What the Block? How to own stakes in sports clubs and stars with cryptocurrencies ‘Globatalent’
Any soccer fans out here? (or football fans if you prefer the British posh way of naming it) The childhood me used to seriously believe that I would become the first woman playing alongside Messi or Beckham. Despite having virtually no talent, I spent hours and hours running around soccer fields all the way until I got hit by the soccer ball enough for it to break my nose. After awhile I stopped playing soccer and took up horseback riding, eventually competing at a national level.
Nevertheless, I remained a devoted fan of soccer up to now. Why am I talking about soccer here? Because the ICO project I am covering today none other than ‘Globatalent’ — the ICO project backedby FC Barcelona’s Luis Suarez and South Korea’s boy wonder Lee Seung Woo.
This blockchain platform allows clubs and players sell ownership stakes of themselves to their fans using the GlobaPlayer token. With these tokens fans and investors will receive a portion of the future revenues of clubs or players. Globatalent makes its profit by taking a fee equal to 3% of each transaction made on the platform. This entire idea seemed very interesting to me, as it is playing much more on the fans devotion to their idols rather than the pure motivation for obtaining monetary profit. Still, how did this idea come to life? That’s what I wanted to learn from That’s what I wanted to learn from Sunil Bhardwaj, the founder of Globatalent,
Q. Could you briefly introduce yourself and tell me how did you began
Globatalent?
My name is Sunil Bhardwaj and I am a successful entrepreneur experienced in the sports industry. Having spent several years as general manager of top basketball teams in Europe, I also founded a sport image right hedge fund when I was 23 years old and we generated annual revenues of $26million. After spending the last couple of years being directly involved in the crypto currency field, I saw an opportunity to decentralize thesports industry by creating a blockchain platform. This led me to co-found Globatalent with Blockchain influencers and advocates of the sporting world.
Q. What do you think are the main motivations for fans and the general public to invest in these talents? Globatalent seems to want to shift the focus from the simple money-making strategy to something more personal.
Globatalent is an opportunity for billions of people to connect with their favourite team or sports person on a deeper more personal level and allows the athlete or club to connect much stronger with the fans who love them and support them so dearly. The opportunity for the athlete to share their sports plans and the opportunity for supporters to invest in them brings a level of support for that player on both a financial and personal level that could not currently happen in the sports world today. Globatalent will allow young athletes and children to achieve their dreams and become super star talent as they will now have access to financial aid that previously would only have been available for the select few.
Q. What about the less popular, who are still on their journey upwards. Can they motivate people to invest in them?
Absolutely. These talented athletes have the opportunity to use the Globatalent platform to share their sports plans. This means that the supporters gets to be in the players journey from the beginning and could go along the whole of the road to success with them. These players could be the next ‘Luis Suarez’, the next ‘Serena Williams’, the next ‘Tom Brady’ or even the next ‘Seung Woo-Lee’. Globatalent allows these less popular players to have the opportunity to connect with fans that help them utilise their talent to become the best in the world.
Q. What are your main goals for 2018? In terms of geographical regions, where are your priorities for marketing?
Our goals are to follow our road map on our website and white paper. Currently we are ahead of schedule and are incredibly proud of our success so far. We want to be available in every single sport and all over the world — we don’t prioritise a specific region for marketing as we believe we can impact each and every country all over the world and make everyone feel we are personal towards them. We are preparing to open new offices in Argentina, Dubai and Hong Kong and we expect to have a presence in every of the seven continents.
Q. In sports, there are some high-profile cases of tax evasions from renowned athletes. How does this impact Globatalent, or how can Globatalent play a part in bettering the landscape?
We truly believe that by using blockchain technology, this allows us to eradicate the dark side of finance in sport. We do not support any athlete who will evade tax. We are fully concerned that few athletes have had tax issues as well as some sport institutions but Blockchain and Globatalent can allow a more transparent and a very public process.
Q. How will Globatalent differentiate itself from any future competitors? What are some unique advantages you have?
We always encourage competition as we like to prove that we can do things more successful and more personal than others. Our team has more than 50 years experience in sports business. As CEO, my experience includes founding a sport image right hedge fund when I was 23 years old and we generated annual revenues of $26million. The skills and knowledge that our team has is an invaluable asset to our future success.
Q. On a bit different note, there are many successful dApps such as cryptocollectible games. If you could create your own crypto game, what would it be about?
If I could create my own crypto game it would be based on becoming a fantasy manager or owner of a sports club for different sports all over the world and it would give players the ability to see how it is actually like to be a chairman of a football team or a general manager of a basketball club. I am currently looking into and planning to build a crypto basketball club that allows fans to take the decisions of the club so this is something to definitely look out for.
Q. Lastly, do you have any words of advice for aspiring blockchain entrepreneurs?
The blockchain world is an exciting place to be and if you have an idea go for it, work hard, share your idea, network and create a project. I advise everyone to follow their dreams.
As someone who also once dreamt of going pro, I know how immense
the sacrifices are those preparing for a career as a professional athlete.
While I loved the idea of being able to own a bit of Luis Suarez or Seung Woo Lee, I sincerely hoped that it would be the lesser known athletes who can truly benefit from such a platform. Who knows?
*If you want to learn more about the VR/AR blockchain project I’m working on, please join our Telegram channel, Discord channel or visit our main project site.
**This article was originally published on besuccess.com., here is the English version and here is the Korean version.
