DC United and the XDC Foundation announced an exciting, first-of-its-kind partnership only days before the 2022 MLS season kicked off two weeks ago. As a member of the XDC community, I was excited for our network, and I wanted to familiarize myself with the Black-and-Red fanbase.

To give a little background, I’m from South Texas. That’s football country — American football, to be clear. The most soccer I’d seen was the World Cup, which, of course, is always fun to watch. Just as many who aren’t fans of American football watch the Super Bowl, a lot of us who don’t follow soccer tune in to see parts of FIFA’s largest event every four years. There’s an energy to those matches — a feeling of passion, pride, jubilation. You can sense it through the TV screen.

As I attended the DC United home opener, I felt the same energy — but in person. The closest comparison to how I felt at Audi Field is a Saturday night at a Texas Longhorns college football game. Flags are waving. Fans are chanting, clapping, singing even. You overhear their excited banter all over the concourse.

At University of Texas games, the whole stadium erupts in “Texas Fight!” every time the team scores a touchdown. In DC, fans yell “Vamos United!” and other chants with the same intensity — the same fire. And that sort of passion rubs off on you. So does the sense of belonging, and of tradition. It’s why kids often become lifelong fans of a team after attending their very first game.

But there’s a bigger parallel to be drawn here, involving two communities — XDC and DC United. A soccer team’s fan base gets excited about goals, acquisitions, wins, and glancing at the standings. A blockchain community gets equally pumped about landmark transactions, key integrations, new partnerships, and use cases coming to fruition. They both take to Twitter and use hashtags like #LetsFly or #builditonXDC.

You saw community overlap in the team shop on opening night, as XDC community members stood in line with DC United fans buying the same merchandise for themselves and their families. Excited for what the future holds.

Our bond will not only include wearing the same jerseys and rooting for the same guys on the field (who happen to be 2–0 at the time of this post). The XDC Foundation, and by extension its community, will be using its unique hybrid blockchain network to further energize DC United fans, and engage them in new and innovative ways. DC United fans will experience first-hand what the XDC Network has to offer. That, too, is something we will all be able to cheer about.

The content above represents my own individual perspective as an XDC community member, and does not reflect the official stance of the XDC Foundation.