Shikhar Dhawan teams up with two Web3 start-ups to launch first metaverse sports city

Shikhar Dhawan, the popular Indian batsman, has announced his collaboration with Web3 fintech start-up, Bliv.Club, and Web3 metaverse start-up, WIOM, in order to launch the first sports city in the metaverse. 

This new sports city in the metaverse would be home to cricket stadiums, sports complexes, sports cafes, gyms, e-sports zones, sports cottages, running tracks, a 3D immersive sports museum, a sports library, along with other features. 

Dhawan, expressing his views on the subject, said, "I have always tried to keep abreast with tech trends. I am really intrigued by how sports can blend with the latest Web3 innovations. With the evolving Internet consumption trends of millennials and Gen Z, our multifaceted team is pushing the boundaries in the virtual reality space to make it truly democratic and accessible for everyone."

"We are building a fully functional and sustainable multiverse economy to narrow the gap between the existing offline sports or fitness avenues and metaverses. You have to be a bit crazy to create something like this and make an innovative impact," he added in a statement. Bliv.Club was founded in 2021 by entrepreneurs Vikas Singh, Abhishek Kumar Gupta, and Mohammed Sirajuddin, while Abhinav Tandon is the founder of World in One Metaverse (or WIOM), a Web3 metaverse start-up. 

"The initiative aims at the development of a sports universe for enthusiasts. This will essentially be a sports city built on the latest blockchain-based tech stack, with the idea of evolving into a community-owned and decentralized platform enabling utility tokens, dApps, and an XR-based pedagogy ecosystem. The initiative will focus on bringing best-of-breed market-leading metaverse innovations," noted Abhinav Tandon, from WIOM.

Commenting upon the development, Vikas Singh, the co-founder of Bliv.Club, said in a statement: “This 3-D immersive world called metaverse will have the best technological innovation available. Knowing the value of the community-owned platform in Web3, this virtual city will have a special place for its residents and users. As a Web3 fintech company, our goal will always be to bring futuristic solutions today to the masses.”

The global sports market is expected to grow from $354.96 billion in 2021 to $501.43 billion in 2022 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41.3 per cent. The sports market is expected to reach $707.84 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 9 per cent. The global metaverse market is anticipated to reach a market value of around $1,803 billion by 2030, growing at an annual rate above 45.8 per cent from 2022 to 2030.