Sports Metaverse is a virtual space where sports enthusiasts gather in their virtual avatars, buy and wear fan merchandise from their favorite clubs, socialize, watch games, and enjoy sports with other fans. In Metaverse, any number of fans can watch games without any geographical or physical barriers in a Metaverse stadium.
Using a multi-view camera system, spectators can even enter the field and walk alongside the players, join the cheerleaders and watch the game from different vantage points. All these sound like a distant future vision, but the Metaverse is a step ahead of our thoughts.
With their new partner Sony, Premier League champions Manchester City became the first soccer club to announce its entry into Metaverse. The Etihad Stadium will be virtually replicated as Machester City’s central hub in the virtual world. This will allow a soccer fan team to watch live matches without being physically present at the stadium.
Metaverse is a virtual space where you can connect with people in digital avatars. That means metaverse technology creates a virtual world similar to the real one, and a digital avatar is a replica of a real human being in virtual reality. Metaverse is a new digital world that enables you to buy virtual land, organize sports events, spend time with avatars of sports heroes, or immerse yourself in the game: all in a real virtual world.
Sports Metaverse enables a creative aesthetic experience as the virtual world would allow people to participate in leagues and engage with products. Below are some of the impressive use cases of sports metaverse:
Potential use cases of the sports Metaverse cover an entire fan experience. To begin with, users would unlock a virtual world by using their unique voiceprint, where the users are represented by their avatar, depicting their passions and fandom. The Metaverse can diffuse geographical and physical hurdles and deliver a better before and after-game experience.
For example, the Metaverse Sports Arena participants could click pictures with sports celebrities, chat with their heroes in real-time, attend interviews, or interact with other fans.
The Metaverse can fundamentally change the face of sports training. Since platforms like YouTube came into existence, videos have been integral to sports training, especially for newcomers and self-taught athletes. Sports metaverse open the world of new opportunities for personal training too. A metaverse can offer you top-notch fitness coaches, as holograms in one’s living room, give sessions from the comfort of a personalized meta gym.
For instance, Martial arts champion Amanda Nunes partnered with the company Sportsicon, a virtual world specifically focused on sports, to offer her training in her metaverse gym.
Sports clubs dived into the NFT business by releasing collectible cards. These cards can be sold on the club’s trading platform or secondary marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible. Collectible cards can also be used in play-to-earn nft games (P2E), where the players, leagues, and clubs are present as NFTs.
The Metaverse will transform how we used to play, learn and train. It is the next big thing. Let’s find out what sports organizations are focusing their shift on attracting millions of their virtual consumers.
Nike, the world’s largest athletic apparel company, is building the future of sports apparel, mainly footwear. The top footwear brand is experimenting with metaverse technology in collaboration with RTFKT Studio on a series of virtual sneakers. The collection, published on Niftygateway, rendered three designs with Fewocious’ (NFT creator) signature designs.
Nike has also built its virtual world, Nikeland. The land is a free space to explore games, and players will get a chance to try new sports shoes and run marathons. It has also launched exclusive virtual products to enhance the virtual Nikeland virtual experience, including mini-games and reward-based games to ensure immersive gaming and the shopping experience.
Under Armour joined hands with the famous basketball player Stephen Curry and went a step further by bringing the digital replicas of the sneaker Curry wore when he broke the all-time NBA record for 3-point shots.
The Genesis Curry Flow collection featured five unique collections. These sneakers are cross-platform; will be wearable in Decentraland, Sandbox, and Gala Games.
Adidas first entered the Metaverse by rewarding its loyal fans with a POAP (proof of attendance protocol) event. The attendees collect these NFTs as badges to prove their participation and experience in that event.
Adidas’ first NFT collection is a mix of digital and physical items, created with collaborators such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, money, and the Punks Comic creators. ‘Titled Into the Metaverse,’ the collection will comprise virtual wearables that buyers can use in virtual land and as physical clothing to match.
Related article: Applications of NFTs in Digital Entertainment
The sportswear brand New Balance filed trademark applications to enter the Metaverse. The platform will allow the company to produce virtually branded virtual shoes, clothing, and sports equipment; sell them in virtual retail stores, and use these goods for online entertainment purposes.
As the Metaverse becomes more real, sports fans will be more immersed in virtual spaces. It’s where sports organizations, with their athletes and partners, can stretch their virtual imagination to showcase new experiences and how to do it best. To start the sports metaverse, one should:
Any athlete or a fan can partner with existing sports metaverse companies like SportsIcon, PolySports, or Horizon Venues, allowing you to play, watch games, train, and enjoy events. Or you can directly pick spaces in Roblox, Decentraland, or Sandbox that give you control to host or organize events in meta stadiums as you do in the real world.
You can build your own space in Metaverse with the help of Metaverse Experts in Accubits. It involves the development of virtual stadiums or sports arenas, 3D avatars, adding features and facilities for the spectators, allocation of booths to sponsors & VIPs, promotion materials, and so on.
A tailored platform gives you control and allows you to reach a large audience across the globe with ease & efficiency. It makes the event accessible across different platforms and devices, resulting in heightened reach and better prospects.
Hosting and enjoying virtual sports events will become the next buzz as event organizers get used to hosting events in the metaverse. Players can even get in on the action, play games as their avatars, and interact with fans directly. The Metaverse draws out the potential for hybrid event scenarios too. The augmented reality programs allow virtual avatars to exist in a physical space and interact with the user. As the technology advances according to the user’s needs, it should be exciting to see what the future holds for virtual sports and the Metaverse.
