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Blockchain technology is the game changer of the boxing industry
Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views and opinions of the crypto.news editorial.
Boxing is there fourth the most popular sport in the United States; yet, behind closed doors, it is one of the most divided and inefficient sports industries. The growth of social media, extensive marketing campaigns by advertisers, and an influx of influencers entering the ring have contributed to its recent growth. It is now estimated to have a valued worth over 1 billion dollars in the United States alone and 300 million in boxing fans globally.
However, today the industry faces significant challenges, particularly for young and underrepresented amateurs who are not benefiting from this growth. Luckily, blockchain technology has the potential to transform all of this.
In any sport talent should be relative to career advancement, but unfortunately this is not always enough. The journey to becoming a professional boxer involves collaborating with different people around the world, including sparring partners, agents, promoters, coaches, nutritionists and massage therapists, who use different platforms to connect and communicate. This fragmented landscape makes it difficult for inexperienced boxers to find the right professionals, negotiate fair compensation, and establish mutually beneficial relationships.
With 17 weight classes in men’s boxing alone and four different governing bodies handing out belts, the industry operates within isolated ecosystems with opaque decision-making processes that often lead to disputes over rankings, negotiation fights and revenue.
Access to substantial funding is essential for career growth, but financial barriers often cause aspiring boxers to miss out on opportunities. However, top professionals can earn millions of dollars, like Floyd Mayweather who received $223 million from his fight with Manny Pacquiao in 2015; however, in 2018, the average professional boxer earned only $35,584 gross. The enormous costs associated with securing and paying stakeholders, top-tier services and equipment, traveling abroad for networking, and building brand presence make the path to success economically unviable for most.
Many of these problems are found across the sports industry, but sports clubs, athletes and governing bodies are leveraging the benefits of decentralized blockchain to address them.
Blockchains like Chiliz facilitate the creation of fan tokens so that sports teams can interact with fans and increase monetization, such as Tottenham Hotspur Spurs Fan Token.’ The technology is also used to streamline processes, such as Based on Sports Illustrated NFT ticket office service, to combat fraudulent ticket sales and further incentivize fans. The symbiotic relationship between sports fans and cryptocurrency holders has led to strategic partnerships aimed at raising awareness, such as Lionel Messi and BitgetTHE Crypto.com Arena in Los AngelesAND Manchester City and OKX.
In boxing, a series of exclusive The NFTs were sold by world heavyweight champion, Oleksandr Usyk, with all funds going to help a charity in his native Ukraine during the war. However, blockchain’s potential to transform the boxing industry goes far beyond NFTs.
Decentralization is the key to revolutionizing the boxing industry. Blockchain provides a single decentralized network to combine boxing’s fragmented ecosystems, removing centralized third parties and promoting transparent transactions and interactions between stakeholders.
A growing creative economy has seen increased tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), and now boxers, promoters, coaches, sponsors and other industry players can tokenize their skills and services on the blockchain. This gives them complete control over their data and career decisions, improving transparency, reducing costs and optimizing processes vital to the poorest and most marginalized boxers at the start of their careers.
Not only that, but blockchain’s global accessibility to anyone with an internet connection creates a unified boxing community for boxers and fans, increasing networking opportunities and helping aspiring talent easily identify sparring partners to help them achieve success.
The transparency and immutability of Blockchain are key to bringing trust to the industry. With all data permanently stored on the blockchain, such as records of athlete contracts, partnerships and financial transactions, it encourages trust between stakeholders and supports them in making informed decisions. Accessible to all, boxers can analyze past transactions to understand their legitimacy, ensuring fair compensation and reliable partnerships. If an advertiser pays a boxer through his agent on the blockchain, the boxer has complete visibility of the amount he should receive without the agent taking an unfair share. Likewise, he can fight corruption, like that eleven boxing fights at Rio 2016 that were thought to have been resolved, exposing the earnings to the judges or boxers involved.
With sensitive boxer data and high-value transactions at stake, blockchain’s robust security measures reassure industry players of the privacy and integrity of their data. Strong cryptographic encryption techniques protect transactions and communications, making it difficult for fraudsters to intercept or alter data without authorization and preventing illicit or non-legitimate transactions. This high security gives confidence to boxing professionals, especially those who are new or skeptical of blockchain technology.
Decentralization also reduces transaction costs and eliminates intermediary parties that may face cuts within the boxing industry. Cryptocurrencies are a universal medium of exchange to enable seamless cross-border transactions such as payments for coaching services, advertising sponsorships and fan engagement. Being a globally accessible currency, it broadens the network of connections that can be made within the industry, enabling American boxer Mike Tyson can easily do this pay its Brazilian promoter, Rafael Cordeiro, without having to worry about exchange commissions between currencies.
Fan tokens and NFTs are a great way for boxers to monetize their brand and interact directly with fans, bypassing traditional intermediaries and maximizing revenue streams for athletes. Fans are incentivized to purchase the token by unlocking access to exclusive content and decision-making.
The final piece of the puzzle can be solved through the creation of a unified, blockchain-based SocialFi platform that contains the needs of the industry under one roof. Last November, the The world’s first boxing platform, Ready to Fight, was created, leveraging the benefits of decentralized web3 technology to unite the boxing, fan and cryptocurrency communities. By providing a vast ecosystem for boxers to showcase their talents, network with industry peers, and connect with fans to monetize their content, Ready to Fight is set to solve the boxing industry’s problems once and for all.
While much work will need to be done to convince web2 users to adopt the technology, as the boxing community embraces blockchain innovation, the industry becomes clearer, fairer and more accessible for all.
Sergei Lapin
Sergei Lapin is the co-founder and CEO of Ready to fight, the first blockchain-based online boxing platform. Created in November 2023, Ready to Fight is a SocialFi platform that aims to help athletes (amateur and professional) interact bilaterally with promoters, coaches, sponsors, sparring partners, psychologists etc. on mutually beneficial terms, connecting with fans and monetizing their content. Transactions are powered by the native RTF token within a transparent, open and secure network. At Ready to Fight, Sergey oversees the direction and evolution of the platform, integrating his expertise in the fragmented and inefficient boxing industry with the benefits of blockchain technology to drive a technological revolution within boxing.