NFT+social, unlocking a new "posture" for watching the 2021 European Cup

Original title: "Kaozai Observation | NFT+social, a new "posture" for watching the 2021 European Cup is here~ Click here! "

Author: Roasted

UEFA EURO 2021 will be something special. Eleven host cities will celebrate the 60th anniversary of this great event.

The 24 participating teams include 9 of the 10 European champions, 11 of the 13 teams that have reached the European Cup finals, and 15 of the 17 teams that have reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. This European Cup is a real "small World Cup".

But did you know that blockchain technology can actually be applied to football matches?

What kind of sparks will be produced by combining football, the world's largest sport, with blockchain technology?

NFT brings new profit points to events

NFT is a new outbreak point in the blockchain field and is considered to be the most likely development direction for blockchain technology.

From 2020 to 2021, NFT shined brightly. According to the NonFungible.com report, NFT sales exceeded US$2 billion in the first quarter of 2021, and the total circulation value has exceeded the whole year of 2020. NFT is indeed full of magic and is developing rapidly.

The combination of NFT and football events is a direction worth looking forward to. After all, NBA Top Shot has shown that the market has enough enthusiasm for NFT. NBA Top Shot allows players to collect digital collectibles that are built around real moments/actions that occur during the NBA season.

The success of NBA Top Shot shows the feasibility of using the highlights of star players/events as content to create NFTs.

Although different countries/regions have different emphases on sports, football has always been far ahead in terms of global influence, and the appeal and fan purchasing power of top football stars are certainly not weaker than those of basketball stars. Therefore, the successful experience of NBA Top Shot can be fully replicated in the field of football events.

Of course, the application of NFT in football matches is not limited to the direction of star players/match moments.

In simple terms, NFT is suitable for all items with unique characteristics. It can be regarded as the on-chain identity ID of these items and a certificate of unique ownership. NFT is suitable for event tickets, jerseys, sneakers, star signatures, etc., and is very collectible.

The sports memorabilia market is a huge market worth billions of dollars. Driven by profit, counterfeit souvenirs are common.

If the information of event souvenirs is recorded on NFT, each souvenir can get a unique identity. In addition to being able to closely track the transaction history of the souvenirs, it can also record some major events that affect the value of the souvenirs themselves.

Immersed in every moment of the event and every corner around it, the natural fit between NFT and sports events has opened up new uses for blockchain as the underlying technology.

Fan pass injects new vitality into the club

Fan tokens, also called social tokens, are specific encrypted tokens issued by fan groups and circulated within specific groups. The larger the fan community, the higher the cohesion, and the more secure the circulation of fan tokens. This is an emerging form of tokens that is full of creativity and vitality.

Many European football clubs have issued their own fan tokens. For example, Atletico de Madrid Fan Token (ATM) is the fan token of Atletico Madrid Football Club, Juventus Fan Token (JUV) is the fan token of Juventus Football Club, Paris Saint-Germain Fan Token (PSG) is the fan token of Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, and AS Roma Fan Token (ASR) is the fan token of Roma Football Club.

Fans can obtain fan tokens of their favorite teams through some basic contributions, such as answering questions, participating in team activities, providing advice to the team, actively making comments that are beneficial to the team, etc. Fans with fan tokens have the right to vote in the team's opinion polls. The more fan tokens they hold, the higher the weight of their votes. Therefore, fan tokens allow fans to participate in the decision-making of the team's affairs to a certain extent.

In January this year, fans chose "Song 2" by the British band Blur as the song to be played when Cristiano Ronaldo's Juventus club scored a goal at home.

Fans who hold club fan passes can even obtain some "special rights" of the team, such as priority purchase rights for some official limited edition souvenirs, the right to obtain free tickets or purchase discounted tickets, or the opportunity to have close contact with idol stars, priority access to the latest news on the team's development, etc.

Fan tokens are also a symbol of "loyal fans of a team". Clubs, teams and fans jointly empower this token, and clubs and teams provide application scenarios for this token. Fans can gain power by holding tokens, thereby increasing the cohesion and influence of fans and teams.

Fairness and transparency to solve the problem of fraud

In 2006, a telephone recording revealed that Juventus Club General Manager Moggi had close ties with certain officials within the Football Association, and that the referees of many games were manipulated by them. This scandal, known as "Phonegate", involved not only Moggi, but also Juventus Chairman Giraudo, Italian Football Association Vice President Mazzini and former famous Italian referee Paileto. In the end, Juventus was relegated to the second division, and other teams were sentenced to league points deductions, while Juventus General Manager Moggi was sentenced to 68 months in prison.

Many years have passed, but the cases of cheating on the football field have not disappeared, and have even intensified. An investigation by Greek media SDNA confirmed that the Greek giant Olympiacos Club was suspected of manipulating the results of the game in 2015. The club owner Evangelos Marinakis was banned from the football industry for life. This European century-old football giant will be fined 3 million euros and the team will be relegated. Amid the pandemic, SVP sport reported that at least 22 games were still marked by the Swedish Football Association as suspected of cheating or fraud.

The prosperity of the football industry has created huge profit margins. Some people have seen loopholes in it and continue to exploit them, falsifying age, grades, salaries, and even match-fixing. What can blockchain bring to the football field?

As a distributed shared ledger and database, blockchain has the characteristics of decentralization, full traceability, traceability, collective maintenance, openness and transparency. These characteristics bring one of the core values ​​of blockchain technology, which is "trust".

Blockchain has reshaped the trust model, which no longer needs to rely on centralized endorsement. This value will also be reflected in the application of blockchain.

In sports events, the group draw has always been a link that has been repeatedly suspected of being manipulated by humans. In 2016, former FIFA President Blatter publicly stated that UEFA's draw was manipulated, which caused a huge shock in the football world.

In the group draw of the event, blockchain technology can actually be used to ensure the fairness and transparency of the entire draw process. The teams participating in the event can be numbered in advance, and then the blockchain can be used to generate true random numbers, and its unpredictability can be used to determine the team groups, so as to ensure the fairness of the entire draw process.

Of course, the applications of trust value are definitely more than just these.

For a long time, players' personal information and performance have been stored in the form of centralized archives and files. The disadvantage of centralized storage is that the cost of tampering is low, but the cost of verification is high. Most clubs do not set up special departments or personnel to check this kind of information, which directly leads to some organizations taking advantage of such loopholes.

If this information is stored in a distributed manner using blockchain, it will be different. Player information and game results will be uploaded to the chain, which will be publicly available and cannot be tampered with. This information can provide a reliable reference data for clubs that need to introduce players. At the same time, once blockchain technology is widely used, the growth of players will be more realistically and reliably reflected through data. These data and the authenticity and efficiency they bring are of great value to the entire football industry and sports industry.

The sports industry is the fastest growing industry since mankind entered the second decade of the new century.

According to PR Newswire, the global sports industry's market value is growing at an annual compound growth rate of 8.1% and will reach US$2,534.65 billion by 2024.

Blockchain technology can re-empower the sports industry, reshape the industry's value system, fundamentally change the logical mode of the traditional sports industry based on personal trust and institutional trust, break the barriers to value circulation, and bring new vitality to the global sports industry.

In this summer full of hot suspense that fans are dreaming about, what kind of surprises will blockchain bring to the European Cup? On June 12, Beijing time, when the 2021 European Cup opens, Kaozi will reveal the suspense with you.