SportFi: Reshaping Sports Block-by-Block With PSG and Chiliz l KBW2024

[Music] yeah thank you for that introduction yeah very exciting very excited to be here um welcome to the Chile's and PSG panel talk we'll be talking about how sportfy is reshaping the World of Sports as introduced my name is Aang shin and I am a sports announcer and sports reporter here in Korea and I am joined by two two incredible Visionaries who are reshaping and redefining Sports fandom using technology so Alex trus founder and CEO of Chile's and Par hogenson head of web 3 and metaverse at pis okay so we're very excited to have you um oh there's so many things that I want to um cover but before we start do you want to maybe say a quick hello to all of our audiences I'm going to start in French maybe I could say bonjour because it's for Paris and German uh thank you very much uh for allowing us to be here again this year and I hope we're going to help you to understand a bit more what is sports F and what is chilies as well and of course PSG shimika pleasure to be here par helgason from phg I head up web 3 metaverse gaming on chain uh powered by AI so my role is to navigate how we engage with the fan base the men's team the women's team um theems uh yeah so that's that's my role really right we'll delve into a little bit more about that later but it's so nice to have you both here and it's nice to have you back Alex because you were here for KBW 2023 right we've been here together I think even last year with Alex delpo right that's very true that's very true and a year ped and since then um Chile has been expanding its presence globally and especially in Korea which I will get to later uh but before we talk about all that progress that you're currently making I think it's good to go back and just kind of look at the journey that you've been through because when you first started Chili's there were no fan tokens there were no socios.com Chili's created the fan tokens and Chili's created its own blockchain the Chili's change which now has become the home to an extremely exciting vertical called sport five so I think yes that that's the idea actually six years and a half ago uh we created Chile's at that point chilies was just a token now fast forward we are an ecosystem where you have more than 80 sports team uh including the K League here uh we have we work with um football team like Paris s gerain Toton Hotspurs and many others and our job is very simple we don't want to change the world we don't want to change the finance industry we just want to be who we are today which is the number one sports sports and entertainment web three company uh in the world and when we started we invented this concept of fund tokens which are not nfts they are fible crypto assets that give you some vote and some right on the decision of the club and that worked out pretty well and now we are I think almost 300 people all over the world uh and we are very big in in in Korea and and some other countries in in but Korea always has been key for us right right so where is Chile now you did briefly mention where you want it to be the number one fan tokens and to make not necessarily difference but kind of change how the clubs are reacting with the fans right so where are you guys currently I I think we um I mean we are number one today in what we do which is indeed originally the fan tokens but now we want to become number one as a as a layer one which we are as an evm layer one dedicated to sports and entertainment so the the main investment we are doing is in that space is how we can help Sports property like P and others to connect with their loyalty uh I mean with their fan base how they can monetize them how they can engage more and we think that blockchain uh can help that because it helps people to be connected globally thanks to this this centralization right right and of course you talked about these changes right and at the core of these all these developments is technology right and um so I think Chile's were one of the very first to realize the Synergy that can happen when technology and sports emerge and they were definitely the first to act on it um making changes and that is a mark of a true Pioneer which the term I think is not foreign to PSG as well because PSG has always been at the Forefront of change an example is that PSG was the first football club to appoint the head of web 3 which is you right hello that's right I think so what what does that job entail I'm just curious so the head of web three one way to look at it is um we also had before I came in uh head of lifestyle and so we were a football club leading we were uh the Premier Club in France and we wanted to cross the bridge over into becoming a lifestyle and I think think um PSG is the club of the new generation many clubs talk about their how old they are we talk about how young we are and and we talk about the future uh so this role is an example of the club almost future proofing the engagement which is why we're here so Korea Korea is a massive market for us in all ways uh K Lee as you know is one of our you know key players and uh the way we look at it is we have N More Than 92% of our fan bases is outside of France 2012 we had 92% of the fan base inside of France so in in in many countries in our social channels like Brazil and and in other markets uh we we're super strong and and actually bigger than we are in France so this is a way for the club and that supporter the role to engage not only brand communication that we're leading on in a web two way but also lead in a web 3 way uh to Brand engage if you will so yeah and that's where actually blockchain crypto in general is helpful I'll take Korea as an example as par said there is a very famous Korean players in Paris s Germain what can Korean fans do to get closer to their team or get closer to their players of course you can follow on social media that's a one-way relationship you can if you are lucky go to Paris and watch a match that's very limited few thousand a year maximum um but thanks to digital and in our case thanks to fun tokens you can get a little a bit closer so when we created in 2019 the Paris sgain fan token it gave the rights to funds all over the world to actually participate in some basic but fan related decision it gives the right to PG fans here in the in the room today to actually win tickets to go and see their favorite team so the whole point of