It’s a first. For the first time, a professional sports club is selling part of its capital via digital assets, dematerialized shares called “tokens”. This initiative of the American owners of the Elan Béarnaislaunched this Tuesday, April 26 at 9 a.m., should allow supporters to take ownership of their club, through a series of advantages that stem from the possession of these “tokens”.
What is a “token”?
“Token” in English means a token, it’s like an action. Except that tokens use a technology called blockchain. To sum up, this makes it possible to dispense with traditional banking intermediaries. So how do you buy Elan tokens? Since this Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., all you have to do is go to the Elan website. You will then have access to a secure platform. You create an account and then there are two or three days to verify your banking information. And after, you can buy at least 500 tokens for an amount of 450 €. And if you have a lot of money, you can buy up to 1 million euros worth of tokens.
What does it give access to?
First, if the club is doing well financially and can generate dividends, part of these dividends is paid to the token holders at the end of the year. They will also be able to elect a person to represent all token holders and participate in the steering committee. They will therefore have a say in the governance of the club.
In addition to that, there will also be other advantages such as participation in special events, access to an advance sale for tickets for certain matches, discounts on club products, even access to team training and why not trips outside. In all, 10 million tokens are put up for sale, which represents 40% of the capital of Elan. The owners hope to sell 2 to 3 million of them.
Why did you put this in place?
CounterPointe Sports Group, the American company that has owned Elan since July 2021, first wants to bring new financial resources to the club, to reinvest it in training or infrastructure. But it is above all a new philosophy for Tom Huston, the “General Manager” of Elan Béarnais: “If you look at all the professional teams in the world, they are all owned by small groups of extremely wealthy people. But where is the value created in sport? It is created by the fans, the players and the employees of the club. And these three groups never have the opportunity to own and participate in the value that they create. We feel that with the technologies that we have at our disposal and with the state of today’s world, it’s time to have a more inclusive model that allows fans to be owners, too.”
You must keep the tokens purchased for at least one year before exchanging or reselling them. It is therefore a first in the world, we said. According to CSG, a dozen clubs around the world are interested in this initiative.