Blockchain in Sports: The Future of Sports and Game Chain-gers to Come

Part 1: The major technologies that have impacted sports and blockchain’s ability to change the sporting world.

Published in

ConsenSys Media

6 min readJun 25, 2019

This is the first post of a three-part series about how blockchain technology will revolutionize the sports industry. Each part discusses new and exciting trends at the cutting edge of blockchain technology and sports. Each week a new piece will be released until the 3 part series is completed.

Huddle Up. Let’s Talk.

Remember when…cell phones had antennas? The only way to attend a live-game was to line up at the arena and purchase tickets? The SportsCenter ticker was the preferred way to check the score of the game? Fantasy sports were calculated using graph paper? Now the smartphone in your pocket can order groceries, turn on your car, and shoot award-winning feature films. While you weren’t looking, technology helped sports grow up too.

Innovation has transformed the modern world of sports in a sequence of increasingly tech-driven phases. Initially, new technologies like radio and television enabled greater viewership. The early 1990s through the late 2000s brought another burst of technological innovation in sports, most notably, radar (ball speed), virtual imaging (pitch curves), the Internet (buying tickets, checking scores, getting highlights), social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), and ubiquitous data collection and analysis (optical tech like Statcast, wearable tech like Zebra).

All of these technologies and more enabled athletes to increase their skills, helped coaches win more games, permitted rights holders to drive viewership, allowed anyone to produce 24/7 commentary, and created a more compelling narrative around sports. Now, with the advent of blockchain technology, a new paradigm emerges to once again change the sporting world. Blockchain will raise the proverbial bar for how fans interact with sports, creating new market opportunities, technical efficiencies, and most importantly, a better fan experience.

The Basics: What is blockchain?

Blockchain is a powerful, open source digital platform enabling “smart contracts” which automate the exchange of products, content, and money across peer to peer networks, all protected by cryptography. This underlying technology has numerous applications for sports.

More than X’s and O’s: Not Your Father’s Memorabilia

Sports Memorabilia is a multi-billion dollar industry and sorely needs technology to enhance the existing system. Authenticity is difficult to prove and highly susceptible to forgery, often resulting in fans paying for counterfeit sports memorabilia, up to 90% of the time according to one federal prosecutor.

While baseball cards will always exist, tokenization paves the way for new digital collectibles beyond trading cards, such as MLB Champions (true digital ownership of authentic baseball collectibles) that inspire millennial and gen z collectors.

Tokenization has the ability to move beyond baseball cards and incorporate into the gaming world. Blockchain-based racing game, F1 Delta Time, uses tokenization to offer unique and tradeable cars, drivers, and components. The company recently sold an Apex Race Car (415.9 Eth, estimated $125k) that will act as a player’s unique personal racecar for in-game competitions.

Blockchain technology provides individual pieces of memorabilia their own identities, tracking each one throughout its existence, and confirming its authenticity for all interested parties. Paper Certificates of Authenticity (CoA) for physical memorabilia are used today but can be easily lost or forged when the item is resold or passed down over time.

Ethereum enables the creation of non-fungible tokens as CoAs that are transferred with individual pieces of memorabilia, including the initial purchase. These tokens can be checked to confirm authenticity by a smart contract before a transaction is made. When an individual purchases physical memorabilia a corresponding CoA token is sent to the user’s wallet automatically.

This is the simplest application of blockchain technology to grasp because it takes a concept people are already familiar with and brings it to the blockchain age. The following parts of this series will get into more complex and exciting applications of blockchain technology in sports.

Next at Bat: A Look Into The Very Near Future of Sports

This is the first post of a three-part series about how blockchain technology will improve the sports industry. Each part discusses new and exciting trends at the cutting edge of blockchain technology and sports. Check out part Parts 2 and 3 which cover the following topics.

Part 2: Fractionalized Fan Ownership, Athlete Crowdfunding, and Smart Contracts for the Sports World

Part 3: Protecting Private Data and Creating Blockchain-Based Identities

Tokens enable fan engagement tracking across touchpoints.
Smart contracts make sponsorships simple enough to generate automatically.
Blockchain delivers new funding mechanisms for leagues, teams, and players.
Tokenization of ownership will allow any spectator to own part of their favorite team.
Crowdsourced sponsorship will enable athletes to unlock new revenue streams and identify their most loyal followers.
Digital blockchain identities establish unique fan and player profiles.
Distributed ledger technology enables the protection of player and consumer data while still facilitating data-driven analysis.

The beauty of sports is a constant evolution. Athletes get faster. Records are broken. New legends and fans are born. Sports businesses and organizations should follow suit. Processes can be improved. Fan engagement can be enhanced. Organizations need to adopt not only new technologies … but also new mindsets!

If you think that leagues, teams, and players should show the same love that a fan shows them, let’s get together and make it a reality…now.

Twitter: @bradfein

A special thank you to Mason Nystrom, Dr. Andreas Freud, Constantin Kostenko, Howard Handler, and the many other talented ConsenSys team members who shaped this article.

Disclaimer. The views, information, and opinions expressed are solely those by the author above do not necessarily represent the views of Consensys AG. They are meant for informational purposes only, are not intended to serve as a recommendation or investment advice to buy or sell any securities, cryptoassets, or other financial products.