Sports Cryptocurrency incorporation on the rise! Sports Cryptocurrency use is fast becoming a powerful tool for the industry – sports fans are passionate about the teams they support and there’s an enormous market for everything sports related – tickets to memorabilia.
As the world continues to modernize and jettison to the 21st century – It means a lot of content is moving online. Sports teams and organizations are embracing the use of cryptocurrencies and digital tokens to give fans, loyal fans, access to exclusive content and items. Sports integrating cryptocurrency and accepting them has been happening for a long time. Half a decade ago, The Sacramento Kings began accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for tickets and merchandise.
Since then, many organizations, from soccer clubs to sports teams, have begun exploring the use cases of digital tokens.
Soccer clubs, or Football clubs for everyone outside the United States, is the most popular sport on Earth. These fans have an insatiable appetite for memorabilia, including apparel to signed jerseys. The support some football clubs have are not limited just to the geographical location of the club itself – support can be global, and often is.
To this end, it’s not surprising that a number of Europe’s biggest teams have adopted blockchain-based solutions that give fans a number of token-based utilities to interact with the team. Earlier this year, we noted that Juventus and Paris Saint Germaine have all engaged in their own partnerships with the blockchain based fan engagement platform Socios.
CEO of Socios Alex Drefyus has said in the past – the global sports audience is estimated to be around 3.5 billion people. Just 1% of that is 3.5 million people that could be introduced to cryptocurrencies.
Sports teams aren’t the only ones hopping on the Crypto bandwagon – advertising is being done and making moves in the sports world. Most notably, the Litecoin Foundation recently sponsored a UFC fight, and Litecoin recently announced a new partnership with the Miami Dolphins.
2019 is the year for partnerships between Cryptocurrency firms and sports teams. In American Basketball, the Cleveland Cavaliers announced a new partnership with cryptocurrency exchange UnitedCoin that would help advertise the company at the Cavalier’s stadium.
Advertisements aren’t the only next big thing in the partnerships between crypto and sports – collectibles and memorabilia are. Remember CryptoKitties? It was made possible due to the rise of Ethereum’s smart contracts feature.
Following that, the Los Angeles Dodgers took that concept and ran with it. The first 40,000 fans at a sports event in September 2018 were able to download a digital bobblehead of three of their players. The collectibles were added to the users’ Ethereum wallets. While it didn’t take off like CryptoKitties, it shows the potential for sports teams to start integrating cryptocurrency and blockchain to memorabilia collections.
What do you think? We think we’re just scratching the surface in terms of Cryptocurrency integration and sports teams. Will this be an enormous opportunity that cannot be wasted to help push mass adoption? Let us know what you think on our Facebook page!
