Avatars Store
British football club Liverpool FC has partnered with social media giant Meta to create a digital clothing line. The collaboration means Liverpool’s fans will be able to buy sportswear for their digital avatars in the newly created ‘Avatars Store’. The agreement will also see Liverpool get a percentage of sales, with markets that include the US, UK and Spain, as well as others.
However, the club hopes this endeavour into Web3 will be more successful than its last outing, with the ‘Heroes’ NFT collection failing to hit expectations, with disappointment coming in terms of sales targets.
For Meta, the deal is the first time it has made sports apparel available to buy in its Avatars Store. Earlier in the year, however, Meta formed a partnership with the National Football League (NFL) for this year’s Super Bowl, making official digital merchandise from the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals available for users for their avatars.
Liverpool, winner of 19 League titles, eight FA Cups, a record nine League Cups — not to mention winning six European Cups, three UEFA Cups, and four UEFA Super Cups (all English records ) on the European stage — states the ecommerce store is accessible via Meta-owned Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Additionally, the club plans to release a virtual reality (VR) version of the platform later this year for use with Meta’s Quest headsets.
“Expressing Digital Identity”
Liverpool’s move into the Metaverse is following a current trend in the football world, with Spain’s La Liga and Fifa also creating their own metaverse platforms.
Drew Crisp, senior vice-president for digital at Liverpool, said: “This is another fantastic opportunity for our global fanbase to digitally engage with Liverpool football club and create their own individual club-coloured avatars. We have more than 70 million global supporters following our Facebook and Instagram channels, and we’re really looking forward to seeing many of those avatars change and don our iconic kit or lifestyle apparel.”
“We’re thrilled that Liverpool fans can now use our Avatars to express their digital identity through the iconic colours and logo of their favourite club,” said Jerry Newman, Meta’s Northern European director of media partnerships, before adding: “We’re also excited to help Liverpool begin to tap into the new metaverse economy, with digital apparel revenue that will be incremental to the apparel sales the club generates in the physical world.”
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Feature image: Meta
