Maria Christodimitropoulou, John Douvis, Panagiotis Alexopoulos, Panagiota Antonopoulou
This research examines the multifaceted digital transformation of tennis, analyzing the impact of new technologies on four key pillars: athlete training and performance, officiating and "smart" courts, fan experience and engagement, and emerging business models and governance. The integration of Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things through wearable sensors and "smart" equipment, and blockchain technology is radically reshaping how the sport is trained, played, watched, and managed. Technologies such as motion analysis systems, "smart" racquets, electronic officiating systems, personalized content platforms for fans, and Non-Fungible Tokens are analyzed. The research demonstrates that while these technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for performance optimization, objectivity in officiating, and deeper fan connection, they also present challenges related to adoption, regulation, commercial viability, and the need for unified governance. The research concludes that successfully navigating this new landscape requires a strategic approach that balances innovation with tradition, ensuring that technology acts as an enhancing factor for the sport rather than an end in itself.
Introduction: Blockchain-enabled products (e.g., cryptocurrencies and fan tokens) have rapidly expanded across professional sport, but the research landscape remains dispersed across finance, marketing, information systems, and sport management. Methods: This study conducted a thematic review of Web of Science Core Collection records supplemented by snowball searching, yielding 30 English-language peer-reviewed studies published between 2019 and 2025. Results: Based on the included titles, we mapped how the literature has developed and what it collectively implies for sport organizations, platforms, and consumers. Five recurring strands were identified: (1) fan tokens and sport cryptoassets as financial assets, emphasizing volatility, spillovers, and sensitivity to sport- and crypto-market events; (2) adoption, identity, and engagement research explaining why supporters buy/hold tokens, participate in voting, and engage in advocacy; (3) computational and platform-data approaches (e.g., sentiment/discourse analyses and poll/voting participation patterns) to quantify online engagement and market narratives; (4) blockchain applications and governance, including stakeholder-oriented discussions and ethical critiques regarding value creation, transparency, and power asymmetries; and (5) gambling-like risks and addiction-related correlates, highlighting the convergence of trading, betting-like dynamics, and potentially harmful consumption. Discussion: Limitations include dependence on WoS-indexed English-language publications, topic and context concentration (especially European football and major platforms), and heterogeneity in study designs and outcomes that precludes comprehensive data synthesis. Future research should broaden contexts beyond dominant sports/regions and use stronger longitudinal or quasi-experimental designs to test mechanisms and harms.
Ovaj rad prikazuje razvoj prototipa blockchain sustava za nadzor nad antidoping pos- tupcima u sportu. Sustav je osmišljen kako bi povećao transparentnost, sigurnost i nepromjenjivost podataka u procesima testiranja sportaša. Korištenjem Ethereum blockchaina, pametnih ugovora i tehnologija poput Reacta, Flask-a i Web3.py, im- plementirane su funkcionalnosti za tri glavne korisničke uloge: agenciju, laboratorij i sportaša. Agencija može inicirati zahtjeve za testiranjem, laboratorij upisivati rezul- tate, a sportaš pregledavati ishode. Evaluacijom su identificirane prednosti u odnosu na postojeće sustave, ali i ograničenja koja mogu biti predmet budućih poboljšanja, uključujući autentikaciju korisnika, veću skalabilnost i primjenu naprednih kripto- grafskih metoda.
Philip Kang, Yong Jae Ko, Sangpil Youm, Yoonki Chun · 6 authors
Purpose The current study attempted to unravel the complexities of sport Non-Fungible Token (NFT) consumption by exploring consumers' perceived values and risks of sport NFTs. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this goal, the authors conducted an exploratory study by collecting 23,445 tweets from Twitter and adopted artificial intelligence tools (i.e. latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling and visualization, Word2Vec and uniform manifold approximation and projection) to analyze the data. Findings The results revealed that sport NFT platforms (i.e. NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day and UFC Strike) engage users through a blend of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, including personal enjoyment, financial rewards and social recognition. Originality/value The current research not only illuminates the newly emerged NFT market but also provides exploratory evidence to understand sport NFT consumers’ value perception by using machine and deep learning approaches. Practically, the current study provides valuable insights to sport NFT brand managers by identifying significant values that trigger sport NFT consumers' engagement with sport NFT consumption behavior.
Vitor Ayres Principe, Tiago Ribeiro, Wecisley Ribeiro do Espírito Santo, Rodrigo Gomes de Souza Vale · 5 authors
This study examines the innovative application of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) within the sports management sector, leveraging blockchain technology to enable more transparent and inclusive governance. This paper explores how DAOs can disrupt traditional governance structures through the democratic participation of fans and stakeholders. It emphasizes the potential of DAOs to facilitate collaborative governance in line with the four modes of governance framework: chief, clan, custodian, and consortium. By dissecting decentralized governance models, the paper discusses how DAOs can transform traditional structures, enabling more democratic fan participation in sport club decisions. The research highlights such innovations’ economic, social, and environmental benefits with real-world examples of DAO implementations in sports organizations. Additionally, the study proposes a conceptual model for integrating DAOs into sports clubs, optimizing resource management, enhancing fan engagement, and aligning club operations with the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria. This conceptual model is a foundation for future research and practical applications in the sports management field.
This paper explores the relationship with gambling severity of a relatively new set of speculative digital products, namely cryptocurrency trading, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and fan tokens. These products have gained notoriety in sports marketing strategies (among other realms) and are considered to be potentially problematic because, disguised as non-gambling products, they include gambling-like design features that might make sports fans more vulnerable when consuming them. A sample of regular sports bettors (N = 525) based in the U.S. was recruited in 2023 via an online panel to understand the association between these types of consumptions. The findings revealed a significant overlap between experiencing gambling problems and consuming cryptocurrency trading products, NFTs, and fan tokens. The results indicate a modest relationship between the severity of gambling and the likelihood of owning the studied digital assets, of holding positive attitudes toward them, and of being more frequently exposed to their advertising and marketing promotions. The relevancy of these findings resides in the fact that sports bettors might be perceiving and treating gambling and gambling-like assets as part of the same product category, when in reality the latter are legally required to comply with fewer consumer protection measures than gambling products.
Gambling sponsorships are common in international soccer due to the substantial funds they provide to clubs. For example, in the 2022/23 English Premier League season, eight clubs collectively received an estimated £60 million from gambling shirt-front sponsorships.While the Premier League plans to ban gambling shirt-front sponsorships by 2026, this will not include shirt sleeves or pitch-side hoardings, which are the most frequently seen forms of in-game marketing. In contrast, Italy and Spain have fully banned gambling sponsorships and in-game marketing due to public health concerns. Relatedly, much less attention has been paid to the emergence of sponsorships associated with cryptocurrency or financial trading. These are both gambling-like products, which are engaged in disproportionately by those experiencing gambling-related harm, and which also use soccer to market themselves. Researchers have suggested that these products might look to fill the gap in high- level sports left by gambling sponsorship bans, and so have highlighted the need to monitor their use of sponsorship agreements with high-level soccer teams. We therefore provide an overview of gambling and gambling-like sponsorship of soccer teams within high-level leagues across England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Argentina. Overall, our findings indicate that gambling sponsorship remains prominent, but has reduced in comparison to previous seasons across most countries. However, we have observed betting ‘partnerships’ which circumvent gambling sponsorship prohibitions in Italy. In relation to cryptocurrency and financial trading companies, there are limited numbers of active sponsorships outside of the UK, but ‘partnerships’ between teams and these companies have become prevalent.
Jamie Torrance, Conor Heath, Maira Andrade, Philip Newall
Background & aims: The gamblification of UK football has resulted in a proliferation of in-game marketing associated with gambling and gambling-like products such as cryptocurrencies and financial trading apps. The English Premier League (EPL) has in response banned gambling logos on shirt-fronts from 2026 onward. This ban does not affect other types of marketing for gambling (e.g., sleeves and pitch-side hoardings), nor gambling-like products. This study therefore aimed to assess the ban's implied overall reduction of different types of marketing exposure. Methods: We performed a frequency analysis of logos associated with gambling, cryptocurrency, and financial trading across 10 broadcasts from the 2022/23 EPL season. For each relevant logo, we coded: the marketed product, associated brand, number of individual logos, logo location, logo duration, and whether harm-reduction content was present. Results: There were 20,941 relevant logos across the 10 broadcasts, of which 13,427 (64.1%) were for gambling only, 2,236 (10.7%) were for both gambling and cryptocurrency, 2,014 (9.6%) were for cryptocurrency only, 2,068 (9.9%) were for both cryptocurrency and financial trading, and 1,196 (5.7%) were for financial trading only. There were 1,075 shirt-front gambling-associated logos, representing 6.9% of all gambling-associated logos, and 5.1% of all logos combined. Pitch-side hoardings were the most frequent marketing location (52.3%), and 3.4% of logos contained harm-reduction content. Discussion & Conclusions: Brand logos associated with gambling, cryptocurrency, and financial trading are common within EPL broadcasts. Approximately 1 in 20 gambling and gambling-like logos are subject to the EPL's voluntary ban on shirt-front gambling sponsorship.
Technology has begun to fundamentally change the sport industry. With the upsurge in the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality, and augmented reality, the sport industry has begun to use more technology to enhance the consumer experience. Along with the rise in these other technologies, is the use of blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is driven by three key pillars: (1) distributed computation, (2) public key cryptography, and (3) decentralized consensus. Blockchain is changing the sport landscape by supporting the use of non-fungible tokens for creative sport content, cryptocurrencies for purchases, and platforms that better protect consumer information and enhance their engagement opportunities with athletes, teams, and leagues. In this chapter, we discuss how blockchain technologies can provide opportunities and risks to the sport industry.
Flavio A. M. Pinto, Yogachandran Rahulamathavan, James Skinner
Doping is a well-known problem in competitive sports. Along the years, several cases have come to public, evidencing corrupt practices from within the sports environment. To guarantee fair play and prevent public health issues, anti-doping organizations and sports authorities are expected to cooperate in the fight against doping. To achieve this mission, doping-related data must be produced, stored, accessed, and shared in a secure, tamperproof, and privacy-preserving manner. This paper investigates the processes and tools established by the World Anti-Doping Agency for the global harmonization of doping control activities. From this investigation, it is possible to conclude that there is an inherent trust problem, in part due to a centralized data management paradigm and to the lack of fully digitalized processes. Therefore, this paper presents two main contributions: the concept of a multiorganizational decentralized data governance model and a blockchain-based design for one of the most sensitive data-sharing processes within the anti-doping ecosystem. Throughout this article, it is shown that the adoption of a permissioned blockchain can benefit the whole anti-doping community, creating more reliable processes for handling data, where privacy and security are enhanced.
Professional sports have in recent years become increasingly intertwined with gambling marketing, especially in countries such as Australia, Spain, and the UK. Even Formula 1 racing, which used to be closely associated with tobacco sponsorship, announced in 2021 an agreement to have an official betting sponsor. However, as happened previously with tobacco sponsorship, some policymakers and regulators have started to take legal action with gambling marketing restrictions. In Italy, gambling advertising and sponsorship are now prohibited. In Spain, gambling sponsorship of sports teams is prohibited, whilst advertising is prohibited except between 1:00AM–5:00AM, thus effectively banning commercially viable gambling marketing through sports. The UK is currently considering a sponsorship ban in sports. Although these regulatory actions may have improved consumer protection against gambling harms, a closer examination of recent developments in the top men’s soccer leagues of these three countries reveals an emerging trend toward sponsorship from two gambling-like industries that are unaffected by these legal bans: financial trading apps and cryptocurrencies. Consumers are becoming increasingly exposed to the marketing of these gambling-like products through sports contexts, and these products could pose similar risks to gambling or even additional, unique risks.
espanolEl contrato de transferencia de derechos federativos del jugador de futbol y posterior proceso de inscripcion, es frecuente fuente de conflictos e incertidumbre, lo que obstaculiza el correcto desarrollo de la actividad deportiva y economica de los clubes de futbol. Partiendo de la regulacion actual, este trabajo analiza como la implementacion de a traves de un smart contract implicaria contar con un instrumento contractual completo que ademas permite garantizar el cumplimiento de las prestaciones. En combinacion con blockchain y otras funcionalidades asociadas (tokens, criptomonedas, identidad digital) resuelve los problemas de confianza y gestion asociados al proceso de transferencia. Tambien facilita el acceso y flujo de informacion, a la par que soluciona otros problemas relacionados con terceros ajenos al contrato. EnglishContracts for the transfer of a football player's federative rights and the subsequent registration process are a frequent source of conflict and uncertainty, which hinders the proper development of sporting and economic activities of football clubs. On the basis of current regulations, this paper analyses how using a smart contract would imply having a complete contractual arrangement, which would also ensure fulfilment of obligations. Together with blockchain and other related solutions (tokens, cryptocurrencies, digital identity), it solves trust and management issues associated with the transfer process. Moreover, it facilitates the access and flow of information, as well as solving other problems associated with third parties outside the contract.
In the context of the two-stage procedure undertaken by UEFA in respect of match-fixing, UEFA is entitled to take an administrative measure—non-admission to a competition for one season—followed by a subsequent disciplinary procedure. Nevertheless, despite the administrative measure not being of a purely sanctioning nature, a certain standard of proof must be met. In case the competent body, on the basis of all the factual circumstances and information available, is not comfortably satisfied of a direct or indirect involvement of the club in match-fixing activities, the club shall be declared eligible and be admitted to the competition. Another competitor may appeal the decision admitting a club into a competition, only if it can demonstrate that it is directly or legally affected by the decision at stake. Thus, not all competitors in a competition are automatically deemed affected. In the event that the competition is already underway, the required evidence of a sufficient interest is even stricter as any replacement measure is considered as disruptive and would fall under the competence of the Emergency Panel to deal with in the scope of its margin of discretion and bearing in mind a smooth running and integrity of the competition.