American sports fans could presently be using blockchain-based tokens to interact with their favorite teams.

Blockchain sports firm Chiliz has partnered with major marketing agency Lagardere Sports and Entertainment, according to a press release on Feb. 17.

Chiliz CEO Alex Dreyfus told Cointelegraph that — equally part of the partnership — Lagardere'south sales team will present Chiliz and its blockchain-based fan interaction organisation Socios to new sports teams, leagues and sports federations.

Dreyfus explained that, since Lagardere has a major presence in the United States, it will aid expose Chiliz and Socios to teams in major sports leagues such as the National Football League and Major League Baseball — where boilerplate squad valuations are in the billions of dollars:

"The strong presence of Lagardere Sports in the U.S., peculiarly in NFL and MLB, will help Chiliz to accept a footprint for the first fourth dimension. Our existing portfolio with FC Barcelona gives us a strong leadership in the U.S., just nosotros want to commencement to go to the next stage by onboarding U.South.-facing sports in the next few months. This partnership will help, as some others that volition exist announced."

Per Lagardere's quarterly reports, the company saw over $435 million in almanac profits at the terminate of Q3 2022. Legardere has contracts with athletes in the NFL, MLB and professional golf. Dreyfus claims that Chiliz already has 120,000 users and hinted at more potential future partnerships that could help increase its user base:

"This strategic partnership is the first one to be appear for Chiliz, with a leading sports agency, simply aims to partners with leading telecom operators, major tech corporations, phone makers and media groups."

By adding major teams, Chiliz aims for mass appeal for tokenized assets

The Socios platform currently allows soccer fans of various teams to purchase blockchain-based fan appointment tokens, which can then be used to vote on sure club decisions and to access exclusive events and merchandise.

Spanish soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona recently joined Socios to create a token for the franchise. In September 2022, soccer gild Atlético de Madrid also joined the platform, as did London-based soccer team Westward Ham United that previous April.

In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Dreyfus explained that Socios may be the first manner for the masses to experience tokenized assets but like the mobile video game Pokemon Go was the first way for the mainstream public to experience augmented reality.