By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
If you’re in the market for a virtual football stadium, the Sports Metaverse will hold its first sale of virtual public lands, taking place July 14-15 on sportsmetaverse.co.
The Sports Metaverse by SportsIcon is the world’s first virtual world specifically focused on sports; a sector that has done particularly well in adoption of both the metaverse and of the associated technology of NFTs.
Sportsicon says The Sports Metaverse is a virtual work dedicated to uniting prominent sports stars, brands, and clubs together in one place. Users can trade NFTs, buy land, interact with iconic sportspeople, and visit stadiums.
‘We’ve assembled the best metaverse builders in the space, the most forward-thinking web3 brands and some of the biggest sports people of all time,” said SportsIcon CEO and Co-Founder Chris Worsey. “The Sports Metaverse is the new frontier; the future of sports is billions of fans instantly connected with one another, their sports icons and brands in the metaverse.
“The Sports Metaverse land sale is the first page of the first chapter of that journey,” Worsey added.
In the first phase, landowners can acquire a high-quality fan cave where they can hang out with friends from all over the world, customise their own NFTs, play pool, stream sports events, advertise and lease their land to tenants.
Longer term, there will be social spaces with big screens and retail, as well as 3D immersive experiences with athletes, taking fans closer to them than ever before, with 24/7 access. Special purpose land use such as building a stadium or an event hall will be possible on the basis of individual order and design by Sports Metaverse.
To optimize the appeal of its virtual real estate, Sports Metaverse is partnering with LandWorks, a protocol developed by EnterDao. Their technology enables VR landowners to lease their land permissionlessly, listing it for specific prices at which would-be tenants can make bids.
The technology used by Landworks has successfully been in use for over a year, supporting rentals in the leading decentralized metaverse world on Ethereum, Decentraland. LandWorks’ technology has passed the tests of the acclaimed auditors Quantstamp and Omega.
“Especially for sports, virtual real estate is expected to have unprecedented potential as an instrument for branding and sponsoring. But to unlock this potential, the land needs to be tradable – that’s where we come in,” said EnterDao’s Co-Founder, Zhivko Todorov.
“Our software uses NFT technology and smart contracts to extend existing Ethereum token standards and enable land leasing even for projects not using the standards, without the need for upgrade or migration.”
SportsIcon believes the Virtual Reality (VR) real estate market is set to boom, and is attractive for companies, sports stars, and investors alike.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour daily in the Metaverse. From influencers like Snoop Dog, to companies like PwC and Samsung, investment in virtual real estate is growing fast in a market which reached $500B as early as 2021.
The reason is that the metaverse offers a prime platform for goods and services, SportsIcon believes. “From exclusive meetings with sports stars and other celebrities, to brand promotions and sponsorships, companies like Adidas, which has purchased land in the Sandbox to build AdiVerse, are investing in VR real estate as strategic assets in the new Web3 economy,” the company points out. “Nasdaq reports that Goldman Sachs estimates the metaverse as an $8 trillion market opportunity, where virtual land owners have virtually unlimited opportunities for earning revenue, such as by renting out concert and sports arenas, museums, and galleries.”
SportsIcon also says the first to invest in the Sports Metaverse land presale have been the leading sports stars with which it is partnering, including UFC mixed martial arts champion Amanda Nunes and former Premier League football stars Shaun Wright Philips and Jordan Stewart, along with numerous Web3 brands.
In The Sports Metaverse, users can engage with Amanda Nunes, who is building her gym there and sharing the secrets of her personal training and fighting skills via her volumetrically captured image. Romelu Lukaku, a striker with English Premier League soccer club Chelsea, is also offering personal coaching. Further agreements are underway with leading athletes from soccer, tennis, MMA, basketball, and baseball.
The land sale will begin in the Sports Metaverse on July 14 at 2 p.m. Greenwich time with the Gold Whitelist, and continues six hours later for the Silver Whitelist. The next day, July 15th, also at 2 pm in the UK, the public sale will open to everyone.
Land Purchasers will need a MetaMask wallet to buy land, and payment is in ETH.
For more information on the Sports Metaverse, visit: https://sportsmetaverse.co/
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