In Brief:
- Appearing on FOX Business, Chiliz Group CEO Alexandre Dreyfus said transparent voting is the main reason Fan Tokens belong on a blockchain.
- Chiliz is bringing its Socios Fan Token model to U.S. college athletics, beginning with LSU, Maryland, Michigan State, Penn State and Texas A&M.
- Some of the token revenue will fund student-athlete NIL programs, and Chiliz wants to sign 30 university athletic departments within 12 months.
In a FOX Business appearance, Chiliz Group CEO Alexandre Dreyfus said one feature justifies putting college Fan Tokens on a blockchain: fan votes that can be verified.
“The biggest point of doing blockchain is the transparency of the voting,” Dreyfus said during the segment, which aired Sept. 29. Chiliz posted the clip on X, saying that Fan Tokens mean “fan decisions become verifiable and transparent onchain.”
"The biggest point of doing blockchain is the transparency of the voting," says Chiliz Group CEO @alex_dreyfus on FOX Business.
With @FanTokens, fan decisions become verifiable and transparent onchain.
Now we're bringing that model to U.S. college sports.Chiliz – The Sports BlockchainView on X ↗
The company added: “Now we’re bringing that model to U.S. college sports.”
Inside the FOX Business interview
Dreyfus appeared remotely from Washington. FOX Business reporter Darren Botelho asked him why the product needs a blockchain in the first place.
Dreyfus answered with examples from the stadium. When fans vote on which song plays in the venue or on a new jersey number, the outcome is recorded onchain, and anyone can verify it.
Also on the segment was Kris Kassel, SVP of sports growth and innovation at Playfly Sports, who joined from a Maryland stadium. In his view, families probably won’t fund athlete payments directly, but they will pay for “Experiences and fan events” they actually want.
Botelho also asked about the downside. If interest wanes and demand falls, he said, too many tokens in circulation could drag prices lower, leaving fans holding assets with little resale value and leaving schools’ NIL funds short. The response on air was that the tokens are not financial instruments and exist for the fan experience.
Five programs signed, 30 in the plan
Socios.com announced its first U.S. agreements on July 21. The five founding programs are Louisiana State University, the University of Maryland, Michigan State University, Penn State University and Texas A&M University.
The deals were signed by Fan Token Management (FTM) US, a unit of The Chiliz Group, together with Playfly Sports. According to Chiliz, they are the first Fan Token agreements in the U.S. and the first in college sports anywhere.
Chiliz aims to launch 30 college Fan Tokens within 12 months. The tokens were planned to go live before the end of the 2026 calendar year, after the FIFA World Cup, the company said.
Chiliz says holders receive voting rights on fan-facing decisions, priority access to tickets and exclusive rewards.
Putting NIL funding onchain
The college version comes with a revenue split. According to Chiliz, “a meaningful proportion of revenue generated from Fan Token sales will go directly toward supporting student-athletes across college’s entire athletic department through Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) programs.”
Chiliz said the NIL funding will be publicly visible onchain.
When the deals were announced, Dreyfus said, “Fan Tokens will provide fans, alumni and supporters everywhere with a new way to connect, engage and be rewarded for their fandom.”
The regulatory context
The U.S. expansion came after joint SEC and CFTC guidance was presented March 17 at the DC Blockchain Summit. The guidance referenced Socios.com and classified Fan Tokens as digital collectibles and digital tools.
Chiliz said the guidance followed more than five years of talks with regulators. The company has described it as the groundwork that allowed U.S. sports organizations to discuss the tokens without guessing how they would be classified.
More than 70 sports organizations partner with Socios.com, among them Arsenal, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, plus the national teams of Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Belgium.
One token, one vote?
The transparency argument only goes so far. Under current fan token models, voting power grows with the number of tokens held, and the tokens trade freely. A blockchain makes the count auditable, but it does not give every fan an equal voice.
For campuses, the examples Chiliz itself offered of what fans could vote on were a stadium song and a jersey number.