In the second half of a tight match, attention turns into expectation. The crowd wants more than a result – it wants relevance.
This shift has been unfolding over the past few seasons, as sport increasingly competes for attention with formats built around participation – from multiplayer games and social platforms to creator communities and interactive streaming.
Deloitte’s latest Digital Media Trends research captured an uncomfortable reality for rights holders: around a third of Gen Z respondents say they don’t subscribe to streaming services specifically to watch sports. Instead, they prefer clips and highlights shared through social media. A separate Deloitte outlook makes the competitive pressure clear: when access becomes too complex or restrictive, younger audiences simply move on.
That context matters for 2026, a period when the fastest change is unfolding in the relationship layer around sport.
Why 2026 marks a turning point for fan engagement
The season ahead will be shaped by fan-driven decisions – small, frequent, measurable interactions that build loyalty through agency.
This shift is already taking shape in new formats designed around real participation. Arena Two is one example of how this thinking is being applied in practice. The platform connects live, real-world tournaments with interactive mechanics that allow fans to vote on in-game decisions, stake tokens to show support for teams, and earn rewards for engagement across football, cricket, MMA, and emerging entertainment formats.
As sports products evolve, Web3 is starting to function as infrastructure, giving fans a more active role during live competition. In emerging formats, supporters are beginning to take part in decision-making processes and, in some cases, co-own teams alongside athletes and team leaders. The ambition is straightforward: to create sports environments where fans influence outcomes through verifiable mechanisms such as voting and staking.
To understand how this shift plays out at the product level, we spoke with Omar Rahim, CEO of Arena Two, about what actually drives long-term engagement. In his view, the challenge isn’t introducing technology, but designing participation that feels natural to fans and meaningful to teams.
What really drives fan loyalty
But before introducing tokenisation, a more basic question needs an answer: why do fans follow a team or an athlete in the first place?
The obvious answer is “performance.” The true answer is “emotional connection.”
Fans connect with stories – a return after injury, composure under pressure, or moments that linger long after the final whistle. In traditional sport, this connection flows in one direction, with engagement measured through delayed signals like ratings or attendance.
The 2026 version of fandom compresses that loop. Lightweight, real-time signals are set to give fans a way to express intent – from tactical preferences to collective support during critical moments – creating a clearer, more immediate emotional readout.
This view aligns with a broader shift across the industry. As Pavel Shikhaleev, Head of Partnerships Operations at Cointelegraph, explains: “Sports tokenisation is moving away from hype toward real infrastructure that connects fans to teams in a meaningful way. The goal is not speculation, but sustained participation, recognition, and emotional ownership that lasts beyond major events. When Web3 is applied correctly, fandom becomes a measurable, long-term relationship rather than a fleeting spike in attention.”
When participation becomes measurable infrastructure
What matters most is what happens next. Signals must be verified, aggregated, and stored to create a reliable picture of fan engagement. “One wallet, one voice” therefore is not magic – Sybil risk remains real. But anti-Sybil tools are now part of Web3 design. For the first time, participation in sport can be measured at scale, provided systems are built to withstand pressure.
For team managers and commercial leaders, the implication is direct. Fan interest moves from assumption to observation. Patterns emerge in behaviour: belief rising during risk-taking phases, energy dropping when play slows, certain players triggering confidence in decisive moments. These insights feed directly into product strategy decisions.
Ownership, governance, and the economics of belonging
The second driver of fan loyalty is fairness, especially around rewards.
Fans have always contributed financially. Athletes have always been compensated. What remains limited is visibility into how fan contribution connects to athlete upside. Web3 introduces a more transparent mechanism. When communities allocate rewards through on-chain voting, outcomes are recorded by default. When distribution rules are declared upfront, post-hoc adjustments become harder to obscure. This transparency reshapes trust. Fans no longer rely on assurances; they can observe how systems behave.
Then come the bigger decisions, the ones that traditionally sit behind closed doors.
“Uniform design. Partnerships. Tournament formats. Even strategic priorities like where a team travels or which charitable causes it supports. In many clubs, fan involvement takes symbolic form – surveys, hashtags, design contests with predictable outcomes. Tokenised participation introduces a different model: governance that is measurable, timestamped, and repeatable. Adoption will follow when fan governance is treated as retention infrastructure,” Omar Rahim, ArenaTwo CEO reflects.
Finally, there’s fractional ownership – and the uncomfortable word that comes with it: profit.
“Co-ownership has the potential to make team financing more independent by widening participation beyond geography and legacy access. When fans in Lagos, Dubai, São Paulo, or Berlin can engage with a team’s trajectory without relying on proximity or season-ticket culture, the financing base broadens. Over time, it becomes less concentrated around local sponsors and matchday revenue, aligning with global community demand,” Omar continues.
Of course, this approach carries regulatory and reputational responsibility. Ownership-like participation requires clear communication around risk, incentive alignment, and long-term intent. Platforms that endure will prioritise emotional engagement first, with economic participation reinforcing commitment.
Web3 in sport is an inevitable movement that comes from changes in the attention market and rising expectations around participation. Sport now competes on interactivity without losing its soul. The 2026 season will favour athletes and organisations that treat fans as participants – measurable, respected, and involved in decisions that feel consequential.
Platforms that achieve this will earn something increasingly rare: loyalty that survives the algorithm.
