British Football, brought to you by American Crypto Optimism

The Crawley investment is also an act to clean up its reputation. The great crypto crash of 2022 was partly a failure of ambition, when companies that had overextended themselves, convinced that the good times would keep rolling, suddenly lost everything. Crawley’s new owners want respect. They want to show that the nouveau-riche blockchain elite can be good stewards of a social institution. But like the rest of the industry, they have seen their extravagant ambitions collide with reality.

At the start of Crawley’s season, American crypto enthusiasts flocked to early morning screenings in New York and California to watch the team’s matches. The events became unlikely networking opportunities for people working in web3, the coinage for a newfangled internet built on crypto-technology. But Crawley’s losing streak dampened some of the enthusiasm. Local fans began to complain, and seriously tweets from crypto investors (“Be very nice to someone today,” urged one) was met with angry reply calling for the manager to be fired.

An unlikely takeover

The grand plan to turn a small English football team into a symbol of crypto’s global influence began thousands of miles from Crawley, at the Malibu, California, branch of Nobu. Last fall, Mr. Johnson attended a dinner at the beachfront restaurant, where a group of NFT enthusiasts had gathered to bask in their newfound wealth. He was home: A former gambling analyst for ESPN, Mr. Johnson had made a fortune in crypto, with NFT holdings totaling as much as $18 million when the market peaked last year.

At dinner, he was approached by Eben Smith, another crypto entrepreneur, who soon set him up on a collaboration: a sports team for the crypto community.

Over the next few months, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Smith cobbled together a group of about 35 crypto supporters, including Gary Vaynerchuk, the NFT founder, and Daryl Morey, a blockchain enthusiast who is also president of basketball operations at the Philadelphia 76ers. They created a business entity, WAGMI United. Pronounced “wag me”, the name stands for “We’re all gonna make it”, a popular rallying cry in crypto circles.

The group’s first takeover target was Bradford City, a club in English football’s fourth division with a rich history and a large following. “If we want to get to the highest level in America, you need billions of dollars,” Mr. Johnson said. “This was the cheapest price point for us.” But the deal collapsed after Mr. Johnson and Mr. Smith gave interviews to The Washington Post announcing their intentions. Fans protested and the club’s owner refused to sell.

So the crypto investors settled for a backup option. A large industrial town near Gatwick Airport, Crawley is not an athletic powerhouse; in an interview, a member of the WAGMI project described the area as “that Newark, New Jersey, England type”. But the local club was available at a relatively affordable price of between £4m and £5m – about a third of what WAGMI had raised.