The Tokenization of Fanaticism

Odysseus, Hiroo Onoda, and Modern Sports

On January 7th, 2012 the Detroit Lions played the New Orleans Saints in the NFC wild-card game. In fear of the Lion’s impending loss, a certain fan decided to take matters into his own hands.

Shawn Payton, a 34-year-old Lions fan, called Caesars Superdome and threatened to blow up the stadium. He then made a second call, in an attempt to warn the Saints coach of “severe consequences” if they won. Shawn received three years probation and 60 days of home confinement.

“I'm not a bad person. I was just so proud of the Lions finally making the playoffs for the first time in God knows how long. I got caught up in the heat of the moment, and I seriously, highly regret making those calls." - Shawn Payton

Sports history is filled with these bewildering stories. What is it that entices some fans to tattoo an entire team’s shirt on their torso?

Travel 13,000 miles to support their local club?

Threaten to blow up a stadium of 73,000 people?

To understand fans, you need to understand fanatics. To understand fanatics, you need to understand fanaticism; a concept that extends beyond sports and is illustrated throughout history and ancient literature. The tokenization of fanaticism is an incentive mechanism that harnesses, rewards, and manages the extreme ranges of human passion in positive and constructive ways.

Odysseus and the Sirens

Source: Ulysses and the Sirens, by Léon Belly, 1867

In Homer’s The Odyssey, the Greek hero Odysseus travels on his decade-long journey home to the island of Ithaca after the Trojan Wars. Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios, warns Odysseus to beware of the Sirens. The Sirens are creatures that attract sailors to their island with beautiful voices that no man can resist. Once the sailors are close enough, the Sirens kill them.

Odysseus sails past this island on his way home and orders his men to plug their ears with beeswax. Curious to hear the Siren’s music, Odysseus naively commands his men to bind him tightly with rope to the ship while he listens.

When Odysseus finally hears the Siren’s words and music, he is completely infatuated. He is overwhelmed with an intense desire to embrace the Sirens. Odysseus strains so hard to escape that the bonds cut deeply into the flesh of his arms and back. He commands his men to free him. Luckily, his men steer quickly past the island and Odysseus eventually comes to his senses.

This is true fanaticism. Odysseus is so enticed and engaged by the Sirens that it almost costs him his life. It’s quite fascinating that Homer explored this concept within an ancient greek poem in the 8th Century BCE.

The Relentless Soldier

In more recent history, the story of war hero Hiroo Onoda depicts a quintessential example of fanaticism. Onoda was a Japanese Army Intelligence Officer who fought in WWII an additional 30 years after its conclusion. He did not believe the war was over and refused to surrender. The Officer saw the emperor as a God and viewed the war as a sacred mission, victory was the only option. Hiroo remained on his jungle post on an Island in the Philippines until 1974. He was loyal to a military code that taught him death was preferable to surrender.

What are the common themes between Shawn Payton, Odysseus, and Hiroo Onoda? Extreme passion. Determination. A relentless desire for a specific outcome at all costs, even their own well-being.

Fanaticism is the ultimate network effect. You don’t need triple-digit APYs or airdrops to keep fanatics happy or part of your network. One Hiroo Onada is worth more than 10 soldiers. If the Japanese army was made of all Hiroo Onada’s, they would have won the war.

The Spectrum of Fanaticism

It’s important to note that not all fanaticism is the same. The life-long Yankees fan is not the same as Shawn Payton, a fanatic determined to blow up a stadium in fear of his team losing. Think of this as the fanaticism curve if you will, with average fandom on the left and fighting a war 30 years past its conclusion on the right.

Extreme fanaticism isn’t inherently negative either. The obsessiveness that drove Hiroo Onanda to refuse surrender, is the same drive that enabled the Wright Brothers to pioneer aviation, or Jesus of Nazareth to heal the blind. Fanatical capacity is part of what makes us uniquely human. There are no fanatical robots.

That being said, how can we reward the passion of the fanatic and the object of his fanaticism? How can we harness this passion constructively? Fan tokens may provide a solution.

Fan Tokens

According to CoinMarketCap, fan tokens are a form of cryptocurrency that gives holders access to a variety of fan-related membership perks like voting on club decisions, rewards, merchandise designs, and unique experiences.

Regular investments are made without a profit motive, these tokens aim to tap into the emotional aspect of investing.

