Up until the past couple of years, sports have had the same model for centuries: You charge the public to watch elites play a popular game. While there have been additions to this revenue stream, like merch and team jerseys, innovation has suddenly ramped up.

Sports technology is changing the economy of sports, from the ground up. Implementing blockchain in sports is the infrastructure that these new partnerships, incentives and fandom are built upon, thanks to its benefits in data ownership, digital assets and smart contracts.

Fans are reclaiming ownership of their personal engagement data

Big tech platforms usually sit between the club and the supporter, like X and Instagram, collecting vast amounts of data to target users with ads. The blockchain changes this through data sovereignty. Supporters end up building a Fan CV that documents their support and interactions, and the data belongs to them, not an intermediary.

This data can be shared with the club for more bespoke rewards. No longer is it transactional, where £50/year gets you a generic club membership. Instead, all the merch you have bought, all the games you have visited (a chip in your jersey can record your attendance to games), are logged.

Token-weighted micro-governance 

This data-driven relationship can actually lead to influence within the club. It began with holding polls on what the colour of the team bus should be, or the walkout music. But now, it’s going deeper into micro-governance of non-matchday decisions, like club-led community projects or allocating charity funds. It’s a way for fans to become legitimate stakeholders and have a sense of ownership, even if it’s not as a legal shareholder. This can protect the club’s long-term values and ethos while changing hands under new ownership. For example, a new owner becomes a majority shareholder, arrives, but has more guardrails in how they behave.

Decentralized and interoperable sports infrastructure

This entire model isn’t just about being secure in logging data, but transparent and interoperable. This means it can be shared and integrated in new ways, rather than a closed-system which controls the information.

This is the core principle of web3 sports and why a purpose-built chain like Chiliz is being used for making this a reality. A transparent record makes sure that each vote, data share, and every reward is permanently auditable. Buying a Manchester City shirt with a chip in it, for example, means logging your support and interactions with the club and provides ownership lineage. The memorabilia market is radically reformed with more trust, and items can be sold with high confidence of authenticity. You don’t need a third-party to verify it, you can scan the item with your phone using NFC and see its history.

Data sovereignty and micro-governance are so important to sports, yet have been missing for a long while. Almost all interactions are now digital fan engagements, especially for global clubs like Barcelona and Arsenal. Being half the world away, we have new ways of showing support and being recognized for it.