Avalanche Says Michigan Athletics Is Bringing Wolverine Rewards Onchain With Uptop

The University of Michigan is bringing its fan rewards experience onchain. According to an announcement from avax on Sept. 15, 2026, @UMichAthletics is launching Wolverine Rewards, powered by uptop_xyz and built on Avalanche.

The program gives Michigan Athletics a single fan identity spanning every sport, tracking how supporters show up, engage, and back the Wolverines. Rather than treating fandom as an untracked activity, Wolverine Rewards ties engagement directly to rewards — the more a fan participates, the more the athletic department can recognize that participation.

College athletics is a multi-billion-dollar industry built on millions of fans, and avax framed much of what makes someone a great fan as having historically been invisible.

Michigan is the latest major athletic department to adopt the Uptop-built model on Avalanche. The University of Nevada, Reno launched Wolf Pack Rewards on Sept. 11, and the University of Memphis debuted GoTigersGo Rewards on Sept. 10, following an NBA fan rewards program announced in August.

What to watch

Wolverine Rewards extends Avalanche's push into real-world consumer applications beyond crypto-native users. Michigan joins Penn State, another Big Ten program, which announced Penn State Rewards on the same Uptop platform on Avalanche on Aug. 20. The program details here come from avax's announcement.