Wrexham Football Club as a DAO

I strongly believe Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney should turn Wrexham football club into a DAO created on Ethereum. A mutually beneficial move that could see Wrexham turned into the first major fan owned DAO. I have detailed how I believe the process should work below but for those who aren’t British or football (soccer) fans, I’ll give a little background information about Wrexham football club. Wrexham A.F.C is the oldest football (soccer) club in Wales and third oldest club on the planet, founded in 1864. It’s had an incredible history - playing in numerous different leagues and beating some of the biggest names in English and European football.

In 2020 Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney announced they would be taking over the club. The deal received the backing of 98.6% of the 2,000 members of the Wrexham Support Trust and was completed in February 2021. Almost all Wrexham A.F.C fans were incredibly happy with deal, as they recognised the deal would bring significant financial investment and public awareness to Wrexham A.F.C.

What’s their vision? I imagine their aim is to firstly bring as much attention to Wrexham A.F.C as possible through their enormous social media following; exponentially increasing the fan base. Their next aim will be to improve the standard of football through financial investment. By doing this Wrexham will move up leagues, which will introduce them to larger fan bases and financial rewards. As you can see these go hand in hand, creating a virtuous cycle. fans > investment > winning > fans. Throughout this process, a documentary will be created that will be shown on Netflix, further reinforcing the cycle.

Turning Wrexham A.F.C into a DAO? I believe Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney should turn Wrexham A.F.C into the first major sports club owned DAO. In a DAO, a network of peers encodes its protocols for decision-making into secure, decentralised software (often smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain). This software becomes the arbiter that tallies votes and carries out the will of the people. Imagine hundreds of thousands of individuals working collectively to solve problems, with rewards distributed according to value contributed, and decisions being made through the wisdom of the crowd.

How would this work with Wrexham A.F.C? A billion ‘WRX’ tokens could be created which fans or speculators could purchase bringing immediate investment to Wrexham A.F.C. These tokens would be used for a number of things: voting on the direction of the club and day to day decisions, receiving rewards if the club were to make a profit and maybe even offering unique access to merchandise and other deals. The possibilities are endless.

Why would this work? The above is ‘fantasy league’ on steroids. Imagine being financially involved and part of the decision making process of your team and if your team does well, you are financially rewarded for it. For example, fans would be involved in the signing of players, hiring of scouts, choosing coaches and deciding the formation of the team. As crypto fans, we know how passionate people get about their favourite tokens. So imagine how passionate fans would get about managing a football (soccer) club in real time that they’re financially invested in.

Why Wrexham A.F.C? I believe a fan owned DAO would work for almost any sports team. But someone’s got to be the first to do it and prove that it works. Reynolds and McElhenney are uniquely placed to attract huge support through leveraging their celebrity status. A few instagram posts, tweets and public appearances would bring the existence of the token to the awareness of people all around the world. The fact they are making a documentary will also allow them to stream this process in real time (making the documentary significantly more interesting).

Who benefits? I think everyone would benefit. Wrexham A.F.C would gain an enormous amount of fans and investment. Reynolds and McElhenney would bring far more attention to themselves and Wreham through creating a token and a DAO and they also would not have to invest as much of their own money. Token holders would hopefully financially benefit, enjoy being part of the decision making process of a football club and also be part of what could potentially be the future of sport and organisations.

These are just some thoughts I had recently so they may not be particularly sound. Please let me know below what you think and if you have any other ideas about how this could be implemented.