Web 3.0 and (women’s) sport: A case for regen
At READY, we were recently invited by the Blockchain Alliance Europe to be part of a panel that peaked our interest. The title of the panel was “Web 3.0 in Sports: Lessons We Learned”, with the description, “The web3 industry has experienced massive hype in the last few years, followed by consolidation and value creation. In this panel, we'll learn about the good practices and mistakes in implementing Web 3.0 technologies”.
This panel topic is 100% on point and timely.
Web 3.0 experimentation in sport has been on a rocky old road these past few years. No one has analyzed this better than our good friend, Pet Berisha, founder of SportingCrpyto. Women’s sport (typically without the luxury of millions to splash around, nor with as much commercial interest from big players), however, has been much more protected from such volatility. In fact, we hold firm that some of the best Web 3.0 experimentation in sport has taken place - albeit small-scale - from women athletes and organizations. (We love showcasing these examples in this newsletter!)
Today, in 2024, there is a different feel in the Web 3.0 space, yet again.
There is anticipation about what’s to come. And for the sports industry, there are indeed lessons learnt and more consensus around the idea that blockchain should be thought about in terms of how it might underpin value creation.
We, at READY, are bullish about - and advocate for - sport’s adoption of the philosophy and principles of one particular movement within Web 3.0, which is called “regen”. “Regen”, pronounced “ree-gen”, is short for “regenerative”. It is the practice of contributing more to society than is extracted, for which blockchain engineers have programmable solutions.
Regen inspires us to think about what the possibilities are for regenerative practices in the modern technological era - and for sport.
Dr. Jacob Naish, one of the world’s sharpest thinkers and doers in the football industry, started exploring the possibility of regen in and for football. In fact, in 2021 he coined the term “regen football” and wrote thought leadership pieces on it.
The way that Jacob was thinking about regen sport was as an evolution of “sport for good” - as an open-source blueprint for sport to be automatically regenerative for planet and people, within a system whereby financial profit can only be balanced alongside social, cultural, and ecological profit.
Currently, the sports industry wrestles with dilemmas or contradictions when it comes to business growth vis-a-vis society and planet restoration. As such, the regen version of sport is absolutely an exciting one, albeit it utopian-like at times.
For women’s sport, at a pivotal time of professionalization and growth, there is a case to be made for adopting regen philosophy and practices. Would it be more straightforward to program them in, while investment and business models are in nascent stages? We think the answer could be yes.
So, while there is consensus that Web 3.0 did indeed undergo a massive hype cycle in sport, followed by consolidation and creation of value, we also believe that there is much more for the sports industry to discover and learn about Web 3.0, especially by taking inspiration from the regen movement.
If you’re curious about all things economics, sociology, politics, and sustainability, and want to get under the skin of what the regen movement in Web 3.0 is all about, then an excellent place to start is the Green Pill podcast. It will reveal to you an entirely different interpretation and vision for Web 3.0 and crypto that sport, for the most part, has yet to reveal to us.
