is naturally much attrition when running something for an entire season. An example of this is the EPL’s flagship fantasy game ‘Fantasy Premier League’ which sees up to 10m users sign up at the start of the season, but of those ~20% finish the season. Therefore, a regular cadence of prize opportunities makes sense.

On the other hand, there are some areas where McLaren have regressed. An example of this is the fact they started this campaign in June 2024 rather than March 2024, which is when the F1 season started. This means 8 races were not taken advantage of with the campaign. In addition to this, the user experience was more seamless in 23/23, built on the Tezos blockchain. The onboarding and sign-on process was easier than it is in Race Rewind via the OKX platform, but perhaps this should be expected as there are stringent regulatory requirements for exchanges, and their goal with this partnership is to try and open new accounts who in turn trade NFTs or cryptocurrencies. Stringent regulatory requirements don’t always lead to flawless user experience.

Overall, McLaren are still showing best-in-class Web3 capabilities in the sports industry. Where they go from here, will be fascinating to follow and they have a strong opportunity to become a flagship brand in this space. The worry and risk could be that they end up with too many partnerships that perhaps cannibalise each other, or that their resources are stretched and thus executing poorly.

More importantly, it will be interesting to see how they develop concepts that are more holistic, engaging and innovative than their free digital collectible initiatives so far. What is the aggregation application that acts as the ‘Sun’ at the centre of McLaren’s digital empire, and how important is blockchain to that?

Web3 loyalty very much feels like a 2023 buzzword, but McLaren are well placed to create something that leverages their already huge Web3 literate audience.

What this ‘something’ is and how it balances commercial viability with real fan engagement will be a challenge, but should also be viewed as a huge opportunity.

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