Can Blockchain Unlock True Fan Ownership in Sports Through Tokenized Equity?

Avalanche

Watford Football Club / Watford FC, the Championship League club based in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, partnered with Republic to facilitate a digital equity sale of Club equity via the Avalanche network. Watford FC aimed to attract a new class of investors through the sale, allowing fans to own part of the Club's legacy and future.

Watford FC is the first major English football club to offer true ownership shares through digital equity. Unlike loyalty tokens requiring crypto purchases, the Club's digital equity could be bought with fiat currency like US dollars or UK pounds.

Investors can also tokenize their shares, gaining access to exclusive benefits such as special 'owners' meetings, select stadium areas, and match day experiences. While there are no voting rights, shareholders are eligible for discretionary dividends based on the Club’s financial performance. The Club also plans to enable future token trading.

Digital Equity for Fan Ownership

Fans are key to a football club's value, generating revenue through match tickets, merchandise, and viewership, which in turn drives advertising revenue. Fans remain the largest revenue source for both football and the broader sports industry.

Equity raises for sports teams aren’t new, but tokenizing equity unlocks additional benefits: real-time settlement, fewer intermediaries, and greater efficiency in a transparent, secure, and global market.

“We are thrilled the Watford FC and Republic teams chose Avalanche as the network to launch this momentous raise,” said Dominic Carbonaro, Director of Ecosystem Growth, Retail & Consumer at Ava Labs. "Through digital equity, fans can move beyond just supporters—they can become stakeholders with a tangible share in their club’s success. This shift enhances fan engagement and opens new opportunities for clubs to diversify their investor base and build a stronger, more connected community.”

On-chain Financing, Setting a New Standard

On-chain financing is modernizing the sports industry, enabling fans to truly own their fandom. By acquiring a financial stake in their favorite teams, fans may now have the potential to share in the success of their team and a larger community of stakeholders.

Digitizing equity is an important step in increasing fan ownership and fan agency in Football while helping small independent teams combat the Premier League economic powerhouses in the space. Capital raised from the sale will help strengthen Watford FC’s teams, particularly the men’s first team, by supporting player recruitment, training, and hiring coaching staff.

As asset tokenization grows on Avalanche, the network's demand and distribution partners gain momentum. Legacy financial institutions like Frankin Templeton tokenized money market funds on the network, and recently, independent production company Pressman Film leveraged Avalanche's technology to raise funds for a development slate of films. Looking ahead, how will tokenized equity reshape fan ownership and investment in sports, and could Avalanche play a role in setting a new standard for professional clubs worldwide?

For more information, visit Republic.

About Watford FC

Watford Association Football Club has enjoyed many recent memorable moments as it continues to create history, started with its inception in 1881 as Watford Rovers. The Hornets – a nickname spawned in the 1970s from the club’s use of a vibrant mix of yellow & black for its primary playing kit colours – were purchased by the Pozzo Family in 2012 and more recently owned by Gino Pozzo on an individual basis.

The men’s first team currently compete in English football’s second tier, known as the EFL Championship, and are aspiring to return in to the world-renowned Premier League, having spent six of the past ten seasons competing against many of football’s global superpowers in the top-flight of the world’s most-watched competition. Meanwhile, Watford Women FC has recently played within The Football Association’s Super League structure, competed in the FA Women’s Championship and won the FA Women’s National League Play-Off Final. Finalists in the prestigious men’s knockout FA Cup competition in both 1984 and 2019, Watford FC has also competed in the UEFA Cup during an illustrious last 40 years spent almost exclusively within the top 30 places of the English football pyramid.

About Republic

Headquartered in New York City, Republic is a global financial firm operating an enterprise-focused digital merchant bank and a network of retail-focused investment platforms. Backed by Morgan Stanley, Valor Equity Partners, Galaxy Interactive, Hashed, AngelList and other leading institutions, Republic boasts a portfolio of over 2,000 companies and a community of nearly three million members from over 150 countries. More than $2 billion has been deployed through investment platforms, funds, and firms within the Republic family of companies. Republic has established operations in the US, the UK, EU, the UAE, South Korea, and Singapore.

About Avalanche Blockchain Network

Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain platform designed for builders who need to scale. Engineered with a revolutionary three-part Layer 1 (L1) architecture, Avalanche is anchored by its Avalanche Consensus Mechanism, ensuring near-instant finality for transactions. The platform also features an open-source Layer 0 (L0) framework, enabling the seamless creation of interoperable Layer 1 blockchains with high throughput on both public and private networks.

Supported by a global community of developers and validators, Avalanche offers a fast, low-cost environment for building the next generation of decentralized applications (dApps). With its unique blend of speed, flexibility, and scalability, Avalanche is the preferred choice for innovators pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology.