DappRadar's Sports Report explains how FIFA World Cup introduces Web3 to 5 billion people

Kaunas, Lithuania | November 24, 2022 11:24 AM Eastern Standard Time

 DappRadar, the global dapp store, has announced its inaugural Sports Report, focused on the increasing presence of Web3 projects and applications in the world of sport and their unique ability to enhance fans' experiences.

At a time when the entire world is focused on the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, Web3 is connecting millions of people from around the globe through an array of sponsorships, advertising deals and immersive digital experiences centered on sport.

In particular, DappRadar's Sports Report highlights the growing popularity of blockchain-based fantasy sports games like Sorare, where fans are tasked with collecting NFT-based player cards hosted on Starkware, an Ethereum L2 solution. In the last 30 days, Sorare has become the second-largest NFT collection in terms of trading volume, behind only the legendary Bored Ape Yacht Club, with the biggest single sale involving Man City star Erling Haaland's Unique Card, which sold for a whopping 265 ETH, or 609,000 euros, last January. That was followed by the sale of Kylian Mbappe's card for a staggering 416,000 euros, with Messi and Ronaldo's cards both fetching more than 200,000 euros each.

It's not only card games that are proving popular. Fans can actually use the blockchain to participate in the way their favorite clubs are run via the Socios.com platform. To do so, they must purchase fan tokens minted on the Chiliz blockchain that represent specific clubs like Barcelona, Lazio and Paris Saint-Germain. With these tokens, fans can then take part in regular votes in order to select new kit designs, jersey numbers and motivational messages for their favorite players. At the same time, token holders get the chance to win official merchandise, VIP tickets to games and online meetings with players and more besides.

Given the benefits, it's no surprise to see that more than 82 popular clubs have launched fan tokens on Socios at the time of writing. However, teams will do well to take note that the price of their fan tokens can be impacted by negative results. In the wake of Argentina's shock 2-1 defeat against Saudi Arabia in its first World Cup match, the price of the AFA token dropped by more than 25%!

Digital sports memorabilia is another emerging concept in the realm of Web3 sports offerings. For instance, the NBA Top Shot NFT collection on Flow generated an impressive $450 million in trading volume during the first quarter of 2021, accounting for a staggering 36% of the total NFT market at that time. Created by Dapper Labs, the collection is focused on short videos known as "moments" that capture some of the most exciting clips from NBA games.

DappRadar said Flow's collections are popular because they reduce friction for users who're not familiar with the blockchain. Whenever someone buys a "moment" NFT, a wallet is automatically created for them. So the user doesn't need any technical expertise to participate. This year, the NBA Top Shot collection has done more than $200 million in sales from 8.1 million trades, despite severe bear market conditions in the wider crypto industry. A rival collection focused on NFL, called All Day, has amassed over $35 million in sales over one million trades this year. Dapper Labs also offers collections for UFC fights and Spanish La Liga matches.

Lastly, Web3 firms are making their presence felt across the sporting world with hard-hitting advertising campaigns. DappRadar's report notes that FIFA recently signed up Algorand as an official sponsor and blockchain partner, for example. Algorand now hosts FIFA's official NFT collection, called FIFA+ Connect. Elsewhere, Formula 1 agreed a massive $100 million advertising deal with the Crypto.com exchange and wallet ecosystem in the summer of 2021, while 80% of its race teams have at least one crypto partnership with brands like ByBit, OKX and Tezos.

Crypto.com has been especially vigorous in its pursuit of sporting partnerships, agreeing similar multi-million dollar deals with the Staples Center, PSG and the NHL team Canadiens. More recently, Crypto.com signed a deal with Budweiser to promote itself within that company's new Budverse digital world.

About DappRadar

Founded in 2018, DappRadar is the The World's Dapp Store: a global decentralized applications (dapps) store, which makes it easy for its base of more than 1 million users per month to track, analyze, and discover dapp activity via its online platform. The platform currently hosts more than 12,000 dapps across 49 protocols and offers a plethora of consumer-friendly tools, including comprehensive NFT valuation, portfolio management, and daily industry-leading, actionable insight.

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Founded in 2018, DappRadar is the The World's Dapp Store: a global decentralized applications (dapps) store, which makes it easy for its base of more than 1 million users per month to track, analyze, and discover dapp activity via its online platform. The platform currently hosts 9,000 dapps from across 30+ protocols and offers a plethora of consumer-friendly tools, including comprehensive NFT valuation, portfolio management, and daily industry-leading, actionable insight.

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Dan Edelstein

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