If you are closely watching the finance and technology space, the most repeated words would be cryptocurrency, NFT, and Blockchain. The world of blockchain is expanding its arms to every industry on the planet; it has touched on the sports industry too. There has been a lot of information to process in the crypto industry. The Non-fungible token development is powering up a whole new world with metaverse. It is a digital world where people own their digital assets through NFTs.
Keeping that aside, NFTs are making a new revolution in the sports and art industry. Here is a blog curated for the geeks to gain knowledge on how NFT development enhances fan engagement in the sports industry. Also, you can get an idea of the futuristic approach to NFT development for sports.
NFTs and Sports
As a child, you must have exchanged or traded football cards with your friends. You might have waited in long queues to purchase the official merchandise of your favorite sports star. You might have even religiously collected every picture or video of your idol star scoring in the game.
The world is getting digital now, and everything is online now. To match up with the current technology, the sports industry is also taking up digitization to interact with their fans. Non-Fungible Tokens minted in the blockchain are unique, and they cannot be exchanged for others like cryptocurrencies. They are minted in the ERC-721 standard, which is only one of its kind and cannot be duplicated. Thus it provides exclusive ownership rights etched on the blockchain.
How are NFTs trending in the Sports Industry?
There are many NFTs based on Baseball, Basketball, and FootBall now. There are also other sports and individual sports stars launching their own NFT collection. Fans are spending millions of dollars on owning their favorite NFTs. They are showing their interest to own them as a collective for their collection or as a tradable item, looking forward to getting better returns and getting a passive income through them. The trending NFTs in the sports Industries are based on the following assets.
- Trading Cards: This is the most trending NFTs now in the market. Trading cards of various teams and players in Baseball, basketball, American football, football, and other sports are getting a huge response. People are showing their interest in collecting their favorites in order to support them. They also increase in their value in time which can help them to trade them in the future.
- Items in Sports Kit: every sports fan out there has a habit of taking up his/her favorite Idol’s jersey, wristbands, socks, and boots. Having their ownership etched in the blockchain is increasing its value and also offers secured ownership right on the item.
- Video shorts: There is always an Iconic, goal, shot, or action that happens in a game and it is now possible for the fans to own them. Fans can now own the iconic clips in the games and enjoy exclusive bragging rights over them.
- Souvenir- people are also taking up memorabilia like autographs, trophies, awards, bats, and balls of importance to the blockchain. This will help the fans to share ownership of these assets with their favorite sports personality, club, or team.
Non-Fungible Tokens and fan engagement
When you heard blockchain is extending its arms to every industry, it is not an exaggeration. What is the actual point the sports industry is trying to give with non-fungible tokens?
- The first main goal of sports NFTs is connecting the stars with their fans directly. That is, the stars can directly sell their items to their fans without any interference from third-party intermediaries.
- The sports market always has a demand for collectibles that fans show their overwhelming response for any physical collection sold. Since blockchain and NFT is the new decentralized concept taken up by many celebrities, fans find it a privilege to own the sport NFT collection.
- Game tickets are also NFTs now and people started using cryptocurrencies to pay for matches and merchandise
- Sports Clubs and teams have started launching their own NFT collections which is offering them a considerable profit these days. They started paying their players with cryptocurrency
There are also a number of Non-fungible Token development platforms coming out to support the stars as well as the fans. There are many NFT marketplaces emerging now dedicated to hosting only sports-related NFT collectibles.
NBA and Football clubs around the world are actively using up the blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs in their daily operations. Famous clubs and players have also started to release their own fan tokens. A fan token is nothing but similar to NFTs. They are tokens that offer exclusive membership rights that include perks of getting exclusive access to specific functions, matches, and merchandise. They are similar to membership cards, but it is etched on the blockchain. They can be bought only through cryptocurrencies and can be traded with others later.
Scope of sports NFTs
Did you know, a spot NFT has been sold for 2.1 ether recently and the holder gets a signed jersey, 2 tickets to any future game, and a chance to meet their favorite sports personality? Yes, people went crazy and the value of this particular NFT is increasing to a great extent today. The value of a sport NFTs increase as the demand for that particular NFT is high. With the uniqueness of NFTs on one hand, the tradable sport asset is also unique and one of its kind. This creates a scarcity of the asset which in turn increases the value of the NFTs.
Takeaway
Non-fungible Token development is getting a lot of attention from the crypto geeks who are sports fans as well. Blockchain is invading the world and bringing every other industry in the world under a single roof. This is a time when NFTs are booming everywhere from arts to music. Having a huge crowd of sports lovers around the globe, NFTs are gaining the utmost popularity and making a new revolution in sports as well.