If you describe yourself as an athlete at any level, you might be aware that activating the gaming community is becoming increasingly important for athletes. Indeed, for many athletes in many fields, this statement will likely be old news. That fact alone, should make the rest sit up and take notice.

There is still a large percentage of both aspiring and currently pro athletes, however, that would mentally file this nascent reality under the “social media” tab and simply move along, feeling they’ve got that covered. Indeed, perhaps the majority of athletes remain unaware of the latent pace and magnitude of their potential within emerging Web3 technologies and behaviors, and that’s unfortunately to their huge unseen loss

Right at the outset, let’s acknowledge that sports practice can be all-consuming. Competitive athletes have every right and indeed need to concentrate on their training and performance in a way the rest of us seldom comprehend. The small glimpses most catch of an athlete’s journey can’t convey the total dedication asked of the competitive spirit, so it’s easy for athletes to feel justifiably grounded in their daily reality, and dismiss “virtual” appendages to their game.

That said, the great news is that athletes don’t have to become gaming freaks or online techies to saturate those communities with their presence. It gets better, because by simply taking the time to accept and understand how the World Wide Web has moved from iteration 1 to 2 and now Web3, the opportunities for recognition and income become obvious. It gets a little better yet, because the marriage of Web3 and sports is only just starting out in a real sense, and there is a galaxy of those opportunities unfolding.

Athletes can now access millions upon millions of people who have perhaps always had a latent desire to live vicariously through others’ sporting achievements, yet will never put their bums down on a stadium seat in their lives. That might be the biggest slice of this new potential, but probably the most profitable segment now, is made up of those who are already dedicated fans. These are enthusiasts who will, indeed, attend events, and are already looking out for current and rising talent, but who are also embracing Web3 technologies like blockchain gaming, digital assets (NFTs), and the augmented reality (AR) of the unfolding metaverse.

Today’s dedicated sports fans might show their enthusiasm through attendance, but they also want a lot more, and Web3 is positively saturating them with options. Aspiring and existing competitive athletes simply need to opt in to access opportunities for support, income, and growth the like of which must be making athletes of yore do burpees in their graves!
If you’re a rising or existing pro athlete, the gaming community wants to game you! Put perhaps less cheekily and more factually, a recent article outlined how exactly athletes can capitalize on the growth of Web3 gaming and other virtual channels and assets, by aligning themselves Web3 vehicles that

Athletes are the original influencers

Don’t forget that when personalities became a marketing vehicle for companies advertising to consumers, those personalities were athletes. Actors and others subsequently jumped on the bandwagon, but it was originally athletes who resonated with the man in the street. That hasn’t changed. Athletes served the commercial interests of companies or the national interests of countries, and although they picked up a paycheck for it, the real revenue was expected to flow into someone else’s coffers.

Web3 and its gaming component is changing that. How? Seasoned online entrepreneur, Yaro Starak, perhaps puts it best when he says “Web3 is still very new and developing at a rapid pace, but it has its roots in the idea of decentralization, or put another way, open transparent networks of information governed by software and not owned by centralized corporations or governments.”

It’s that last part that should make bells ring for every athlete alive. The old order of you’ve-got-talent-but-we-control-access is evaporating daily. It’s already a small puddle, and will soon be gone. The old deal was promoter and networks first, athletes second, and it was, you’ll appreciate, a comparatively lousy offer. Emblematic of the new dynamism, here at Numinal, for example, our services for athletes are all about positioning our clients, and diversifying and optimizing their earnings to the hilt.

Just think of the innumerable athletes of the recent past, particularly heavyweight boxing champs (at the real bottom end of things), who died stone broke after seemingly extremely successful careers that had the world in awe. The old paradigm of money interests holding talent captive was never a sustainable nor fair deal, and its demise was inevitable. Not only has the reality of decentralization toppled that house of cards and started putting athletes first, it’s also opening up numerous new avenues of connection and income for sporting men and women.

Web3 walks the talk, as it provides the tools to connect directly with fans, manage your NIL intimately, and remain the sole owner of your talent, in every way that counts. As an example, what would you charge for a personal lesson or co-play with a fan? How much would you earn in a year, if you could sell that opportunity a million times over? While that might have been a silly dream only a short time ago, today’s AR and VR innovations are making that a legitimate potential for athletes of all types.

Love it or hate it, sports betting too has gained some legitimacy in recent years, and along with the gaming community’s desire to incorporate athletes into their experience, it provides a massive financial push towards the union of Web3 technologies and the modern athlete. Especially for rising athletic talent, the rather archaic limitations previously placed upon their being able to benefit from their NIL are eliminated by Web3 advances. While a child actor or singer might become an overnight millionaire quite easily, affording the same recognition to sporting talent in the early years has always been impossible, until now.

