Since blockchain has become popular, many industries have begun to discover its gains and how to use it to optimize their work. Sport is one of those industries that has started to explore some of this technology benefits, finding a way to be more efficient, earn money, and offer a better user experience for fans. Today we bring you some of the possible uses the blockchain has within the sports field.

Why use blockchain in the sports industry

Blockchain is a revolutionary technology that is slowly infiltrating the general consciousness. However, there are still misunderstandings or confusion around the subject, which slowed its adoption in different sectors of the economy. If you are one of those who still do not understand very well what the blockchain is and its applications, we invite you to read our "Beginners guide to understanding what the blockchain is."

On the other hand, if you already know what blockchain is and what you can do with it, let's discover how this technology can become the next step in the evolution of sports.

The blockchain is not inventing anything new. On the contrary, it's improving many services the sports industry offers today, making them available to more people and solving today's conflicts. In other words, the blockchain brings an enriched user experience to sports. In this case, the users could be all the different stakeholders around a sport or team: athletes, managers, fans, and sponsors.

Game tickets sales and authentication

This use is not exclusive to sports, but is quickly gaining acceptance because it solves a problem we have all faced at least once: ticket reselling and counterfeiting.

An example is the final of the 2022 Champions League in Paris. Many Liverpool fans couldn't enter the stadium as their tickets were fake. This generated rowdyism and delayed the game for about half an hour.

This kind of incident could be avoided if we use the blockchain to verify the authenticity of tickets, since all the official ones would be registered within the chain. In the same way, if someone can't or doesn't want to attend the event for which they have a ticket, they can resell it through the chain.

Even the clubs win with this approach. They can include a clause in the smart ticket contract stating that the club earns a percentage for each resale. This can help the club and, in turn, protect fans from scams.

Furthermore, the tokenization of tickets can make them more than just entry passes and give access to events or collectibles. For example, attending an event can trigger a collectible NFT, or special tickets can become VIP passes for events of the club you follow or the league in general. This can broaden the meaning of going to a sporting event beyond just going to the stadium and watching a game.

Betting

Betting has always existed. According to Statistica, the global sports betting industry surpassed $203 billion in 2020. It has become so important that many Betting shops started sponsoring teams from the world's most important sports and leagues in the last few years.

As this industry grows, the blockchain has an incredible field of action to improve its services. First, the speed of the chains can make smart contracts execute almost immediately. So if someone bets correctly, the contract will be executed, and the user will have their money instantly. This automation will also boost user confidence and reduce the chances of human error.

The possibilities in this sector are so great that there is already a betting platform within the Ethereum blockchain. EtherSport uses Ethereum contracts to guarantee fair and transparent results, avoiding risks and corruption. They also offer other advantages, such as security, a simple user registration process, anonymity, an open and transparent process for all monetary transactions, and fast prize payment, with no hidden fees.

Collectibles and memorabilia

If there is something that sports fans like it’s collectible items (T-shirts, stickers, albums, trading cards, etc.). However, a collection is not just several objects accumulated under specific parameters like team, league, or competition for sports fans. Most of these items acquire a value concerning their authenticity, history, and rarity. The blockchain enables a new way to collect objects and important moments in the history of a sport, a team, or a player through authenticity proof.

Verifiable authentication

In true "Pawn Stars" fashion, collectibles have a monetary value given solely and exclusively by the possibility of being authenticated. For example, suppose someone has a collection of baseball cards and wants to sell them. The card's value is given by the possibility of proving its authenticity and the scarcity of the items.

Proving the authenticity of something is difficult and can make a suspect item impossible to sell. And the buyer must have the confidence that what they are buying is original, which requires a lot of trust in the seller. Blockchain can eliminate this difficulty for both physical and virtual objects.

Physical objects can have an authentication document within the blockchain where the information is specified. This way, the owner and its buyer can verify that the object is original and worth what it says to be worth. This would be similar to digitizing the deeds to your apartment within a blockchain. For digital collectibles, it’s even simpler. NFTs or non-fungible tokens are unique and therefore authenticated by the chain.

Likewise, these collectible elements can be converted into VIP passes to improve the holder's user experience. As with many art NFTs, these collectibles can give access to VIP events and/or exclusive experiences.

Fan Tokens for participation

Fan Tokens are fungible currencies that work similarly to crypto in terms of value. Its goal is not to create a currency that can be used to buy things or trade but to be more like a VIP pass that allows the holder access to club benefits, such as having voting rights for decisions around kit designs and training ground names, amongst other things. This is revolutionary for fans to get a say in how their favorite team operates.

On the club side, these Tokens mean economic value and liquidity since, as with cryptos, the value of the tokens fluctuates with supply and demand and are sold on exchanges.

Currently, soccer clubs and national teams worldwide are the ones using this technology the most, but other sports are looking at the possibility of jumping in and having their own fan tokens too.

Athletes' analytics and performance data

The players' information, especially their performance and health, has many uses and is not always private. Nowadays, teams sell this information to fantasy sports leagues, sportsbook companies, games developers, broadcasters, and health and fitness companies. Players have little to say about this exchange, and in most cases, they have no control over their own data. The blockchain can change that, giving athletes control over their own information and deciding who they show it to or not.

Multiple types of data about a player can be stored in one convenient place through smart contracts. Additionally, this information could be accessed publicly or securely using a private key given to potential employers or sponsors. This can also serve to share relevant data for the company that requires it, without providing personal or non-relevant information.

On the other hand, the obligation to record athletes' data in a blockchain can lead to greater transparency in medical matters. All medical data provided is stored in an immutable way, which means that it cannot be modified or deleted. The fact that these data are public can help reduce the use of doping drugs, and greater transparency can be expected from institutions and athletes.

Athlete swiming in a pool — Foto de Guduru Ajay bhargav

Athlete contracts and payments

Sports contracts have always been a reason for disputes between athletes and their sponsors or teams. Currently, these contracts have a lot of fine print, and it is not uncommon for athletes to enter into legal disputes because they are not paid everything that was agreed upon.

Smart contracts can be the solution to this problem. In this case, we will not have human opinions and errors. The automation of contracts means that they are executed only when the conditions have been met. Only then will the dealer receive his payment. This protects the interests of both the player and the company.

On the other hand, the inclusion of cryptocurrency projects and exchanges as sponsors of sports teams makes many athletes want to receive their salary or part of it in cryptocurrencies. This type of deal is still rare and poorly regulated, but if the trend of sponsoring teams and events continues, it could soon become the norm.

To understand how smart contracts work, we invite you to read our blog about the topic. “Smart Contracts: what they are, how they work, and their uses”

The changing game

We could go even further into details of other possibilities offered by the chain. Still, we have decided to summarize some of the most important ones that will probably be implemented in the short term.

Sport is an ideal space to start testing blockchain on a large scale and generalize its use among people by changing the relationship that teams and fans have with each other. We are entering a world where fans don't want to be alone in the stands but feel that they are part of the game, that, as they say in soccer, they are the 12th player. That era is coming, and it won't wait for anyone.

If you don't want to be left out, this is the ideal time to fully enter the game and be one of the first to use the advantages of the blockchain in your favor. Discover everything Soluntech can do for you by scheduling a free pre-consulting meeting.

Uses of the Blockchain in the Sports Industry