Chiliz, a global company dealing with sports and entertainment blockchain, has launched its incubator and accelerator program Chiliz Labs with the support of Jump Crypto. The $50 million initiative seeks to invest in early-stage blockchain projects utilizing the Chiliz blockchain for sports and entertainment as well as the Socios.com partner network.
According to the announcement, Chiliz aims to build the largest community of fans, brands, and developers in the sports and entertainment industry, creating an exclusive sports Web3 ecosystem. The projects will utilize the new Chiliz sports and entertainment blockchain, whose genesis block was verified on February 8. Incubator and accelerator programs commit to providing funding and strategic guidance to help these projects achieve their goals. Chiliz announced that LiveLike and FanFest are the first companies to build on the new chain, with 8 to 10 enterprise-level projects to follow. These projects will include a non-fungible token (NFT) ticketing pilot, an athlete-focused fan token, and a Web3 infrastructure partnership for sports and entertainment. Kanav Kariya, president of Jump Crypto, praised Chiliz for solving the problem of how to scale the brand and maximize fan engagement in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.
Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus emphasized the importance of Chiliz Labs in building an ecosystem of fan experiences and transactions, with fan tokens providing a "digital key" that can be used in any product or experience built on its infrastructure. Chiliz is the creator of Fan Tokens and the Socios.com fan engagement and rewards app with 170+ partners and over 1.8 million wallets.
As blockchain technology continues to revolutionize industries around the world, it continues to find interesting use cases in the sports world with the advent of the Web3 platform, offering new ways to engage fans and create value for sports brands.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the Web3 project aims to facilitate interaction between fans and sports leagues. In its "Sports Industry Outlook 2022" report, Deloitte predicts that the convergence of the real and digital worlds will accelerate as the market for NFTs and immersive technologies continues to grow.
According to the report, these advancements are likely to increase fan engagement, which has long been fundamental to securing sponsor revenue, ticket and merchandise sales, and the general appeal of sports leagues.
