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Living in North America, where competitive sports are taken very seriously, I am surrounded by many people in my life that are currently devoting or have devoted countless hours to a sport. Out of the hundreds of athletes I know, a several have gone off to become World-class athletes competing in the Olympic Trials or even going to the Olympics. However, even for the world-class athletes they usually have a hard time balancing work or school with their sport.
In the sport of swimming, it is custom for a swimmer to train approximately 10 workouts a week each session ranging about 2.5 hours. This adds up to about 25 hours of pool time. When you include the extra time that is needed for eating 5-6 meals a day, and sleeping an extra hour or two to recover, it is easy to say that swimming is a full-time job. In fact, I would say its more than a full-time job as even outside of the time spent swimming there are sacrifices to be made. For example, many athletes do not drink any alcohol during the swim season and watch their diet to ensure they only eat healthy foods.
This would be acceptable if they were compensated for their efforts. However, compensation by the government is only about 1000-1300 USD a month for Canadian swimmers. I personally know Olympians who work at gas stations to make due. For other sports such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Powerlifting that are privatized and don’t have organizations, there is no compensation at all. It’s unfortunate since these athletes can perform better if they could focus solely on their sports. It’s a Catch-22 because they need to train full-time to perform better and earn more through sponsorships, but need funds to train full-time in the first place.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a project named SportyFi, based in the U.K to solve this problem. Founded by the former members of Onlinegym4me.com, they plan to release a platform in January to allow athletes to raise funds by crowdfunding, in return for a fraction of their income that may come from future sponsorships. The platform will also have an option to raise funds as a donation where the athlete can have their fans raise funds in exchange for a thank-you letter or an autograph.
The project will utilize smart contracts, a contract using the blockchain technology, to help athletes raise money. The blockchain is decentralized and therefore is more secure and can’t be hacked or manipulated by a third party. This will also increase efficiency and reduce costs to ensure that the athletes will receive more funds. Sportyfi will only take 5% of the raised funds unlike other crowdfunding projects like Kickstarter. The blockchain also ensures full transparency to the investors and athletes.The alpha version of the SportyFi platform is currently undergoing internal testing. They plan to have a beta ready at the end of this year, with the platform launching to the public in Q1 2018.
Starting in Q2 of 2018, they “will allocate a part of the funds raised to a special SportyFi Professional Fund. The fund will invest in those athletes with the greatest potential in exchange for future return, based on, for example, prize money, image rights, transfer fees, and other rights of an athlete, depending on the type of sport. A team of sports industry advisors and professionals with a proven track record will analyze and select those athletes with the greatest potential to invest in, facilitating growth of the fund and the whole SportyFi ecosystem”.
Their project has backing by respected members in both the blockchain and sports industry. On the blockchain side, they have Charlie Shrem who was the founder of BitInstant and Bitcoin Foundation. On the sports side they have Ricardo Carlos, and Ronaldinho Gaúcho, both legendary soccer players and winners of the FIFA World cup.
They are currently running their Initial Coin Offering until December 10th to raise funds. If you are a blockchain enthusiast like myself, you may be interested in investing. If you are an athlete that wants to raise funds, their platform will be out shortly so be sure to sign up for their email list to stay updated!