Socios

Socios is the first mover in this space. A platform unlocking digital assets for fans. According to Alexandre Dreyfus, the founder, Socios already has 50+ partners in soccer, cricket, motor racing, the NBA, and MMA. The tokens give you the power to influence the decisions of your favorite sports team, unlock super fan recognition, or unlock VIP rewards such as signed jerseys from your favorite player.

Rewards also tend to be non-monetary. A fanatic and your average DeFi investor’s motivations are different. Limited edition merchandise signed by a star player is a more enticing reward than 500% APYs.

On the flip side, sports clubs can monetize on a global scale. As the Socios team mentions, “our job is to monetize the 99% of fans that aren’t in the stadium.” There are millions of sports fanatics who are limited to youtube highlights. There is an untapped opportunity to provide these fans with a more immersive and fulfilling experience.

Blockasset

A new project in this space with a different approach is Blockasset. According to their white paper, Blockasset is an athlete verified NFT platform built on Solana, harnessing the power of exclusive athlete content, real-world NFT utility, and community governance.

Muhammad Ali, Wayne Rooney, Alexander Ovechkin, and Chuck Lidell are just a few of the athletes that serve as partners. The team is leveraging relationships with athletes, agencies, and clubs to connect fans on a one-stop platform.

Most exciting, each item and experience available in Blockasset’s marketplace corresponds to an NFT with embedded rights and properties. Ownership of an NFT may lead to meeting an athlete in person, a five-minute call over face-time, access to events, or a signed jersey.

The key distinction between Socios and Blockasset is Socios’ dedication to fungibility. There isn’t a cap on Socios fan tokens. On the contrary, NFTs rely on scarcity and thus have a scarce supply. It is uncertain that a platform like Blockasset can have a mainstream impact without fungibility embedded within its platform. Fungible tokens present an opportunity for mainstream impact because more people can afford and buy them.

Future Applications

Rewarding the passion of the fanatic shouldn’t be limited to sports. Celebrity culture, gaming, wine brands, and dozens of other spaces all include examples of fanaticism. Wherever there is passion in the human experience represents an opportunity for tokenization. We can now provide unique experiences for the Hirro Onanda end of the fanatic spectrum.

What if fan tokens were applied to issues people really care about? Poverty, childhood obesity, the environment, or healthcare. How can we harness the fanaticism of individuals who deeply care about these causes to incentivize behaviors that helps diminish them? Just like PFPs were the first iteration of NFTs, sports fan tokens are the first iteration of fanatic incentive mechanisms. Token incentivized networks have existed since the beginning of crypto. Perhaps, mastering the incentives of fanaticism will help token networks reach their noble promise. 

Within sports, a largely unexplored area is what I call Decentralized Autonomous Teams. Krause House, a DAO with a mission to buy an NBA team is an example of this phenomenon. Krause’s vision is to empower fans of every professional franchise to collectively capture real ownership. This would mean 1) equity and 2) influence in governance decisions of an underlying franchise. In this model, fans would organize themselves as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and purchase a minority or majority stake in a sports team. This would enable a fan community to have a say in ownership decisions, team location, key executive hires, team uniform, etc.

Although platforms like Socios help improve fan engagement, ownership of a sports team is more ambitious. Spike Lee spent an estimated $10 million on Knicks tickets over the last three decades. Imagine if Spike’s excitement and enthusiasm were translated into actual equity in the New York Knicks? Why couldn’t a super fan be treated the same way as a super-user of a DeFi protocol? Rewarded with tokens and therefore equity.

Sounds unrealistic? Maybe, but so were airplanes in 1903, the internet in the mid-90s, Bitcoin in 2011. The next 5-10 years will enable fascinating experiments in fan ownership of sports teams.

Conclusion

Fan tokens provide an opportunity to briefly exit the recurring theme of short-term speculation in crypto. The primary reason to hold these tokens is not speculation on future prices, but to establish a better relationship with your team or athlete of choice. The tokenization of fanaticism, more importantly, is a chance to value, reward, and manage the varying degrees of fanaticism in positive and constructive ways. Shawn Payton, Odysseus, and Hiroo Onanda serve as great examples of not only human extremes, but the capacity for human engagement. Eventually, fanatic incentive mechanisms will be applied to topics ranging from wine and video games, to global social causes such as healthcare or poverty.