It is no secret that team performance is one of the biggest drivers of positive sentiment in the Fan Token market.

At the time of writing, with Arsenal top of the Premier League and Champions League, the value of the Arsenal Fan Token ($AFC) is up 21.1% since the start of the year. In the last three weeks, the Gunners have won four and drawn two, including major away victories over Chelsea in the League Cup semifinal and Inter Milan in the Champions League (preserving their 100% win rate in this season’s competition).

Let’s take a closer look at how Fan Tokens react to big games, and occasions when the tail wags the dog and markets actually make the first move.

When Showdowns Spark Surges in Fan Token Trading

As in other markets, some traders go short, some go long. As far as SportFi is concerned, going short may involve acquiring a token with the intention of selling it hours or days later. Going long may entail buying a Fan Token before a run of 4-6 favorable fixtures, or even holding it over a period of months.

Consider our earlier example, the Arsenal Fan Token ($AFC). Priced at $0.357 in July, before the 25/26 season began, a trader expecting Arsenal to win the league might have elected to hodl it for the entirety of the campaign. While others prefer to trade game-to-game or month-to-month.

Only one team can win the league, of course, which is why many traders focus more on concentrating their entry and exit points around big, meaningful games, when victories can turbocharge the feel-good factor around a club.

Case in point, the period in late November when Arsenal hosted Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday night (Nov. 26) before facing Chelsea (Nov. 30) in the league on Sunday. In the week leading up to the Bayern game, the market moved first as $AFC’s 24hr trade volume rose from $1.37m to $2.61m, before climbing to $4.09m in the days following Arsenal’s 3-1 win.

Between Nov. 21 and Nov. 30, the value of $AFC climbed from $0.34 to $0.42, an increase of 23.5%.

Another instance of the market moving first happened in September, ahead of the Manchester derby. Volumes for the $CITY token climbed from $1.9m on Sept. 9 to $11.2m on the eve of the match (Sept. 13), which was a must-win game for City given they had lost two of their first three league fixtures. Although volumes dipped to $4.8 on the day of the game, a commanding 3-0 City win saw them rebound to $11.6m a day after.

No Guarantees

While trade volumes rising before and after big matches is a notable pattern, it should be said that significant price jumps for the victors don’t always automatically follow. Much depends on results elsewhere, the ramifications of a win, the nature of a victory (and thus the general sentiment ‘score’ given to a result), injuries to key personnel, as well as the wider macroeconomic picture.

A key win in a big match before a run of relatively easy games, for instance, may inspire confidence that the team will go from strength to strength in the coming weeks. On the other hand, wins against lesser opposition may, to an extent, be ‘priced in’ and fail to significantly move the needle. Again, this could partly depend on results elsewhere and the manner in which opponents are dispatched.

From local derbies and top-of-the-table clashes to games that determine coveted European spots and cup winners, expect big showdowns to continue to be a focus for savvy Fan Traders as the SportFi space evolves.