Introduction to blockchain technologies

Abstract

The intersection of sports and technology has never been more prominent than it is now. While the influence of technology on sports, as it relates to equipment design and advanced materials development, athlete performance, and interaction with the media through up-close cams and mics and even live athlete telemetry is well-advanced in its evolution and well-studied, blockchain technology has emerged over the last few years as potentially highly disruptive. It would be fair to say though that its full potential is not yet well understood by the sector. Blockchain technologies, which are fundamentally a new technical architecture for the internet, are a relatively recent and somewhat-hyped innovation that at first glance would seem to have little obvious disruptive effect on sports. For example, blockchains do not advance equipment engineering, athletic performance, or gameplay, or offer any obvious advantage to hosting and watching sports. But blockchains and web3 technologies are poised to revolutionise the business of sports by fundamentally disrupting the underlying economic ‘primitives’ of sports, these being the trusted agreements and commercial and social arrangements between players, fans, and the professional and amateur bodies that govern sports at their different levels.