Cryptocurrency and Sports

There are many useful and innovative applications of cryptocurrency, but it is paramount to bring cryptocurrency as a whole to the mainstream consciousness in a way that is relatable to the people that are going to be the hardest to convince. I'm talking about the pragmatic, old school citizens. They are the people who talk about how things used to be, and how they are now, always comparing and contrasting the past and future. The way that cryptocurrency can be brought to their attention is to bring it into the places that they most relate with which is, regardless of time that has passed, sports stadiums, but more importantly we can see how usage and awareness grows by using the games and fans attending who pay using cryptocurrency as a metric, while still forming a mutually beneficial partnership.

In 2016, the total attendance of fans at Major League Baseball games was 73,159,044. In 2016, the National Football League’s total attendance was 17,788,671. These two leagues are representative of the sheer amount of people who take a trip to watch a sports game every year. Of course, there was some repeat numbers because the same fan attended multiple games but this indicative of the spending power that is in a professional sports stadium at any given time, during any given game. (For the sake of argument, we’ll use the MLB as an example.) That means that on average there are 30,169 tickets sold for each game of the season. There are on average about 30,000 people in an area about the size of a square mile, who have come to a place specifically to watch a game and spend money. They will spend money on concessions, jerseys, caps and all types of confectionary. We should use this opportunity to measure and view growth in the usage of cryptocurrency in the general population, from game to game, season to season.

In order to be able to even measure the amount of cryptocurrency that is being used in a stadium, there needs to be capabilities to accept cryptocurrency as payment in the stadium. Coinsource, which is a major manufacturer of Bitcoin ATMs, would need to agree to a partnership with the MLB to place these Bitcoin ATMs inside the stadiums. They could start small and use Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles as a test run. The fact that Coinsource’s Bitcoin ATMs are most prevalent in California coupled with the fact that the LA Dodgers have the highest attendance in baseball makes for a perfect testing ground. There needs to be an agreement to provide the logistics necessary to make it happen. On the other hand, there needs to be a certain amount of interest from Major League Baseball. The MLB would need to allow Coinsource to place their machines in Dodger Stadium, while also having the Dodgers tailor some of their concession sales to accept Bitcoin as payment. There is a lot to be done to make it work, but it COULD work.

In order to talk about the future of cryptocurrency in sports, we need to talk about the existing role that it plays. The only place that I have knowledge of that has made an attempt to accept Bitcoin in their stadium is The National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings, again showcasing that California is leading the way. In all of the five major sports in the United States, (Baseball, Basketball, American Football, Football, and Hockey), there are betting platforms that exist that accept and actually specialize in Bitcoin betting. There are talks in all of these sports of organizations possibly paying their players with a more fluid and universal currencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, although these talks are purely hypothetical at this point, but still present an intriguing possibility.

The future of cryptocurrency and sports is bright. There is a very clear reason for these two things to come together and become involved in one another: mutual relevance. In other words, they can help each other. Really to sum it all up, sports can help with greater publicity and exposure for cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency can help modernize a relatively old institution that has been dealing with problems of keeping pace with a hyper-technologically advanced society. More importantly, these trials with sports can be used to gather incredible insight into the use of cryptocurrency by the layman, the "Regular Joe" and see the growth over time. Together, they can form a highly beneficial and informative partnership.

-Rico

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