Gaming startup GameOn has a new agreement with LaLiga North America to develop NFT-based fantasy games for the American and Canadian fan base of the Spanish Football League.
Fans can purchase packs of LaLiga players as NFTs and create fantasy lineups that earn points based on each player’s real-life performance on the pitch. Digital gear such as shoes, jerseys or hats can also be purchased to equip their in-game player avatars with boosts that result in point multipliers.
GameOn’s LaLiga web app will debut in the US and Canada in the first quarter of 2024 with social chat features and offers that allow fans to win prizes such as cash, VIP match tickets, signed merchandise and access to player meet-ups. greets. The company will develop games for both LaLiga football leagues, including the top tier LaLiga EA Sports and the second tier LaLiga Hypermotion.
GameOn x @LaLiga 🤝🎮
This is a huge announcement for GameOn: LALIGA has a global community of over 200 million fans.
“The LALIGA announcement marks a new era for GameOn,” @gameonmatty
📰https://t.co/1rY33CwdKf pic.twitter.com/384cA06mDt
— GameOn (@gameonfanapp) September 13, 2023
“We are very happy to launch into the North American market. Special [with] this Web3 games, you don’t need 100,000 or a million users to have a successful game,” GameOn CEO Matt Bailey said Declutter. “You just need 1,000 or 2,000 very enthusiastic, dedicated and engaged users, and it’s a very successful and profitable product.”
ESPN signed an eight-year US media rights deal with LaLiga in 2021 to stream matches from Spain’s top football league on ESPN+ through the 2028-2029 season. The league’s growing North American presence also included iconic franchises FC Barcelona and Real Madrid who played friendlies in the US this summer as part of the Football Champions Tour.
Bailey originally founded GameOn as a white-label provider of trivia and prediction games that created products for the WNBA, Dick’s Sporting Goods and NBCUniversal. The company entered Web3 with NFT-based games for the Professional Fighters League and Karate fight.
“We’re games people and we simply think Web3 is the best technology to deliver the ownership, interoperability and rewards fans want,” said Bailey. “Gen Z in particular do not want to watch passively; they want to own the content, play the content, influence the content and they want rewards. That is why we are all participating in Web3.”
Bailey describes GameOn as ‘chain-agnostic’, having previously brought games to market Polygon And Hedera. GameOn expects to eventually launch a token to connect its Web3 gaming ecosystem with its partner customers, such as LaLiga and the PFL.
Investors in GameOn include Polygon Studios, Hedera, Dapper Labs, Techstars, Comcast, Lightning Capital and Times Internet. Dapper, creator of NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, invested in GameOn’s $1.8 million seed round earlier this year.
LaLiga plans to promote its upcoming games with GameOn through activations in their football stadiums, fanwatch parties and social and digital content. The Spanish Football League has existing deals with Dapper Labs and NFT fantasy sports game So rarebut Bailey sees GameOn as more complementary than competitive with other NFT-based projects.
“There will be a lot of different Web3 partners, NFT partners for competitions,” he said. “NFTs or Web3 will be the right technology for many different categories of fan experiences, whether games, moments and highlights, tickets, merchandise. There will not be a one-stop shop for all these services.”
“Now we are starting to see a better approach from these competitions, which are not so much after money,” he added. “I think the bubble has burst a little bit there.”