Many athletes never make it to their maximum professional potential, not because they can't perform well or haven't trained hard enough, but because they don't have the financial backing to continue their pursuit. They simply don't have the money.
They also don't have the time, entrepreneurial skills and business savvy to go out and find the investment that they need. They would rather spend their time training and perfecting their athletic skill.
There are also small investors around the world that want to fund and back athletes that they believe in, that they believe have the passion and skill of a great investment opportunity, yet the small investor doesn't have a method to structure the investment correctly.
Until now.
The Future Icons Program, created by SportsIcon who has already built a sporting NFT marketplace, is designed to connect investors directly to athletes that need funding. The crowd-sourcing approach is powered by NFTs and Smart Contacts on the blockchain and allows athletes to share their future earnings with initial investors.
This program is an innovative way for both parties to benefit by taking advantage of a missing industry relationship with these new technologies. We have seen similar approaches in the financial and now decentralised finance industry where Smart Contracts have allowed new ways of fundraising within web3, but this is the first time we are seeing it applied to the sports industry.
SportsIcon CEO and Co-Founder Chris Worsey said "We want to democratise opportunity for athletes. There are thousands of athletes globally that are good enough but never make it due to a lack of capital and network. We aim to change that!
Fans will support athletes at the earlier stages of their careers and will be rewarded through financial upside as these athletes grow and they take returns from their earnings or winnings. Imagine identifying an athlete that goes on to have a career like Lewis Hamilton or Serina Williams - the upside will be very substantial indeed."
SportsIcon themselves are backed by tech leaders, athletes and other celebrities such as rap icon Nas, Dapper Labs, Roham Gharegozlou (CEO Dapper Labs), Chad Hurley (Founder of Youtube), Andrew Bogut (NBA Champion with the Warriors), Mike Edwards (Argo Blockchain), Andrew Masanto (Founder of Hashgraph Hedera and Reserve), Sunny Madra (Ford X), Anand Agarwala (Founder of Spatial), Chris Ye (Ukon Games), and many others.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of sciencetimes.com
