Italian soccer team ACF Fiorentina celebrates its first 95 years with an exclusive NFT exhibition in a virtual metaverse.
The exhibition has been realized thanks to the collaboration with Arium, which curated the Metaverse, and Genuino Blockchain Technologies, which will instead curate the sale of the NFTs, whose illustrations are attributed to Florence’s International School of Comics.
“When Football meets the metaverse,” Fiorentina’s NFT exhibition
The collection on display is called Viola 9.5 and includes as many as 200,000 NFTs, divided into 11 chapters that summarize the history of Fiorentina.
Exhibited in the Arium metaverse, they were previewed yesterday to journalists in a unique press conference. Arium, in fact, has created a real arena, with a museum area where you can move, going from an NFT of Dante to the reproduction of the historical jerseys of the purple.
Doing the honors was Rick Stack, of Genuino who presented the area set up, pointing out that this is the first time that a sporting event takes place in a metaverse, which, he says:
“It’s like the real world; you can go around, engage with the product and NFT and have a discussion.”
Dan Oved, the co-founder of Arium, introduced the exhibition space.
“Arium is a fully customizable 3d platform. Connecting with sports fans is an exciting and really interesting concept. I’m thrilled about the future of this technology. It’s an exciting way to connect things around the football club.”
Gabriele Bernasconi, the co-founder of Genuino, instead went into detail about the partnership with Fiorentina. It must be said that Genuino and ACF Fiorentina have been collaborating since 2019 when they used blockchain technology to certify authenticity in the sale of game jerseys. From this first step came the desire to do something different, something innovative, which, says the co-founder of Genuino, they did not expect to present in a metaverse:
“We decided to move away from the certification arena to bring fans inside the NFT space. The occasion was the 95th anniversary, and we decided together to create a storytelling of the entire history of Fiorentina, with a collection of NFT, with the different jerseys, something different from any other project on the market, because it connects physical and digital worlds. The physical products represent a limited edition with which we give fans access to exclusive events, connecting brands and consumers around the world.”
Joe Barone, general manager of the soccer team.
“We decided to go on with something engaging to our fan to celebrate our 95-year history. Innovation should be part of the whole process.”
Max Monteduro, who oversaw the creation of the NFTs, said it was a first for him, which he also intended to celebrate by making non-fungible tokens representing Dante Alighieri.
“Viola 9.5 represents a real innovation in the world of art and football.
Dante is my first NFT, and I’m very happy for this opportunity given to me thanks to Genuino and Fiorentina.”
First drop in progress
On Genuino’s marketplace, the sale of the first NFTs has already started. They take the form of packages, in small numbers, containing NFTs and physical jerseys.
Each package is different; each collection and series is diverse so that fans will have access to exclusive, unique, and limited content.
All for the modest price of 5 euros, or 6.12 XDAI
Soccer and cryptocurrencies
The press conference was also an opportunity to talk about the future of cryptocurrencies in the world of soccer.
A turning point came with the arrival of Leo Messi at Paris Saint-Germain. The “flea,” in fact, had a sort of entry bonus in fan tokens, inaugurating a new payment system for footballers.
Will the same happen in Italy? A bit like what is happening in the world of NBA or NFL, where several athletes are paid in bitcoin.
Joe Barone has shown himself open to this turn of events:
“Everything is open for the future; the more I look at American sports, which I consider leaders and innovators, the more attention they gain, the more they can reach Europe and the Italian market. It depends on the attention they get. Right now, I don’t know if it will happen, but I think it will happen.”
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