Dedicated sports fans normally rely on several different media outlets and betting exchange platforms for pre- and post-game analysis as well and to gamble on match results. That means that if you’re at home watching a game, you might be regularly switching back and forth between different websites, mobile apps, TV channels, and YouTube videos while you try to take in the competition to its fullest.
That may change as online sports entertainment platforms begin to integrate features like in-depth analysis, fantasy sports, and betting into a single platform.
The Scorum sports entertainment community took off in February with a successful crowdsale raising $5.63 million USD from almost 4000 individual participants. The platform is a crowdsourced sports ecosystem attempting to construct a fan-driven entertainment experience. The average purchase in the February crowdsale came in at about $1500, making Scorum a compelling example of a sports media platform launched via small fund contributions. Back in February, the platform promised full accessibility to its core services by the first match of the World Cup on June 14th, and they delivered. From the first month and throughout June and July,
The most attractive feature of the platform is its blockchain-powered wallet and its commission-free betting exchange; however, the intention is to amalgamate digital news and video, fantasy sports, and betting all into one platform.
Re-imagining data collection and monetization
Not only is Scorum interesting because of what it offers as an experience to sports fans, it is a de-centralised media source that will allow its users to benefit from data collection and monetization for advertisement on the site.
Scorum is in many ways an original and modernised version of a social media platform dedicated to sports fans, but it is unique because its users can benefit from advertisement profits as they buy into the profit-sharing model. This is very different from social media platforms like Facebook, which have traditionally taken its users’ personal data and acted as an intermediary to monetize the data via its sale to third parties like advertising companies. While the Facebook model has become the subject of scandal, this concept shows that there is a great deal of space for innovation in the current context of public distrust over social media data collection and monetization.
Considering the EU’s influential General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the growing call for tech giants to be penalized for their non-transparent monetization of users’ data, the particular model used by Scorum could be adapted and utilized in any number of other social media contexts.