How Is Football Utilising Blockchain?
Blockchain is an emerging technology that is slowly working its way into many different industries around the world. Presenting many benefits and streamlining a lot of processes. Its adoption so far has been slow; however, we have seen that this is slowly starting to pick up pace as the benefits of blockchain in business in general and also in sales operations start to become more common knowledge.
And today, the spotlight is going to be on how blockchain is currently being used within the sports industry, and more specifically, within the football arena. We’re going to look at some use cases of blockchain within the football industry and how we can expect it to implement itself in the future within the industry. It has also implemented itself in the betting world, which means you can bet on football matches on the best bitcoin betting sites.
What is blockchain?
Firstly, what are the principal benefits of blockchain? Blockchain is the technology that underpins cryptocurrency; it essentially works on a token-based system whereby correct and original ownership can be ultimately and undeniably verified and it also facilitates a fair exchange of physical and/or virtual assets.
It has since made its presence known within the football arena, with the 2022 World Cup in Qatar shining the spotlight on crypto and the ability to buy and sell tickets for football matches using a specific token called FWC, which represents a Qatar 2022 token. This was essentially a digital form of current that ensured that any purchase or sale of tickets was done with security in mind.
Use case in the World Cup
This meant that fans from all around the world were able to purchase tickets and merchandise for the World Cup using these tokens. It also had other applications within the competition. For example, the more matches that fans attend during the World Cup, the more they are rewarded with FWC. Another use case within the football industry is also utilising a different form of blockchain, which is called Ethereum. The reason for this is that it supports and utilises a form of technology called smart contracts.
Smart contracts
As you may have guessed, smart contracts are indeed just contracts, save that they utilise blockchain technology to automate and regulate actions based upon criteria being filled. And the reason this is useful within the football industry is that it helps secure football players’ contracts when joining, leaving, or renewing their contract with a club. How it works within the football arena is that it means it can ensure that footballers are paid automatically. For example, after each goal is scored by a certain player, a smart contract will ensure that once that goal is scored and confirmed, the payment is made to the player.
Helping ticket sellers
And as we’ve already covered, blockchain can be hugely influential in ticket sales. It makes the whole transaction, from start to finish, a lot more secure and safe for all. All transactions that are made on the blockchain are recorded in a public ledger, ensuring that the transaction can be verified and the ticket can be linked to this transaction so it can be determined whether a football ticket is a forgery or if it is indeed an actual ticket for a football match. It protects clubs and ticket sales sites and it ensures that they don’t have anyone trying to exchange or sell fake tickets as the authenticity can be verified.
In Summary
As the next few years elapse, we will start to see the presence of blockchain become commonplace in football. This will be to the point where we don’t even notice it, as it will become the underlying backbone of operational processes in all areas of football and business and will ensure that all transactions will be secure and all businesses and sellers will be held accountable for the goods that they are selling.
Image: Pixabay.com – Gerd Altmann