The typical trajectory of athletic prowess is constant progression until attainment of the professional ranks. Athletic prime cannot be predicted, however, and Web3 enables those who excel in their fledgling years to capitalize on this, rather than spend years wowing limited audiences for no financial gain.

Some nuts and bolts of the emerging (sports) metaverse

If there’s a commonality between athletes and geeks, it’s that internet developers keep building, no matter what! Just like athletes are dedicated to the training that will bring forth their best, developers aren’t slowing down on the back of the see-saw news we’ve become accustomed to around cryptos and NFTs. Web3 is unfolding apace, and the rebranding of Facebook to Meta should be enough proof, even for casual observers.

A randomized and rather eclectic look at Web3 sports-orientated companies and initiatives ends up giving you the most educational glimpse of what’s unfolding for athletes in the metaverse. Various forms of engagement and income are already established, with perhaps the most exciting part about being a Web3-conscious athlete right now, being the fact that this really is only the beginning of an avalanche of opportunity to come.

The HEIR App is the NFT platform launched by Michael Jordan together with son Jeffrey Jordan. In a nutshell, it lets athletes increase their reach with followers, manage that interaction to a far deeper level, and ultimately cement loyalty across a buying fan base. Running on the blockchain Solana (a 2017 open-source project geared up to host decentralized and scalable apps), the mobile app has been designed specifically towards bringing younger fans into the fold.

Essentially a fan engagement platform, its app launch seemed to some to be a pivot away from Web3, but development of the company’s core platform continues. For HEIR, the app is just another way to allow everyone in. It also makes for a seamless avenue through which to integrate Web3 technologies into the mobile experience, and NFT purchases and crypto payments are standard.

We’ve spoken about Autograph before too－the platform facilitating pro athletes and assorted celebrities to extrapolate real-life happenings into NFT offers to fans. Launched by NFL legend Tom Brady, he rubs shoulders with former footballers Andrew Hawkins and Troy Jones who have launched StatusPRO. The latter is a sports technology-stroke-gaming platform employing real-time player data in order to generate authentic AR experiences for gamers.

There’s rare, the fantasy football game that allows gamers to buy, sell, and trade while managing the virtual team with digital player cards. Calaxy is the social marketplace co-founded by techie Solo Ceesay and the NBA star Spencer Dinwiddie－more athlete-with-techie collaboration into Web3! The NBA and NFL have an NFT fundi in their corner－Roham Gharegozlou, he who co-founded DapperLabs. Gharegozlou established Cryptokitties in 2017 , the consumer-facing blockchain platform dedicated to fun and games that got such a huge amount of press for its instant warm reception.

Reaching across genres comes DPC, a platform offering digital player card NFTs for all known sports. Here is another Web3 initiative geared towards providing athletes the tools to capture and monetize their best performance moments. In a much bigger league, GameOn mingles with some of the planet’s largest entertainment, media, and sports companies to launch NFT games focused on generating income and building brand recognition－two decidedly potent necessities for athletes too.

There is also LootMogul－a company led by athletes and founded by former Warner Bros. Games IT head Raj Rajkotia－ another Web3 platform employing blockchain games and meta stores to develop the ecosystem for players and brands. A smart, cozy fit, big things are expected from this outfit.

Athletic opportunity beckons…

They might be mainstream today, but some of the biggest companies ever－Google, Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook－arose at the transitioning of the web from Web1 to Web2, and this is an important lesson for aspiring and established athletes. Things have never looked so good for athletes hoping to build a sports career as they do now, as we transition to Web3.

Now, we’re on the cusp of a sports gold rush into the metaverse, and happy will be those awake enough to get a head start. There are always wannabes in any technology bloom that will fall away, but the fundamentals (and incredibly lucrative platforms) will persist as the web evolves.

From the above smattering of initiatives, it’s already easy to see how the old deal of “I own it, and this is going to be your cut” has yielded to “I built this, please use it” for athletes.

There’s also Burrst – a platform specifically geared up for rising young talent to benefit from their efforts. It is easier for pro athletes to monetize their presence and participation anywhere, but with many new Web3 technologies driving interest in and relationships with student athletes and fans, sport as an industry has finally been outfitted from head to toe.

… and amateurs are welcome too

Through Web3 technologies, young aspiring athletes are able to create their own digital assets, rather than spend years in pursuit of a willing agent or promoter, hoping that they’ll one day gain the exposure (and salary) they deserve. This is an entirely new paradigm in so many important ways, enabling direct interaction with fans (and without intermediaries), as well as immediate income potential, something so crucial in sustaining blossoming sporting talent.

Athletes can employ digital assets that provide supporters with exclusive content or events that were previously out of reach, while the athletes themselves can step straight into a marketplace peopled with fans that, for them, was also previously out of reach. Good news for fans, athletes, and sports at large, as meeting modern fans on their turf not only cements sporting activity as an incredibly popular human pastime, it also ensures that the passion will be passed onto the next generation. 

