OKX to Launch OKX Collective, a Metaverse Experience Powered by Manchester City Soccer Players

OKX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the market, has announced the launch of its soccer-focused metaverse experience, called the “OKX Collective.” The immersive experience will include Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias, Ilkay Gündoğan, and Alex Greenwood, stars from Manchester City, the reigning champion of the Premier League.

Sports clubs and their players are more and more inclined to tailor metaverse platforms to offer new immersive experiences to fans. OKX, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume traded, will launch its own metaverse experience specially tailored for soccer fans.

The company has partnered with a group of players of the reigning champion of the Premier League, U.K.’s first-division soccer league, to create a platform for fans to engage with their stars and get a glimpse of their activities on and off the field. In a press release, the exchange explained the collective will provide a glimpse into the lives of these stars, who will lend their exclusive training music, content, and NFT-based digital experiences to the platform.

Soccer clubs have been particularly interested and active when it comes to adding more experiences of this kind to enrich and tighten the relationship with their fans. On the intersection between soccer and metaverse tech, Haider Rafique, CMO at OKX, stated:

Introducing elite footballers to our newly established metaverse is about sharing the boundless possibilities of Web3 and inviting fans to experience it first-hand. Web3 has the potential to be bigger than everything that came before it.

The players in OKX Collective come from diverse backgrounds. Four Manchester City players will provide their content to the platform, including veteran Ilkay Gündoğan, Jack Grealish, Ruben Dias, and Alex Greenwood from the rows of the women’s Manchester City team. Grealish believes that bringing soccer to the metaverse will offer fans a new panorama of the sport. He explained:

Combining football and the metaverse brings fans closer to the action! I’ve had a lot of fun bringing my digital profile to life with the support of the Club and OKX.

Greenwood stated this connection with the metaverse and the digital world might be beneficial for the ecosystem. She stated:

We talk a lot about the evolution of football, and it feels as though exploring this space is the next step.

Other European soccer clubs like Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, and even leagues like the Spanish Laliga have also launched metaverse and NFT-based initiatives before, with mixed results.

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