Football memorabilia has never been more relevant. A $4.14 billion global industry – if sports collectibles were a club it would be the fifth most valuable in the world.
Athletic Club Momento (“AC Momento”) is football’s auction house, partnering with Europe’s top clubs and players to bring match-worn shirts (jerseys) and the stories that make them worth celebrating to fans worldwide via their new mobile app, Momento Market. Its founding Members include Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Cesc Fàbregas, Toni Kroos, Vinícius Júnior, Eduardo Camavinga, Jack Grealish, Dani Alves, and César Azpilicueta.
AC Momento’s mission is to build a platform that brings clubs, football players, and fans closer together around a shared passion for memorabilia and the stories that make it worth celebrating. To date, the match-worn ecosystem is fragmented across various peer-to-peer auction platforms and marketplaces. By partnering directly with clubs and football players, AC Momento has created a direct relationship between athletes and fans, ensuring authenticity is established directly at the source.
At launch, fans will have two distinct experiences to explore within the Momento Market app: Auctions and Collections.
AUCTIONS
Just in time for the start of a new European football season, the ‘Auctions’ platform on the Momento Market app will give fans the opportunity to participate in live, in-game auctions for the shirts the players are wearing on the pitch during select fixtures throughout the season. These auctions will open at kick off and go into a period of extending bidding after the final whistle. When a fan wins a shirt, a digital Certificate of Authenticity (dCOA) will be sent to their account while AC Momento secures the shirt for authenticate and secure storage. Fans can then redeem their physical shirt directly in-app and have it sent to them anywhere in the world.
Club partners at launch include AC Milan, Atlético de Madrid, Sevilla FC and Benfica SL, with a number of other top clubs across Europe’s top flight due to join the platform in the coming weeks.
COLLECTIONS
Football players have long been collectors — bringing their shirts home after matches, or swapping with their rivals out of respect and admiration — but until now, their collections have largely sat in the privacy of their homes.
Momento Collections exists to help football’s greatest players and clubs open up their collections — archive and contemporary — to bring fans access to the greatest selection of match-worn memorabilia in the world. Fans will be able to browse player profiles, see their personal collections, and read about the moments and matches that have defined their careers.
AC Momento’s Founding Members are: Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Cesc Fabregas, Toni Kroos, Vinícius Júnior, Jack Grealish, İlkay Gündoğan Dani Alves, Eduardo Camavinga, César Azpilicueta, Ben Chilwell, Kieran Tierney, Sergi Roberto, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué, and Clément Lenglet.
Athletic Club Momento
AC Momento utilizes secure storage facilities across Europe, where shirts are authenticated, photographed, and protected alongside hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art. AC Momento secures match-worn shirts directly from the dressing rooms of their club partners and the personal collections of players, so whether it’s a shirt from the next Derby di Milano or one from Lionel Messi’s Argentina collection, the provenance and chain of custody of every shirt is accounted for every step of the way.
AC Momento is led by Founder & CEO John Brennan, a lifelong football fan and shirt collector who began working in the industry in 2014 when he joined Snapchat as their first Head of Sport.
“I’ve been collecting football memorabilia for years, and decided to start AC Momento in an effort to give fans like myself more opportunities to collect match-worn, and to be able to do so directly from their favorite clubs and athletes. I’m also a football romantic and obsessed with the history and culture of the game, and felt like the category lacked the storytelling that makes match-worn so compelling in the first place. Bringing these partnerships to life took a lot of creativity, especially from our club partners, but we believe we’ve managed to create a model on Momento Market where everybody wins: clubs, players, and most importantly, fans.John Brennan, CEO, Athletic Club Momento
Athletic Club Momento has raised $20m in capital from some of the best investors in sports and technology, including DIGITAL, Raine, CASSIUS, Serena Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and many of its Founding Members, including Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Cesc Fàbregas, Toni Kroos, İlkay Gündoğan, Jack Grealish, César Azpilicueta, Ben Chilwell, Kieran Tierney, Dani Alves, Sergio Busquets, and Sergi Roberto.
Athletic Club Momento launches August 24th 2022, with auctions beginning the weekend of August 27-28; fans can download the Momento Market app from the App Store and Google Play Store.
