The pandemic has left the sports industry broke and they are in dire need of money; after a profitable year, crypto investors have tons of this money to invest in bitcoin sports betting. This is because for the blockchain industry to continue thriving, it will need to scale up its investor base. Hence many investors will be looking to increase the Bitcoin price and the price of altcoins such as Dogecoin, Ethereum, and all digital currencies.
The future of Sports: Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology
Crypto companies are investing so much in sports because they aim to increase awareness of cryptocurrencies and convince more people to join. This explains why the cryptocurrency market is investing millions of dollars into ads and sponsorships with sports.
In recent times, giant site crypto.com has pushed to become the official exchange rate of cryptocurrency and become the technology sponsor of Italian Serie A. A rival exchange FTX has announced mouth-watering deals since June 2021, up to $360 million in esports, baseball, and basketball. Currently, the FTX Arena serves as the venue for home games involving the NBA’s Miami Heat.
Influence of cryptocurrency on sports betting
For a long time, many companies have taken advantage of sports enthusiasts with addictive or risky behavior, with teams doing very little or nothing to stop it. This has become worrisome. For example, statistics show that 40% of companies who sponsor jerseys in the English Premier League are betting companies, a percentage that rose from its 10% mark in 2008.
And as the cost of marketing increased, so also did the revenue accrued from sports betting. The U.K spends up to £4.7 billion (that’s $6.4 billion) per year on betting, a figure that is double what it was a decade ago.
Crypto-assets and Fans Token
There’s an established link between appetite for betting and investment in digital currencies. A survey carried out by GamCare, a charity dedicated to treating gambling addiction, discovered that 50% of gamblers have dabbled into crypto trading as against 3% of the normal populace.
More surprising is the new trend whereby teams are offering incentives to their fans to lure them into crypto, hence the reason for the rise in fan tokens (for instance, fans can buy bitcoin cash and bet with it). But teams don’t just encourage their fans to join the craze. These cryptocurrencies are pitched to the teams by their owners and are projected as a way by which clubs can increase fans’ digital engagement. What this means is that token holders can gain access to exclusive content like deciding which poster gets pasted on the team’s changing room or getting to select the type of songs that will play while the players warm up. It’s never anything out of the ordinary.
A key leader in this regard is Socio.com, a crypto site that sells tokens for more than 55 sports and teams ranging from football’s FC Barcelona to Ultimate Fighting Championship and basketball’s Chicago Bulls.
These tokens do not have a fixed price as demand determines the price. Also, a token equals a vote in the frequent polls. This method is preferred by some, including Alexandre Dreyfus, the SEO of Socio, who believes tokens are better than regular fan membership programs, which often require a recurrent fee.
“I have access to a service that doesn’t cost me money every year,” he says. “You can own something that provides you with a service, but can resell it—and if you don’t want it, you don’t have to buy it,” he further reiterates.
These token sites often target versatile fans. For instance, a German or Chinese fan who is a fan of Manchester United in the Premier League, PSG in League 1, or Chicago Bulls. For Dreyfus, he believes Socios gives fans a universal platform for supporters to gain exclusive access to clubs, which in turn can churn out more revenue from fans, with whom these teams had no interaction before now.
Just so you know, as part of Socios’ marketing technique, some part of football superstar Lionel Messi’s signup bonus at PSG on August 12 were Socio supporter tokens. While the marketing stunt was a success, such tradable token does pose some disadvantages “if it is voting on fun things like music or the color of the team bus, that’s only going to be appealing to younger fans, and if that’s the case you’re pushing young people towards cryptocurrency investment” Adam Willerton says.
Conclusion
Despite the surge in the public’s interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, sports clubs must be conscious of the risk it brings. While the value of crypto-assets continues to fluctuate and regardless of the overwhelming growth, there’s still a lot of regulatory and landscape uncertainties. And this lack of stability should prompt sports businesses to adopt methods that help them save money in the event the value of these digital currencies continues to fluctuate. On the other hand, the increase in crypto-assets comes with many opportunities and excitement for the world and the sports industry especially.