The fields, arenas, tracks, and stadiums that hosted sports over the previous century were built to provide the interface that kept sport’s popularity rising. Web3 is the new iteration, and it’s arrived with unprecedented benefits for everyone involved. Today, fans can even vote on who plays who－a far cry from remotely organized and managed fixtures of the past. Of course stadiums and real-time events aren’t going anywhere, rather a whole new universe is opening up alongside them, and embellishing them. This is the promise Web3 makes to athletes of all hues, and it’s far more rewarding than anything that’s gone before.

In utilizing decentralized (blockchain) technology to create a wholly more inclusive sports industry, student athletes gain access to a far wider audience, with gaming being a major component of that. They emerge as professionals more honed in their performance, having had the funding to concentrate more exclusively on their craft. Fans gain a more intimate experience of support, and a more polished performance to enjoy and incorporate into their gaming of whatever kind. It’s a win-win seldom seen in any arena.

Again, technological advancement has always tended to benefit pros first, then the fans, and perhaps amateurs. Maybe. That was the legacy dispensation. Now, with Web3 innovative platforms and concepts, the interaction can be a lot more detailed and intense, and the money goes in correct measure to the right people! FidGrit is another platform worthy of mention, as its depth is indicative of where Web3 can carry sporting careers and fan involvement within the next few years.

Run by athletes, FidGrit is billed as “a platform for players, for teams, and for coaches, [where] players can schedule matches, find opponents to play and coaches to work with, keep their fans in the loop with live scoring updates, share results to social media, analyze their game for strengths and weaknesses through our stats, and much more. Coaches and teams can use their discussion board to talk strategy remotely and conveniently, schedule practices and events efficiently, manage security, recruit new players, and even more.”

That’s a mouthful, but it’s a mouthful of mighty attractive goodies for everyone mentioned, and it’s indicative of where sports is going in the very near future.

What’s the connection between video gaming communities, NFT’s, and the Metaverse?

It’s easy to see from the above minuscule sample cache of Web3 sporty platforms that Web3 sports business at large will need a host of now standard digital assets and facilities put together in one place, and platforms like Fireblocks are also emerging to do just that. Indeed, a massive ecosystem is emerging－the metaverse itself－and athletes need to be aware of the profitable connections between its various components.

Again, a rather random and eclectic look at some predictions that are nonetheless well grounded in currently built or legitimately imminent technologies will give athletes the best feel for where to go and what to do. Some snapshots of where sport is heading would have to include AI. With Google launching Bard and ChatGPT from openai, AI is in fact super hot, and starting to show some of its shiniest smiley faces in all the right ways. AI might seem initially to dominate sports in many ways over the next two or three years, but the metaverse will take its place as the cosmos, with AI but a star in the firmament, albeit one of the brightest.

Follow the money, as they say, and looking at Web3 investments from people and firms with big financial clout, investment in Web3 development is buoyant. That alone can tell athletes where to dig to find gold.  We’ve mentioned the impact legislative relaxation around sports betting has had on sports at large, and although it’s something few athletes contemplate, it’s been akin to a startup merging with a giant multinational. It’s true global sports is no startup and has massive financial clout in its own right, but it’s also true that it’s hard to underestimate just what access to the mountain of cash generated by betting has done for sports’ profile.

Sports betting was one of the first digital entry points for millions around the world to develop a new enthusiasm for athletes per se, and while the betting fraternity is not often the focus for rising or existing pro athletes, the marketing value it shed has been huge. Indeed, sports NFTs and metaverse collectibles as a whole piggy-backed on the sports betting gateway when emerging, capably aided right at the outset by NBA TopShot.

Social developments are often riddled with hiccups and divisions, yet this time around, it’s proving very timely and surprisingly accurate for athletes particularly to reach for the tools of the metaverse, in order to genuinely transform their fortunes. Web3 is like early stage Bitcoin investment, if not on such a ridiculously profitable scale. Close though, pretty close, especially for those athletes who take the time to comprehensively grasp the nature of new technologies, and back up a detailed plan to capitalize on all of them that tie into their career goals, and make the best financial sense.

Athletes of today are not merely joining the ranks of competition, they are able to capitalize on a rather rampant pivot by the global fandom and peers alike into the digital world, one able to deliver the right experience－and here’s the great hook－to the right fans. The predictions around millennial and Gen Z sports audiences was potentially nerve-wracking a decade or so ago. That’s hard to imagine today, now that Web3 is unfolding with so much gratification for just those fans.

