NFTs (non-fungible tokens) have been showing potential synergy with the world of professional sports for some time. These days, sports is viewed as an industry with a progressive stance towards embracing new technologies for the betterment of athletes and fans. With businesses and users moving towards the usage of digital technologies, this synergy seems like a natural progression.
Pro sports is considered one of the biggest attended and viewed events in the world, consistently attracting a high number of fans in person and viewers on various digital media platforms. Media rights deals for popular pro sports are breaking previous records, demonstrating the increasing demand by fans and companies who want to tap into the business of sports.
In the blockchain world, there have already been some major collaborations between the sporting world and blockchain technology companies or projects. Yet, the trend is still early, and many in sports are still discovering the potential benefits blockchain-based technologies such as NFTs can offer to sports teams, athletes, and related businesses.
This blog will discuss 5 ways NFTs can help solve some common problems in pro sports.
There is a market for sports items and moments that come from iconic players, matches, moments, and more. Oftentimes, these can be destroyed by the passing of time and an increasing number of scammers looking to profit. Essentially, an interested buyer would have to trust that the seller or a licensed third party is selling an authentic sports memorabilia product.
This is where a blockchain and NFTs provide a powerful use case for product authenticity. NFTs representing these pieces of memorabilia can be issued using blockchain technology and create permanent and immutable records including ownership history, source of origin, and other essential information.
These records can be looked up by anyone and no party can manipulate any records. Furthermore, the NFTs can be traded easily between buyers and sellers on a global scale in real-time through the usage of digital token wallets. These NFTs also can never be destroyed or faked, creating a permanent and trusted market for those interested in sports memorabilia.
Pro sports are a huge, growing business and a global phenomenon. There are passionate fans and supporters of particular sports, teams, and clubs on every continent. This means these sports brands need to continue to appeal to their global audience to grow their fan base and increase revenue over the long term.
NFTs can play a major tool in this effort.
Many pro sports entities and athletes are business brands looking to engage with younger fans, most of whom tend to be more tech-inclined and rather open to using emerging technologies.
An NFT can be minted by the entity or athlete and distributed to their fans all over the world with equal participation opportunities. The result is a new way to bring these brands closer to their fans. It can also reduce overhead costs for marketing and other business promotional efforts as NFT minting and distribution can be done efficiently and instantly through the Internet.
For the fans, they can receive a limited digital token or NFT that demonstrates their passion for a sports team, league, or athlete, that they can choose to keep or trade.
The NFT could also be redeemed for an actual physical item from the NFT issuer. It could also be used to access other fan engagement activities that put fans one step closer to a more enriching experience.
Another effect of the business of pro sports becoming global is that sports leagues, teams, and athletes need to create global promotions that can effectively reach their fans in different locations.
Such marketing campaigns can enable fans to have a sense of equal opportunity to participate in fan activities and have the same chances to win prizes.
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NFTs provide a solution to this need. Fans wouldn’t have to worry about physically waiting in line or in a digital queue to participate. Any fan with an Internet connection could engage with their favorite team or athlete on a global scale. Sports teams and athletes could come up with ways for their global fans in different countries to use these NFTs for special prizes and activities.
Teams and brands selling to their global fan base sometimes have difficulties monetizing the gains. For global payments, there are many financial intermediaries, currency conversions, and other related friction points.
An NFT sold via a blockchain can eliminate many of these difficulties. Since there is a direct link between the sale of the NFT and the payment, the resulting funds or cryptocurrencies would go directly to the wallet of the creator of the NFT collection and streamline the process. Initially, most might be inclined to use traditional currencies for payment but as awareness grows, sports entities and athletes could integrate certain cryptocurrencies and tokens as payment options.
Teams and athletes could come up with limited collections of creative NFTs representing various things and market them to their fans as a form of digital merchandise. As mentioned, these NFTs could also be redeemed for various team or athlete-related promotional activities designed to enhance the fan experience.
Sales of pro sports goods on secondary markets don’t usually benefit the original brand. There is no concept of royalties when it comes to auctions or sales via private collections. The teams are the originators of the items but do not necessarily benefit from them.
An NFT can have a percentage of royalties that go back to the creator from every resale. Teams that embrace NFTs can have a constant source of revenue that comes from the secondary market thanks to this feature.
The brands connected to sports are also able to get the same advantage. This can make a new type of market for sports goods that always benefit the teams during their entire lifespan being sold on secondary markets.
NMKR is an NFT and Tokenization platform service leveraging the Cardano blockchain. It enables businesses and individuals to easily mint NFTs without having to code by providing simple-to-use tools.
Having already partnered with Tiamonds to issue and sell NFTs of physical diamonds and Book.io to tokenize e-books, NMKR has demonstrated successful use cases for NFTs using its platform.
Sporting organizations and athletes can also utilize the platform to mint NFTs to receive some of the benefits listed above.
