World Football Summit highlights blockchain’s pivotal role in future of sports

The world has indeed been changing nowadays. Conventional payment methods—such as buying tickets for a concert—have gone digital, and even more processes can be viewed and paid online. This is primarily thanks to digital innovations like blockchain, metaverse, and Web3 gaining popularity worldwide.

In the world of sports, insiders and technology builders gathered at the World Football Summit in Sevilla, Spain, to visualize the cutting-edge innovations that could ensue in the sports industry in the next decade. Jaime Dominguez, the CMO of the Summit, pointed out that their goal for the global event was to connect the entire football ecosystem and widen its horizon by creating different football industries.

For the BSV blockchain ecosystem, creating a different football industry means taking it all the way to the metaverse.

“Obviously, we are promoting the real metaverse, which is the sports metaverse. The replica, the digital twin, digital counterparts of the real stadiums, for example,” Rafal Gelner, Co-founder and COO of Zetly, told CoinGeek on the sidelines of the event.

“This (blockchain) is the technology behind it that helps us to store the data, secure the data, track the data, and obviously for the validation of transactions as well,” he added.

Robert Rice, founder and CEO of Transmira, highlighted the significance of educating the audience and industry leaders about the potential of blockchain in the sports industry—and according to him, participating in such discussions is crucial to support their mission.

“We’re talking to a club or a team or some other organization not only about the cool tech that we have and what we’re bringing to the table but also trying to help educate them on kind of what’s behind the scenes, how do things work, how these all come together, what are the requirements,” he said. “One of the key pieces there is clearly blockchain because, again, this is fundamental to doing anything in the metaverse.”

However, blockchain and metaverse come with their complications. As one of the leaders in this field, Zetly generates the revenue streams for blockchain through fan tokens such as digital collectibles, NFTs, play-to-earn games, and AR and VR to transcend new ways of fan engagement.

The world of sports, especially the football industry, is transforming at a rapid pace, and as Dominguez tells CoinGeek, blockchain is here to revamp it even more:

“I think it’s important for blockchain to be here because it’s gonna just change the way we do business. And it really makes sense. It’s gonna help the football industry to be more sustainable, more profitable, more efficient.”

“All the really cool, exciting stuff we’ve been talking about last few years are beginning to come out now,” Rice said in his parting message. “Hold on, buckle your seatbelt. It’s gonna be an awesome ride.”

Watch: How Bitcoin and blockchain can change sports – Mike Glijer of Zetly