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SportsCastr—a live-streaming company that rewards its users in cryptocurrency for their sports commentary—today announced a partnership with FanWide, a platform that connects sports fans with local watch parties.
FanWide services “more than 10,000 sports bars” across the United States, according to the firm. So what that means is that sports fans will now be able to earn crypto, SportsCastr’s own FanChain tokens, at bars across America—just for watching sports and “supporting local businesses.”
In an interview with Decrypt, Kevin April—CEO of SportsCastr—explained: “Once they arrive at the watch party, they use FanWide to ‘check-in’ and to earn tokens, and FanWide uses its geolocation feature to confirm they’re truly at the party they’ve checked into,” he said. “In the future, FanWide plans to integrate the ability to go live on SportsCastr from these watch parties, which would create the ability for remote watch parties.”
Participants are required to create accounts on the FanChain website which they must then link to their FanWallets. From there, a user can earn tokens by attending viewing parties. And they can also earn additional tokens by referring friends to the site or by posting party stats on social media.
Previously, SportsCastr had already begun allowing its users to earn FanChain tokens for their live streams by earning tips from their viewers. The company launched its Ethereum-based platform last September with the backing of several high-profile sports stars, including Super Bowl champion Vernon Davis and former NBA Commissioner David Stern. Now partnered with FanWide, SportsCastr is stepping up its game.
According to April, FanWide assists sports teams in managing and monetizing data from fan communities and can be embedded within any team’s website or application. The service also helps bars and other venues attract more customers by automating sports events and marketing to local fans. It uses what April calls “patent pending AI” to predict which games fans might search for in certain regions. If there is no organized event in that area, FanWide will create it and sell the listing rights to a local bar.
The event is then promoted on the social media channels to fans in that region. If these fans search online for the closest place to watch, FanWide’s SEO-optimized platform gets its partnered bars listed on the first pages of Google and Facebook, April explained.
“Fans are the biggest assets any team or league has, yet to date, they’re rarely rewarded for the value they bring,” he said. “Our goal with FanChain is to provide a mechanism of returning value to those that create it.”