Paris, 14 March, 2024: — Today, Chiliz, the leading blockchain provider for the sports and entertainment industry, is thrilled to announce its latest integration — a strategic partnership with game studio Unagi and the French Professional Football League (LFP) to launch Coach Ligue 1, the first-ever fantasy football game developed by a football league. This initiative highlights Chiliz’s focus on improving league business models through digital innovation, encouraging leagues to take control of their product development and rethink partnerships with third-party platforms, emphasizing direct product creation.
Coach Ligue 1 offers fans of Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT the unique opportunity to assemble their ultimate team using digital trading cards — minted on the Chiliz Chain — of their favorite players. By developing its own assets, the risk of license expiration is eliminated, ensuring a perpetual connection with fans and a sustainable model for leveraging the leagues’ intellectual properties.
The game introduces a gamified experience where fans can compete weekly to climb the ranks in both national and global leaderboards, using game currencies to acquire new player packs and enhance their teams. Coach Ligue 1 also features five levels of card rarity (Espoir > Pro > International > Champion > Légende) allowing users to participate in increasingly prestigious tournaments.
This partnership with Chiliz ensures the limited availability and value of each player card through blockchain technology, enhancing the collectability and trading experience for fans. The development of the Coach Ligue 1 platform was facilitated in collaboration with Unagi, the gaming studio behind Ultimate Champions, showcasing expertise in gaming and web3 technologies.
Chiliz envisions a future where leagues themselves pioneer the realm of NFT fantasy sports, harnessing the power to directly own revenue streams, user engagement, and cross-selling opportunities while creating substantial equity value for their clubs and shareholders. Committed to this future, Chiliz and Socios.com will back leagues in developing these platforms.
Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz, expressed his enthusiasm for the project, “We’re incredibly proud to launch Coach Ligue 1 in partnership with Unagi and the LFP. This is not just a game; it’s the inception of a new vertical that will see many similar collaborations with other leagues globally. By owning the relationship with the fans directly, leagues can now more effectively monetize and leverage their intellectual properties without the constraints of third-party licensing agreements.”
Charlie Guillemot. Co-Founder & CEO at UNAGI, commented, “Coach Ligue 1 offers a fresh experience for football fans, allowing them to collect, trade, and compete with digital player cards throughout the season. This complements our existing platforms, adding a new dimension to our community. We’re excited for what’s ahead in 2024 as we continue to expand our digital ecosystem.”
Martin Jaglin, Digital Growth Director, LFP MEDIA, added, “Partnering with Chiliz to launch Coach Ligue 1 represents a significant milestone for us: this initiative sets a new benchmark for how leagues can directly engage with and deliver value to fans through proprietary digital assets. By pioneering our own fantasy football game, we’re ensuring that LFP MEDIA remains at the forefront of the digital transformation in sports entertainment.”
