The New Crease of Blockchain: Who Gains from the Fan-Token Carnival of Cricket, and Who Is Left Out

The New Crease of Blockchain: Who Gains from the Fan-Token Carnival of Cricket, and Who Is Left Out

It was the evening of 19 November last year. A bedsheet screen was strung up at Shibbari Mor in Khulna, and the projector's light washed over the 92,453 spectators packed into the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Van driver Rafiq bhai sat beside me with a cup of tea, and two hundred people held their breath on Travis Head's bat. India was climbing a mountain of 240 runs, and on our bedsheet screen history was being written — Australia won by six wickets to lift a sixth World Cup, Head's blade producing an innings of 137. When the match ended and everyone left the ground for home, a notification arrived on my phone: "Your favourite franchise's fan token is now live. Buy today."

Two realities on the same night. One — the collective heartbeat of two hundred people gathered around a bedsheet screen, where the ticket costs nothing but the emotion is priceless. The other — a new privately owned currency on a phone screen, priced in dollars, its ownership written on a blockchain. The question entered my head right then: is this new digital market really for the people of that bedsheet screen, or is it a new trap to sell them something one more time?

Every border I crossed taught me a new way to draw the line. In 2026 I went to Kolkata eleven times through Benapole to cover the FIFA Under-17 World Cup. Sitting inside Salt Lake Stadium, I learned that you cannot begin a story with the scoreline — a story begins with the sound of a drum, the smell of fried snacks, or the image of a child lifted onto a father's shoulders. Writing today about cricket's blockchain market, the same lesson applies. Numbers will come, but in the end the question will come from those people who do not buy tokens, who only watch the game.

— — —

Cricket today is not just a game; it is a vast economy. On 14 June 2026 the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sold the media rights for the IPL's 2026–2027 cycle for a total of 48,390 crore rupees, roughly 6.2 billion US dollars. Disney Star took the television rights for 23,575 crore rupees, and Viacom18 took the digital rights for 23,758 crore rupees. Among franchise leagues worldwide, this is the second-highest rights sale.

But an uncomfortable truth hides behind this celebration. Most of the streaming platforms pouring in so much money to buy these rights cannot turn a profit on them. Television's old mistake is returning in a new form — a discount war to boost traffic and subscriber numbers, then the squeeze on revenue. Into this gap steps a new door: blockchain. Fan tokens, NFT digital collectibles, blockchain ticketing, smart-contract player payments, and crypto sponsorship — these words are now finding space in cricket boards' annual reports. The question is, whose door is this opening?

Where I grew up, nobody spends dollars to watch a match. We do not buy tokens; we drink tea, argue, and fall silent when we lose. So I do not see cricket's blockchain entry merely as a technology story — I see it as a new ledger, and the real question is whether the fan's name will be written in it.

— — —

Blockchain enters cricket mainly through four paths. The first path — fan tokens. Platforms such as Socios.com pioneered this model, built on Spain's Chiliz blockchain, creating tokens for football clubs. A fan buys a token and in return gets some votes, some right to participate in decisions, occasionally some rewards — choosing a goal-celebration song, or selecting a special-day jersey design. In cricket this model is not yet as established as in football, but Asia's franchise leagues are eyeing it as a tool.

The second path — NFT digital collectibles. Here the two biggest names are Rario and FanCraze. Rario raised 120 million dollars in a Series A in April 2026 led by Dream Capital, and built partnerships with several cricket properties, including Cricket Australia. FanCraze, in partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), released digital collectibles for World Cups, and raised around 100 million dollars in March 2026. These platforms sell the fan a piece of video clip — a six, a catch, a wicket — whose ownership is written on the blockchain and which can be traded.

The third path — blockchain ticketing. Promising to end counterfeit tickets and black-market sales, blockchain ticketing systems are emerging. Each ticket is a unique digital asset that can be transferred but not forged.

The fourth path — player payments via smart contracts. In franchise leagues where delayed payments or salary disputes are an old problem, smart contracts promise transparency. Once contract conditions are met, money moves automatically, with no need for an intermediary.

In the Asian context, these four paths carry different weight. Cricket has the largest digital audience base in Asia — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan together, several hundred million people. For franchise leagues this vast base is a goldmine, and for blockchain companies an unresolved question: in a market that still runs on mobile balance rather than credit cards, how many will actually buy a cricket token in a digital wallet?

— — —

On the data side, the picture is clear. IPL media rights stand at 48,390 crore rupees, meaning each match's rights value is roughly 118 crore rupees. Beside that number, the fan-token and NFT market is still small, but its growth rate is striking. The global sports NFT market was a few hundred million dollars in 2026, and by 2026 it had reached the billion-dollar range. But between late 2026 and 2026, the crypto market's collapse cooled this celebration. In football, the fall of FTX broke multiple clubs' sponsorship deals; in cricket, reliance on crypto sponsors was also exposed to risk.

I once thought an NFT's value was set by the beauty of the play. In reality its value is set by scarcity and demand. Scarcity is artificial — a clip is deliberately released in limited numbers. And demand? Demand is created by fan emotion, which is really the work of branding and marketing. This is where my first objection lies.

The value hidden inside an NFT is a story, and the author of that story is not a fan — the author is a marketing department. The fan believes he is becoming part of history, when in fact he is buying a limited-edition memento whose price someone else determines.

