We’ve all been forced to watch the live, play-by-play of a college game through Bleacher Report’s Live Updates. Now imagine sitting in the VIP lounge, watching that same game from the best seats in the house?
Now imagine that it’s not real and that you won these VIP seats from an EA loot box drop after scoring the winning bet on a New England Patriots versus the Miami Dolphins game. That’s just a bird’s-eye view of what to expect from sports in the metaverse.
Sports in the Metaverse
Imagine stepping into a metaverse sports arena and having a panoramic view of the whole game. Zoom into any perspective of your choice, allowing you to delve into the action with even greater detail.
The fact is, it’s going to be a lot more complex and entertaining than that, but it’s a loose, generalized idea and probably what you can expect from the beginnings of such an endeavor into a completely digital landscape.
Is The Metaverse A Certainty For Sports?
If you need convincing, DraftKings just recently partnered with the NFLPA (National Football League Player’s Association) to generate, market, and sell NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).
NFTs are digital assets, much like your car is a physical asset. Right now, one of the most popular NFTs is digital art, and it’s selling like hotcakes. DraftKings, one of the leaders in fantasy sports betting, is getting in on the act. You can see their early NFT offerings here.
If you don’t think that this is going anywhere, ask your kids what they want for Christmas. Four out of five chances say they want Robux, a form of digital currency, converted from real-world money and used to buy NFTs, which is nothing more than digital assets in the Roblox universe.
Of course, in order to realize this goal, people are going to have to be immersed, whether that’s via a headset or directly in front of their computer as the metaverse expands and the hardware becomes mainstream.
Roblox isn’t associated with sports, but the concept is and major businesses are recognizing the shift, such as DraftKings and the NFLPA. The shift is already taking place, although it’s subtle and will likely grow exponentially over time.
How Would You Participate In Sports In The Metaverse?
Think about the sports venues that can be created in a hypothetical metaverse—and let’s be honest here, it’s really not even hypothetical at this point; it’s simply not consolidated yet.
- Metaverse Fantasy Football, betting cryptocurrency/NFTs in a digitally rendered casino watching a digitally rendered game
- Random sports events with an in-arena crowd capacity of 500,000 that’s digitally rendered
- Real-life participation and social engagement with your favorite sports stars within the metaverse
- Instead of visiting the Bleacher Report via app or desktop, they instead have a real presence in the metaverse, where you interact, socialize, and get the latest sports coverage
- Entire, digitally rendered golf courses, octagons, boxing rings, baseball fields, football fields, tennis courts, and soccer fields that you can visit any time and for any event
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Cryptocurrency and NFTs are on the rise, so the economy for sporting events, whether it’s social, autograph signing, actual events, or meet and greets will be far more commonplace and you’ll pay for it by participating in a digital economy that already exists.
Metaverse real estate is already selling for millions of dollars right now. Is it really a leap of faith to think that a football stadium that sits in the middle of 2,000 digital acres is out of the question?
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What Are The Potential Drawbacks To Sports In The Metaverse?
We mentioned loot boxes earlier in this article and that’s the sort of thing that can ruin everything else. The pay models being utilized by several, major online gaming developers are often unfair and absurdly ludicrous.
Imagine forking over 200 Cardano for a loot box that has less than a 2% chance to drop rare tickets to an unspecified game. Pay-to-play isn’t out of the question either. Entire sections of the digital sporting world are locked away unless you fork over mind-numbing levels of digital currency.
It’s hard to say where these things will go and how we will all get there in the end—from a digital, economic perspective. But there’s always going to be leeches in the water.
All Things Considered
Sports are incredibly popular, regardless of the type, and it will only grow once businesses are able to combine the sports enthusiast with the gaming/crypto/NFT enthusiast. That time is rapidly approaching. It’s not here yet, but major companies are already taking big steps in that direction.
