Web3 x Esports: Potential Benefits for Organizers, Players, Sponsors, and Fans

Esports tournaments have come a long way since their inception, and with the advent of Web3 technologies, the industry is set to undergo a major transformation.

By leveraging the power of blockchain, smart contracts, and other Web3 tools, organizers, players, sponsors, and fans are poised to unlock a range of benefits that promise to enhance transparency, engagement, and monetization.

Let’s explore the potential benefits to each of the stakeholders and how we are building our new platform to embrace this journey.

Benefits to Organizers:

1. Increased Transparency: Web3 technologies, powered by blockchain, introduce a transparent ecosystem where every aspect of an esports tournament, from match results to prize distribution, can be recorded on an immutable ledger. This ensures that organizers maintain the integrity of the competition and build trust with participants and sponsors.

   
   

2. Streamlined Operations: Smart contracts automate tournament processes such as player registrations, match schedules, and prize payouts. With Web3, organizers can reduce administrative burdens, minimize human errors, and streamline operations, allowing them to focus more on delivering an exceptional tournament experience.

   
   

3. Decentralized Governance: Web3 empowers organizers to adopt decentralized governance models, enabling community participation in decision-making processes. This inclusive approach allows stakeholders to have a say in shaping tournament rules, formats, and other key aspects, fostering a sense of ownership and community engagement.

   
   

4. An uplifted way to monetize: With smart-contract and Oracle data, escrow accounts (vault) can be created easily allowing organizers to receive entry fees from players and most importantly sponsorship money trustlessly. This was made possible since the escrow smart-contract vault can automatically determine the actual payout based on actual deliveries such as a player’s final stand in a tournament or actual brand exposure for sponsors.

Benefits to Players:

1. Secure Ownership of Digital Assets: Web3 and blockchain provide players with true ownership and control over their in-game assets, including skins, virtual items, and collectibles. These assets can be tokenized, ensuring authenticity and enabling players to trade or monetize them beyond the confines of a single game.

   
   

2. Reliable and Immutable Player Profiles: Blockchain-based player profiles offer a secure and verified identity for participants. This ensures fair competition, prevents identity fraud, and allows players to showcase their achievements and skills across different esports platforms, creating a portable and reputable esports profile.

   
   

3. A career in esports: With credentials and profiles being on-chain, a player's ability would be able to expose to a wide range of audiences, including professional teams recruitment, and game studios which would increase their chances of being advanced in competitive gaming.

   
   

4. Faster and Transparent Prize Payouts: Through the use of smart contracts, prize payouts can be automated, ensuring prompt and transparent distribution of winnings to players. This eliminates the need for manual processes, reduces delays, and increases trust between players and organizers.

Benefits to Sponsors:

1. Targeted and Authentic Brand Exposure: Web3 technologies enable sponsors to engage with the esports community in a more targeted and authentic manner. By leveraging blockchain-based platforms, sponsors can reach a highly engaged audience, align their brand with specific tournaments or teams, and establish lasting connections.

   
   

2. Traceable and Measurable Sponsorship Impact: Blockchain allows for transparent tracking of sponsorships, providing real-time data on impressions, engagements, and conversions. Sponsors can assess the effectiveness of their investment, make data-driven decisions, and maximize the value they derive from esports partnerships.

   
   

3. Pay as you go: With all data being transparent and feeding into a smart contract, sponsorship payment can be made super efficiently where sponsors only pay for what was delivered according to pre-defined KPIs. The trustless nature of blockchain allows sponsors to put the money in a sponsor vault and get a refund for the undelivered promises.

   
   

4. Innovative Fan Engagement Opportunities: Web3 unlocks unique fan engagement possibilities through tokenized rewards, gamification, and fan-driven initiatives. Sponsors can leverage these features to create captivating experiences that encourage fan participation, boost brand loyalty, and generate a deeper emotional connection with the audience.

Benefits to Fans:

1. Enhanced Fan Experiences: Web3 technologies bring immersive fan experiences to the forefront. Through blockchain-based platforms, fans can access exclusive content, participate in interactive elements, and have a direct impact on esports tournaments, such as voting for match formats, contributing to prize pools, or predicting match outcomes.

   
   

2. Ownership of Fan Tokens and Rewards: Web3 allows fans to own and trade fan tokens, which represent their support for teams, players, or tournaments. These tokens can unlock special privileges, unique merchandise, or even voting rights, enabling fans to become more invested in the esports ecosystem.

   
   

3. Fan-Driven Funding and Crowdfunding: Web3 technologies facilitate fan-driven funding models, such as crowdfunding, where fans can financially support their favorite teams, players, or tournaments. Through blockchain-based platforms, fans can contribute directly to prize pools or sponsor specific events, allowing them to actively participate in the growth and success of esports.

Build and Build

In the early days of web3, my imagination can be short, but it’s definitely super exciting to start building in this direction.

My team and I have started building in this direction for almost a year on an esports tournament and social platform targeting local/small esports organizers and mainstream gamers.

We have gone through numerous market-fit tests and user feedback which are being fine-tuned and reflected in our closed beta.

To date, we have our beta product serving live production for 2 major offline tournaments, each with more than 120 teams of 5 in Arena of Valor in Vietnam.

We are also in talks with professional esports teams to explore various ideas for driving fan engagement and loyalty via our platforms, using web3 technologies.

But most importantly, an area we are working days and nights are the onboarding experiences for the mass. Our idea to is to have our users using our platform without knowing they are on a web3 engine. Specifically, that would mean gasless transactions and a keyless non-custody approach.

We believe this UX is key to onboarding the next million players onto web3 and making it truly meaningful.

We are still very early, but I am very excited to see what the future may hold for esports and web3 and how our team can be a part of this journey.