Sports could help the Metaverse to better hold onto users.

Many industries have struggled to forge deeper, longer-lasting relationships with audiences in the metaverse. However, with its passionate fan bases and iconic teams and events, the sports sector may hold the most success in creating this type of engagement. Metaverse initiatives from some of the world’s best-known sports organizations, including its most iconic teams, are already showing enough promise to expand their efforts in the metaverse.

In many ways, sports are a natural fit for the metaverse. In particular, it has showcased a successful experiment with crypto.

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Numbers don’t lie

According to CryptoSlam, NFT sales as part of NBA Top Shot grew by 72% last January. Its creator Dapper Labs, which has partnered with major sports leagues, is currently valued at $7.8 billion.

Other projects also rush on sport to find a gateway to crypto. Bitso, one of Latin America’s largest crypto exchanges at over four million users, is now a main sponsor of Mexico’s national soccer team. In March, NFT platform SportsIcon unveiled plans for a sports-focused metaverse that will allow athletes to interact with supporters.

Earlier this month, Italy’s top soccer division collaborated with ConsenSys and video gaming platform The Nemesis to broadcast its first soccer match on the metaverse.

Decentraland and sports

Decentraland, which is building a metaverse on the Ethereum blockchain, is also developing a virtual sports infrastructure. The Spanish sports platform StadioPlus has recently announced it will manage NFT sports content in Vegas City, one of Decentraland’s largest districts focused on entertainment.

For example, Real Madrid And Barcelona Football Clubs File A Web3 Trademark Application Together. Two Spanish football teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona, teamed up to file a trademark for bitcoin transactions and their web3 metaverse services.

On August 5, the trademark application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The practice of trademark registration and web3 expansion is not exclusive to football or even sports.

We also have seen many hacks. This tracker lists and ranks the biggest heists of NFT cryptocurrency

Lympo – $18.7 million stolen: The sports-based NFT and subsidiary of Animoca Brands, Lympo, lost 165.2 million LMT tokens in a hot wallet hack.

DragonSB Finance – $10 million stolen: DragonSB Finance, an NFT gaming project, lost $10 million when its vesting smart contract was hit by hackers in April 2022.OpenSea – $3.4 million stolen: In a phishing incident in February 2022, attackers exploited OpenSea users and stole NFTs worth over 1,200 ETH. In a lucky twist of fate for some victims, the hacker returned some of the unsold NFTs.TopGoal – $2.23 million stolen: In February 2022, TopGoal was attacked and over 4.8 million TMT was transferred from the platform’s hot wallet to the hacker’s address.

These were worth an estimated 750 ETH.Omni – $1.43 million stolen: NFT finance platform, Omni, suffered a flash loan reentrancy attack in July 2022 in which hackers stole 1,300 ETH. Omni enables users to stake NFTs across various platforms so they can receive tokens.

Unilever, the giant behind brands like Ben & Jerry’s or Rexona, announced to stronger venture into Web3 and the Metaverse. The firm already gained first experience with selected brands like Magnum in Decentraland and still explores the potential of blockchain technology.

Last week, Peng Zhong, CEO at Tendermint, was joining the 5th European Blockchain Convention. The Tendermint team announced Tendermint Ventures, a $20M fund through which they will invest in valuable projects building with Cosmos and driving the expansion of the Cosmos ecosystem. Moreover, the team will be awarding hard working validators who have been contributing to Cosmos in the form of open source software, community building, infrastructure or others. If you are one of them, apply for a delegation from Tendermint until April 15th.