For more than 100 years, fans have collected sports cards and stickers to keep in albums or trade with other collectors. Since the first baseball cards were printed by a sporting goods company in the late 1860s, sports cards have become a massive industry, expanding into other major sports, such as soccer, basketball, and American football. Today, the main player in this market is the Panini Group, which generates approximately 1 billion dollars per year from this “hobby culture”.
The total market size for this business is worth a staggering USD 5.4 billion per year. In an attempt to stay current with technology and digital trends, both the established trading card companies and new players entering the market with a fresh mindset have begun to create digital trading cards that exist exclusively online as a digital representation of a physical card. As with the traditional cards, the digital versions can be purchased, collected, and traded. Some of the common functionalities that are shared between new and emerging digital trading card platforms include collecting; live auctions; virtual shops; multiplayer gaming; a mobile, web, or Facebook application; Digital Rights Management; card tracking; and embedded content. Just as with the traditional cards, trading the digital versions involves a number of challenges. With so much money at stake, it is no surprise that counterfeiting is a real possibility. Guaranteeing
authenticity is, therefore, one major challenge. Also, the collectible value of the cards only increases when they are sold. However, the biggest challenge is that the traditional cards have been focused exclusively on the major sports of baseball, soccer, and basketball as previously mentioned. While new cards are usually issued to coincide with a sporting season or event, such as a new soccer season or the FIFA World Cup, over 90 officially recognized Olympic Sports do not have their athletes represented by collectible cards, despite the success of the one-off Panini Album produced for the 2012 London Olympics.
With the rise of the blockchain era, now is the perfect time to digitalize the industry, which will
enable all sports to participate; produce cards of their athletes; and allow the fans to buy, collect,
trade, and sell these new digitalized assets. To facilitate this exciting new direction, EX Sports will develop a platform for digital collectibles that covers all sports and rewards collectors with
collectibles that can be traded freely and easily and whose authenticity is guaranteed. All of this is possible through the unique characteristics of blockchain.
Starting with the development of its existing combat sports ecosystem, EX Sports will develop one platform that will connect these new digital assets with content that generates revenue that is shared with and adds value to the card. This will create a new revenue share model that increases the value of the card automatically, meaning that it is not reliant on supply and demand. This increasing value can be redeemed for services provided on the marketplace without selling the card. With our existing portfolio of products, EX Sports will be able to offer a variety of services.
What is the EX Sports platform?
A decentralized, globalized sports blockchain platform that is deeply rooted in the sports industry ecosystem, enabling a free flow of sharing and transmission of values by all users, participants, and fans in the industry.
For Fans:
- Opportunity to collect cards from all sports in one digital album;
- Own authentic collectibles that are cryptographically unique;
- Trade easily with fellow fans from all over the world;
- Experience collectible cards in a new way through augmented reality;
- Opportunity to help young athletes through dedicated donations;
- Receive revenue share as rewards.
For Athletes:
- Open to all athletes from any sport, including amateurs and rookies;
- Have the opportunity to promote their personal brand by creating their own collectibles;
- Opportunity to tap into a new source of revenue.
For Federations:
- Access to new revenue streams;
- Stronger fan engagement throughout the year;
- Increased exposure to the global sports community.
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