the tokenization uh and the whole point of fun tokens the whole point of web tree is to give access to fun all over the world to their favorite brand uh you could argue that Meme coins are fun tokens for digital Community well PG fun token is a fun token for PG fans it's more or less the same it's just one has 100 million plus fan base the other is a bit smaller maybe more active for the time being but the idea is that blockchain give you the this access that never existed before right because uh and that's something that is really close to my heart the sort of changing relationship of of how the clubs treat the fans because I am an avid football fan myself and I've I mean it's I made a career out of it but never did I think that the clubs would actually value my input I thought it was very much one way I mean does as as someone from PSG do you sense that sort of change in how the clubs treat or engage with the fans yes so this is one part of the role and and the signal for all of you which is why again we're here is that um looking forward being forward looking um the next or the new generation of football fans we simply need to engage uh not only in the traditional way which we will continue to do but also in a new way in new channels in Virtual channels and building a direct relationship so if we can tokenize and engage offline activities and events and matches right and experiences and online and on chain that data set we absolutely want to capture and make decisions on but also to serve be in the service of the fans and to co-create and do things with our fan base in ways that we really could couldn't really do before right and and so this is um this is actually one of the key things that we want to explore also with with with uh Alex and his team moving forward and just talking about business or business of football you know the four pillars of Revenue of or mainly TV sponsorship at least in Europe um ticketing what we call Match Day sponsoring and then merchandising the fifth pillar now is becoming more and more digital but digital is the one and the only one who can eventually really grow globally you cannot sell much more merchandise globally you cannot sell more tickets for sure TV sponsoring it's already at a ceiling at least in France and sponsors you cannot have much more logos on the Jersey so you do need to have an offer that is really Global and that's where what we do and what others are doing in the sport F industry makes sense right right I do want to talk a little bit more about the partnership between the two parties involved Chili's and PSG because you guys go way back right PSG was the first Club to partner with Chili's to issue their fan tokens on socios.com and that was six years ago when a cryptocurrency or blockchain hadn't really entered the public vocabulary so it was very early and very Innovative in in every sense of the word so I mean you have this history of collaborating and creating all these Synergy so if we look ahead and moving forward how do you think your partnership will impact the relationship between sports and blockchain we we we go so back uh that at that time he had he didn't have gray hair and I had hair that's how whole relationship started um so now the the PG was the first Club to sign uh with us and was a lot of work at that time we are talking 2018 so we we signed that deal in August 2018 so long time ago uh and you know the the most difficult one is always the first one um I think we both company managed to understand the needs of each other they they understood what we were trying to achieve uh we understood that they needed to get closer to their fund base to try to generate new revenue streams and that worked well it did it did inspire a lot of other clubs all over the world I think PG today is still the number one club in term of rape tree initiative either with us with crypto exchanges with owner Partners they have so that that's a really active brand in that space um and and I hope we're going to do more but you know everything is about learning how to use the technology uh the technology that we have today objectively is more or less the same that we had six years ago yet we are doing more today than six years ago why because we are trying to educate we are learning we are learning how to work with clubs as well it's difficult I can tell you that and so we we we need to scale this what about you par uh do you think that many other organizations will follow the path that PSG and Chili's are currently Paving well like Alex said we already began that that journey and and we will continue now and and becoming a node validator on the chain to say it's an example of that where we were the first one having a PSD fan token and try to understand how to use that and engage that and now since you built the platform and and we wanted to engage uh with the underlying infrastructure and so this is one one way to to learn and to innovate together and I think many clubs have started to do this in different ways and I think the way we look at it is one part of innovation is is inside and that's been a part of the club it's a part of our DNA uh and one part is is having Innovation partners outside that we innovate together and one way that we're going to do this moving forward is you have a platform you have an ecosystem of integrated products and services and partners and this is a great way for us to to explore and and and to engage in in Faster new ways uh that we couldn't do ourselves we're a football club and you know at the core right right um you talked briefly about PSG being a validator for Chili's can you tell us really briefly what that means well for because Chile is a layer one uh it's an evm layer one we wanted to have all or most of the validators the node validators so the blockchain governance being controlled eventually first being decentralized and but through the control of Nod being um run by Sports property so PG and that's something we've done uh six months ago I will say but PG is the first sports property ever to run a node or validator on a blockchain uh and so now they are part of of the governance my dream at least as a Founder is that in 10 years two years whatever we'll have hundreds of sports property that will run validators because then the blockchain will be fully decentralized towards the sports industry uh and every participant either as a fan who is a token holder or as a club who