The metaverse is set to have its first football stadium, and it is going to be built by the English Premier League (EPL) football club, Manchester City.
According to available information, the EPL champion signed a three-year partnership with Sony, a virtual reality specialist, to help them build a virtual version of their physical stadium, the Etihad.
Man City to build the Etihad stadium in the metaverseÂ
Although the project is still in its infancy, virtual reality specialists have done an on-the-spot assessment of the Etihad stadium to map out the stadium’s digital version.
With this construction, the Etihad stadium will pass through a transformative process to become the central hub of the club in a Virtual Reality world thanks to Sony’s Hawk-eye’s image analysis and skeletal-tracking technology.
Aside from that, the club expects this new development to help it increase its revenue due to the large number of its fans on the internet.
While speaking on the various advantages the metaverse has, the club’s chief marketing officer, Nuria Tarre, pointed out that the anticipated project would give fans a virtual experience to watch their games live, recreate games, and fill the stadium the way they want.
Also, there are indications that the team is considering allowing players and fans of the club to meet in the metaverse while also possibly purchasing virtual club products in the metaverse.
This is not the first crypto-related project Manchester City would be attempting. The seven-time Premier League champion has a fan token ($CITY) and, towards the end of last year, suspended a partnership with a crypto startup, 3Key, due to the firm’s lack of online presence.
Sports and crypto keeps intertwining
The crypto space has leveraged the sporting industry for its increased popularity.
Just recently, the Super Bowl event had a plethora of crypto-related ads sponsored by crypto exchanges like Coinbase, FTX, and others.
The ads led to a spike in crypto apps download. According to available data, companies whose ads appeared at the Super Bowl saw over 200% increase in their download rate.
Apart from this, football teams like Porto, Napoli SC, and Watford have signed varying degrees of partnerships with crypto projects.
Also, a survey shows that more than 20% of people would spend some of their time watching content like sports and entertainment in the metaverse within the next few years.Â
And recently, there were reports that the English premier league could be set to award its NFT rights worth well over $500 million to any of Sorare, Dapper Labs, Candy, or ConsenSys who reached the final bidding round.
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