— — —

The fan token's claim is even bigger. The Socios model says the fan is now not just a spectator but a partner in decisions. He will vote on club decisions, from selecting the stadium's tug-of-war rope to the goal song. It sounds wonderful. But when I look deeper, I see how limited the real power of that vote is. Club ownership, player transfers, ticket prices, broadcast rights — fan votes play no role in these decisions. The decisions that truly shape a club's future are still taken in boardrooms, not on the blockchain.

So the "democracy" of a fan token is really a limited democracy — a vote where the outcome is predetermined, and only the feeling of participation is new. That is not bad, but it is not a revolution.

Now look at the second path — player payments via smart contracts. Here the potential is real. In many franchise leagues in Bangladesh and across Asia, late payment of player salaries is an old problem. If a smart contract writes the terms of an agreement into code and releases money automatically, then that vulnerable player — the one with no agent, no lawyer — at least gains a protection. But here too the question: where does the money come from, and who owns it? Blockchain can make a transaction transparent, but it does not change who owns the asset. Whoever holds the money keeps holding it.

Blockchain can provide transparency, but it cannot redistribute wealth. If the same board that pays late also controls the wallet, the technology changes nothing.

— — —

Now I come to my real objection, the one I never state in a manifesto, only understand sitting before a bedsheet screen.

First, cricket's blockchain market assumes the fan has a smartphone, a digital wallet, and a bank account or card. But the reality of the vast fan base in Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Sri Lanka is different. Of the two hundred people watching a match on a bedsheet screen at Shibbari Mor in Khulna, how many have a credit card? How many can buy a token in dollars? This market is not for them — this market is for those who have surplus money, and who understand the language of crypto.

In empty stands, I learned that silence has a formation. On that November night, when India's fans in the Narendra Modi Stadium gallery fell silent under the shock of defeat, blockchain companies were advertising their tokens. There is a difference between these two silences — one is caused by emotion, the other by financial calculation.

Second, the way blockchain has touched cricket is really another step in financial commodification. Tickets, jerseys, broadcasts — fan money was already poured into all of it. Now tokens and digital collectibles are added. The question is, how much of this new income, built from fan emotion, returns to the fan? Very little.

Third, the question of control. Blockchain's core promise is decentralisation. But cricket boards, league owners, and NFT platforms are centralised. If a board issues a token, sets the terms of issue, and controls the market, then even if it is on a blockchain, it remains centralised. The technology is decentralised, but the power is not.

Fourth, the question of borders. A fan token or NFT can move from one country to another, but a fan's emotion cannot. I have crossed borders eleven times to report on FIFA; each time I understood that a passport draws a line. Blockchain claims to erase that line, but in reality every country has its own law, its own tax, its own restrictions on crypto. India has imposed strict taxes on crypto transactions; in many Asian countries crypto remains uncertain. So the border has not really disappeared — it has simply returned in another form.

Fifth, a specific danger tied to this market is the tendency to turn the fan into an investor. A cricket fan really wants to enjoy the game. But when he is told that if he buys a token he can later sell it at a higher price, he stops being a fan — he becomes a small investor. And as an investor, his greatest enemy is his own emotion. This trap is subtle, but very effective.

— — —

One thing must be said plainly here. I do not regard blockchain technology as an enemy. Transparency in ticketing, security in payments, or direct contact between club and fan — these are good aspects, and I welcome them. My objection is not to the technology, but to how it is used.

I remember 12 June 2026. In the 42nd minute of the Denmark versus Finland match at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field. That night I filed nothing. Instead I opened a six-hour live forum for three hundred South Asian journalists — on trauma in sports journalism. The guidelines that emerged from that forum were later adopted by twelve news outlets. That experience taught me one thing: the value of any system is measured by the suffering of its weakest person.

If I apply this measure to blockchain cricket, the question becomes — who is the weakest person in this new market? He is that teenager who sits before a bedsheet screen dreaming that one day he will go to a stadium, but today is told that by buying a token at home he will become a "stakeholder." To him, a token costs as much in cash as it does; his dream costs far more. Nobody calculates the difference between these two prices.

I write to gather strangers into the same ninety-minute heartbeat. In that work, my greatest strength is the ability to look through a fan's eyes. And looking through those eyes, I see that cricket's blockchain celebration has not yet reached the people of that bedsheet screen. It is still stuck in the city's corporate corridors, in the market of smartphones and internet connections.

— — —

So what lies ahead? By my reckoning, three possible paths.

The first path — this market stays confined to its own niche. A small, educated, financially comfortable fan base buys tokens and NFTs, while the rest keep watching on bedsheet screens. In this case blockchain remains a separate layer in cricket's economy but does not change the culture of the game itself.

The second path — this market expands but becomes even more centralised. All tokens and digital collectibles end up in the hands of a few big boards and a few big platforms. This becomes the digital version of that old rights bubble, where the bulk of the profit flows upward.

The third path — the most desirable, but the hardest. If this market is truly to be for the fan, then a share of token revenue must return to the fan's own community — local cricket, women's cricket, village grounds, school bats. The real test of a fan token is not how many bought it, but how much of the buying money returned to the roots of the game.

I am not prophesying a beautiful future. I am only saying that technology is a tool, and a tool's value is set by the ethics of its user. The bedsheet screen glowed because hunger made the projector holy. Whether the blockchain screen will earn that holiness depends on the resolve of the people sitting behind it.

At Shibbari Mor in Khulna, those two hundred people will return for the next World Cup. Someone will tell them to buy a token. Someone will not tell them that this collective joy of theirs is the real asset. I do not know which voice will win. But I know that the game mixed into our blood will not be captured by any token, nor locked away in any wallet.