Digital Assets Can Boost Revenue for Sports Teams, PwC Says

Token sales and metaverse events have the potential to become major revenue streams for teams and leagues.

By Will Canny

Mar 14, 2022 at 11:50 a.m. UTC

Updated Mar 14, 2022 at 1:40 p.m. UTC

Will Canny

Will Canny is CoinDesk's finance reporter.

Digital assets can fundamentally alter how fans interact with their favorite teams and athletes, as there will be more ways to “meaningfully connect” than ever before, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Digital assets can also provide a significant revenue opportunity for sports organizations. Ticket sales, media rights and sponsorship are the three largest revenue streams for teams and leagues, PwC said.
All three streams could see notable growth with tokenized tickets, non-fungible-token (NFT) media rights and sponsorship of digital or metaverse events, the report added.
NFTs are digital asserts on a blockchain that represent ownership of virtual or physical items. Collectible NFTs and season ticket member tokens are evolutions and enhancements of traditional loyalty programs, but combining the metaverse with digital assets (both fungible tokens and NFTs) enables a whole new market for more fan segments, the report said.
Digital assets sales could become a major revenue stream for many teams and leagues in the next five years, the report noted.
The ability to build digital asset infrastructure will be the biggest challenge for the teams, and they will need sophisticated technology to connect the digital sales data with existing customer bases, it added.
It is also essential that organizations anticipate and mitigate legal risk and tax implications from digital assets, PwC said.

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