A look at the potential of soccer in the metaverse, as Manchester City and Sony partner to build a virtual version of Manchester City's Etihad stadium
Context & Ripple Effects
Manchester City has already tried monetizing digital fandom once — the club was among those whose fan tokens quickly lost value after launch, part of a wider Premier League crypto experiment that left fans exposed to losses. The Sony partnership marks a pivot from speculative tokens toward an owned virtual venue.
For Sony, the deal lands amid strength elsewhere in its network business — 125 million PlayStation monthly active users — and gives it a marquee sports property for its virtual spaces at a moment when soccer rights themselves are being repriced, as shown by the EA–FIFA licensing split over what the FIFA brand was worth.
First-order effects
- Sony gains a flagship live-sports IP to anchor its metaverse ambitions on top of its existing PlayStation user base, while Manchester City gets a new direct-to-fan venue that does not depend on token speculation.
Second-order effects
- Rival Premier League clubs face pressure to strike equivalent virtual-venue deals with platform holders rather than issue more fan tokens, shifting club digital strategy from crypto issuance toward licensed experiences — a lane startups like FIFA-licensed Matchday are also racing into.
Third-order effects
- If clubs keep ceding their virtual real estate to platform companies, control of soccer fandom's digital layer consolidates around a few hardware and software gatekeepers — echoing how the Premier League later turned to Adobe and Microsoft for AI fan tools — with rights fees increasingly contested between game publishers, leagues, and platforms.
The trend: Soccer clubs are moving their digital fan monetization from volatile crypto fan tokens toward persistent virtual venues built and controlled by major tech platforms.