Blockchain Vs. Sport: names and numbers.

Intro

The interesting analysis presented in the article “Blockchain Applications: Sports and Esports” leads to curiosity about the technological world applied to sports, whether physical or digital. In recent years, we have noticed a growing openness of sports to technology. Technologically more open nations, such as the USA, have certainly not hesitated to test and implement technology in sports.

In Europe, however, we are witnessing a more cautious approach, guided by a sort of reverential fear towards technological applications in sports: the typically European concept is that sport, as a “physical” activity, should be governed mainly with human control, without excessive technological applications. However, things are changing. Slowly, but steadily. Examples in football include the “goal-line technology” or the “VAR.”

Blockchain technology itself is inexorably approaching the world of sports. In some cases, we see real applications of blockchain on the field, while in others, we limit ourselves to studying projects that have not yet started, in the definition or construction phase.

What is also evident is that big names in sports do not express fear in adopting this new technology, implementing it in their business in various ways. Football, tennis, boxing, rowing… Let’s see some examples.

Names

• January 2018: Arsenal (English Premier League football) signs a sponsorship contract with CashBet. With this step, Arsenal becomes the first football team to enter the cryptocurrency world, promoting the CashBet ICO.
• Tokenization of athletes: Globaltalent is becoming an example of how an athlete or a team can self-finance through cryptocurrency. Those who buy the token of an athlete or a team can earn, in the future, based on the milestones they achieve (it differs from a bet).
• Avai Futebol Clube is a Brazilian Serie B club that has decided to “tokenize” itself to self-finance the construction of infrastructure with the goal of reaching the Brazilian Serie A and Copa Libertadores, through a $20 million ICO.
• Paris Saint Germain (PSG, top French football league), Juventus and Roma (Italian Serie A football), West Ham (English Premier League football), Galatasaray (top Turkish league football), Atletico Madrid (top Spanish league football) join the socios.com platform for fan tokenization.
• Manchester City (English Premier League football) signs with the Superbloke platform (South Korea), a startup that will incorporate the team into its blockchain-based football game: players will be “tokenizable” through the DAPP.
• Watford F.C. (Premier League team owned by the Pozzo family, which also owns Udinese Calcio in Serie A in Italy) enters into a sponsorship agreement with the sportsbet.io company (sports betting in Bitcoin): as a result of the agreement, the team was able to wear the logo with the “B” of Bitcoin on their jersey.
• Russell Okung, NFL star of the LA Chargers, has become quite outspoken in the blockchain world, becoming a sort of Bitcoin culture educator, speaking as a speaker at Bitcoin conferences such as the one on September 1, 2019, or promoting the payment of part of NFL players’ salaries in Bitcoin.
• Caroline Wozniacki, a famous professional tennis player, has signed a contract with GCOX, Global Crypto Offering Exchange, for one year. She is officially the first tennis player to own her own token: sponsorship, merchandising, advanced interactions… Will the next Roger Federer be tokenized? Jason Derulo (famous singer) and Michael Owen (English footballer, Ballon d’Or 2001) as well as former boxer Manny Pacquiao, have also joined the same platform.
• Several football champions and World Cup winners, such as Gianluca Zambrotta (Italian National team) and Lothar Matthaus (Italian National team), have joined blockchain projects like tokenstars.com.
• Lionel Messi (football legend, multiple champion, and Ballon d’Or winner) is an official ambassador of Sirin Labs, a company that builds devices based on blockchain technology.
• Personalities like Luis Suarez (Barcelona star, football) and Floyd Mayweather (entrepreneur and former boxing champion) are involved in the company defined as “The blockchain prediction market platform” stox.com.
• Mike Tyson (former international boxing champion) was one of the first athletes to strongly believe in blockchain: he entered the Bitcoin world as early as July 2015 by investing in Bitcoin Direct.
• We certainly remember the Winklevoss twins: Cameron and Tyler. Rowing champions who took part in the 2008 Olympics (Beijing, 6th place in “A2 without”) and the 2007 Pan American Games (Rio de Janeiro, gold in “8 with”, silver in “4 without”). Famous for the Facebook controversy, they invested around $11 million in Bitcoin in 2013, and today their investment has exceeded $1 billion. They founded Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange, anchored to the U.S. dollar: the Gemini Dollar is conveyed on the Ethereum blockchain with ERC20 tokens. Anyone could feel free to report further projects of international caliber: the web is full of them.

Blockchain development: some reflections

It has been interesting to note how prominent figures have had no “reverential fear” towards this new technological ecosystem: the blockchain. Through global research, we have found projects of different nature, ongoing or still in testing.

Often, blockchain technology is seen almost as a chimera, difficult to apply to distinct situations, hard to identify in the business targets it can pursue. It is curious, on the contrary, to note how the technological and/or philosophical foundations of such technology have been quickly taken, assimilated, and adapted in numerous sports contexts specifically in this article.

If at first glance instinctive fears arise somehow reverential towards blockchain technology, then it is discovered that in various parts of the globe, there have been no scruples or fears or hesitations in starting test projects of such technology in the sports field; tests that often have transformed equally rapidly into tangible projects.

In the research, I went back in time, provocatively and curiously, just to see “how soon” these tests-projects were born in relation to the advent of blockchain not only in the mainstream but also and above all simply to the knowledge of all via the internet medium.

Here we have experienced how more or less known sports figures have decided to believe so firmly in the potential of blockchain by joining more or less interesting projects, involving various sports, exalting one asset rather than another.

European football, South American football, National Football League, tennis, boxing, football stars, former rowing champions, and successful investors, tennis stars, both top and minor football teams… and the list could go on.

The projects involving these figures are among the most varied:

• “Smart” tickets.
• Crypto sponsorships.
• Tokenization of both known and unknown athletes.
• Tokenization of fans.
• Tokenization of individual sports performance data.
• And much more.

Blockchain applications

Here it becomes interesting to highlight the reasons (or some of them) why blockchain technology can have a positive impact on sports in general, by looking at some numbers from the most popular and practiced sport at national and international levels, especially in Europe: football.

• Teams face great difficulties in finding new methodologies to improve and increase their revenues: the big ones are getting bigger, while smaller ones struggle to emerge consistently.
• There is a strong desire to integrate new technologies into a system that is in great need of innovation. UEFA itself is pushing for the introduction and testing of new technologies (example: VAR).
• The football club presidents of the past no longer exist: infinite pockets, continuous and uncontrolled team financing, often not “covered” by corresponding revenues. Financial Fair Play is now law. Financial accounts must now meet certain parameters. We could open an entire chapter on the feasibility of Financial Fair Play: does it really work? Can it be improved? Could blockchain technology give it another step of development?
• Difficulty in interacting tangibly and profitably with fans far from the place of origin of the team in question, especially if they are in another country or continent. What if blockchain could create an ecosystem in a smartphone app style and put new forms of interaction with their team into the hands of fans, even live during a match? How much could a system like this be monetized by sponsors? And by the team? And what if even users could benefit from specific smart contracts and tokens that reward interaction? These are just some of the implementations that can be activated through such technology.
• We often see problems in managing fans, both internally in the stadium and externally, such as ticket scalping. How much could the team earn by being able to manage user data in the stadium area, GDPR compliant? Access, tickets, various types of tokenization… How much would sponsors pay for the opportunity to interact with such a massive amount of data and users?

In the next article, we will try to analyze the most salient aspects in which blockchain can be used as a tangibly useful and applicable tool in sports, by examining real numbers and data.