The English Premier League (EPL) is arguably the best domestic football (soccer) league in the world, and in more ways than one, it is the gold standard of domestic football
The EPL: Thirty decades of Innovation
Since its inception in the early 1990s, the EPL has been one of the world’s most successful and lucrative football leagues. In more ways than one, this league has helped revolutionize the way football is run worldwide, and one thing that’s synonymous with the EPL brand is innovation. Now, the EPL is set to lead European sports leagues in adopting Web3 technology.
For the sake of simplicity, throughout this piece, we’ll refer to football, also known as soccer, to American readers; when you read the word football, it means soccer.
The English Premier League is a vital part of the “Big 5” European football leagues, including the Spanish Laliga, Italian Serie A, the French League 1, and the German Bundesliga. Apart from domestic leagues, European football has a higher layer of competition controlled by Europe’s football governing body, UEFA, including the Champions League, Europa League, and the Conference League.
Over the last few months, sports leagues and teams worldwide have ventured into the Web3 space; the absence of major European football leagues from the NFT scene has left a considerable amount of NFT enthusiasts and industry players perplexed. Some people considered that UEFA was yet to adopt NFTs, metaverse, and the general Web3 technology because of conservative internal policies.
Premier League to release NFTs soon
After an extended period of cautiousness from football leagues across Europe, the EPL finally made quantifiable headway on their journey to enter the NFT space. During a shareholder meeting on 08 March 2022, the 20 teams currently in the league discussed the possibilities of selling NFT rights.
Another thing that EPL management is known for it’s that it never misses the opportunity to monetize opportunities when they appear. The NFT project is still a long way from fruition as the EPL has yet to decide on a blockchain ecosystem to use for its NFT project.
According to the original report by The Telegraph, there’s a proposed timeline that sees all 20 EPL teams releasing digital assets within twelve months – or sooner. As time goes on, intricate details about the project, such as income distribution, will be discussed before the EPL NFT project can proceed.
Brand Protection is Critical with NFTs
John Terry is a Premier League legend and one of the best defenders ever to play the game; in February, he launched a new collection of NFTs called the Ape Kids Club FC, and the EPL had an issue with the project.
The artwork for the NFTs featured an image of the Premier League trophy, a key brand asset that can only be reproduced with the Premier League’s official blessings. The EPL wrote to Terry and his team to take down the images featuring the Trophy because it was used without official permission from the league’s management.