can become as well a nod is getting an economic exposure or a potential value out of what is being created and that's very interesting right right very exciting things happening for both PSG and for Chili's and speaking of we're going to talk about your increasing presence here in Korea I'm not going to say this I'm going to let you say the two very important partnership that you made happen in the past year what what were those so Chile has been present since six years plus plus in in Korea actually before covid I think I I came 15 times in Su so we always has been very present but as a product as a chain now uh it's it's much more recent so we've done two main deals one that was announced last week but I want to emphasize it a little bit more and one that was announced six months ago the first six months ago was K league so we are the official blockchain partner chilies is the official blockchain partner of the K league and right now every time that there is a match being played every time there is a goal so the bowl enter into the cage or the or the gold cage uh that bowl is being certified is being authen ated on the Chile's blockchain and then it's being given to the fans that's something we are doing in the Ser a in Italy actually right now if you watch today uh this weekend a match of Sera so AC Milan Juventus Inter Milan whatever during the match every time there is a goal there is a QR code where as soon as you see the QR code after the goal you can go and you're going to be able to win the real goal like literally the real one that's enter the cage and enter um the the score right so it's not nfts it's not nfts we use nft as a technology to certify the bowl so we put an NFC chip in the bow but it's the real bowl that you're going to get get the physical rewards yes right and it's ex what we call a real world asset nowadays the most important deal we've done was a few days ago and it took year more than a year and a half and I'm very proud to to say that today we made a deal with NE never pay never pay few days ago launched a non-custodial wallet exclusively on the chili chain today if you go on your npay application you can go and uh and create your wallet it's free obviously and for every users that goes there and create their non-custodial wallet on the Chiles chain you have a chance to win tickets for Paris s gerain AC Milan FC Barcelona we are doing few campaigns in the next two to three months where you have 50 people that's going to be able to win a full package flight hotel and the VIP experience at PG Milan and Barcelona and the reason we worked for the last year launching that with um never pay is because of course there is 33 million users 18 million a day and the goal of never pay at least from what I understood is it's not to launch another crypto wallet it was more about using blockchain and showing the utility and as you know in Korea there is so many Merchants that are using never pay we hope eventually we're going to launch some loyalty scheme where one day because I own a Paris gerain fun token in my never pay wallet I'm going to be able to have a 10% discount in the Nike shop here in the in the mall that's the kind of things we are working already with never pay and that's what we started to launch last week and I invite you to launch the app after this conversation in order to have a chance to win these tickets right and Par I think this might be our last question right the landscape of sports and how people engage Force fan engage with the clubs and with the player is definitely clearly changing so um I'm just curious ious when you first took on that role of head of web 3 what did you discuss with the club I mean what were the some of the goals that the club had when it first approached you and more importantly how did it align with your personal Visions well there were many things I think What attracted me initially is is PSG is such an iconic football club but it's also a Lifestyle brand and I think that journey is everybody in sports is trying to make that transformation into lifestyle and one of the things that they wanted and I believe in personally is they want to find new ways to engage their existing fan base but also engage building new fan bases globally because of the transformation of being the largest entity player and brand in in France in sports they become one of the biggest one globally and doing this in a new way with new fans being the club of the new generation uh this is in in many ways um um the navigational role that that Paving sort of the so so it wasn't where we had all these questions and answers fixed it was more about engaging with Alex and the Innovation partners that we have and we want to bring on board so as to both sit in the front seat figuring This Together out because nobody has really done this everybody talks about the next billion on chain we have a couple hundred million in our social Channels with the reach with the players we we talk about a couple hundred million more right and so we want to figure out almost like the natural resource the last natural resource of a club how to engage that digitally right uh and this is the only way really to do that a scale right right okay so I mean Chili's is the Strategic partner for PSG and sort of enabling all of that to happen right on your blockchain and FL token so that's very exciting so to wrap things up how can other new companies and new organizations reach out to you and maybe you know form new collaborations that are exciting for the fans I I think here especially in Korea uh we're going to you're gonna see us more and more in the sports space as I said we started with K League we're already working with NE so kind of you cannot get bigger than that at that point um yet we going to work more and more in the entertainment space because there is a big um cross over between sports and entertainment uh we think there is a lot to do there between Korea and the rest of the world as well so uh if you have any any ideas how you want to work with us please feel free to to reach out to us we have a big Booth here as well and we'll be happy to proceed right I think we should end on that note because we ran out of time the Chile's Booth is where is it somewhere there somewhere there come find us it's very very prominent very noticeable okay thank you for joining us thank you Alec thank you par thank you thank you all right thank you so much thanks guys