Statistics show that sports fans typically have more disposable income, are hungry for innovation that allows them to participate more intimately in athletes’ careers, and are keen to repeat positive fan experiences. That all adds up to a playing field (all puns intended) for the modern athlete that previous promoters and sports stars could not even have conceptualized in their very wildest dreams. Modern sports has a lot to offer modern athletes, with the technologies of Web3 right at the forefront of that reality.

NFTs are now an essential component of blockchain gaming. With blockchain having enabled a massively more interactive community of global video gamers, the bridge between that reality and sports NFTs and assorted digital sports collectibles is short and very wide. Both realities are in fact built of the same DNA within the all-encompassing metaverse, and as athletes pick and choose avenues along which to investigate their potential, they’ll be exposed to exponentially more aspects of this new digital sporting reality, each of which can pay handsome returns in exposure, fan base growth, sponsorship, and general sales.

Indeed, from burpees in their graves, athletes and promoters of yore are likely to switch to star jumps in the very near future (!), and modern sports arenas will be a lot more rewarding for athletes pursuing a career, doing what they’re best at.

Some final considerations

It’s likely the average athlete needs no further encouragement to start thinking about their virtual image and digital life, but here are a few final truths about the modern game that smart amateur and pro athletes will want to consider. Firstly, don’t underestimate the power of exclusive content. Access to exclusive content, be it in the form of a personal up-close with you, an NFT offering, or memorabilia of some kind, immediately filters out those who prefer a broad take on digital sports, and calls to those who want exclusive content and nothing else.

Gaming is fun, but also highly competitive, and while there might be thousands of mothers out there crying into their handkerchiefs about little Jimmy who won’t put down the screen, little Jimmy and friends are dynamite clientele for modern athletes. A box of tissues and a cup of tea for mom then, and loads upon loads of competitive loyalty for athletes’ offerings.

Starting small is a mental hurdle to be overcome. The number “one” is an OK number when building digital value. It’s a numbers game, just like sales, but a whole lot more fun, and also far more deeply affirming and rewarding. Athletes need never feel defeated when initial offerings are small and uptake is slow. Just keep feeding the pipe, and soon genuine results will begin to drop out the other end. Don’t forget that there is a huge contingent of enthusiasts who prefer to scout for complete unknowns, and take a long shot on the underdog.

Before the recent F1 race in Bahrain, the blockchain-racing team of Tezos-McLaren dropped a load of digital collectibles to whet fans’ appetite for events to follow. It’s noteworthy that the exercise, which offered various forms of content, other perks and rewards, as well as insider peeks into the racing team’s life, sold more than 230,000 tokens. That kind of cash must be nice, but that kind of interest and future loyalty, is priceless. It starts with one token, or one series of tokens. That’s all athletes need to enter this arena.

Creators are the one group that has been making money from the internet since it was first plugged in, all those years ago. That’s still true today, and as an athlete, you have a lot of value to imbue your creations with. Also, the smart contract component of NFTs enable a host of issues’ resolution, in favour of athletes.

NFTs at large have suffered from the “early release” syndrome seen in the fresh produce market, where some farmers put fruit into the market before it’s ripe, as the season opens. They make quick, big sales, but then everyone else suffers as consumers bite back against the unripe, premature fruit in their mouths. Crop associations the world over struggle each season to prevent their members from jumping the gun, because it’s bad for the overall market for that particular crop, and the bad press NFTs suffered after their initial launch into reality is just the same phenomenon.

NFTs will find their legitimate value as the “season” is allowed to progress and quality fruit is brought to market, if you will, and why all sports tickets are not already NFTs is something of a mystery when you think about it. That’s coming, as are royalties from resales of those tickets rerouted to clubs and players. Season tickets become a lot more exciting for venues and athletes too, while bragging rights and airdropped collectibles are another huge incentive for fans to make this a reality with their buying habits.

Which brings us to NFTs for fantasy sports…

Athletes play a huge role within that genre of course, and it’s a $25 billion per annum depiction of loyalty by a scion of hardcore fans. Here too, athletes can find receptive audiences to successfully market their NIL via digital assets.

Butterbean and Evander Holyfield found the ultimate fame in Sega game depictions, but that kind of “fame” seems paltry today. Now, athletes of every kind have a massively more nuanced, manageable, and profitable arena within which to present themselves. Fans are happier, athletes are more financially stable, and sport per se keeps reaching for higher levels of performance. Whatever else you might say about the unfolding metaverse, that’s a grand outcome all round, and it’s going to be pretty amazing for the athletes who are prepared to wade in.

Lost but interested? Totally aware of the athlete’s potential in Web3 but wondering where to start? Reach out to us at Numinal, and we’ll outfit you with a top to bottom, idealized strategy that incorporates all of the above and then some. Getting your NIL out in the right places and in the right way is half the battle won－call us for a consultation and let’s discuss putting more power behind your performance!