Application of Sports Industry Blockchain Technology under the Background of Big Data

Abstract

As an innovative technology, blockchain is leading a new round of technological and industrial changes in the world. The decentralization, immutability, and anonymity of blockchain technology have brought new growth momentum to the development of the sports industry. The purpose of this article is to solve the application of blockchain technology in the sports industry under the background of big data. Through the literature review method, survey method, experience summary method, comparative analysis method, and other research methods, proposed sports scenarios where blockchain can be applied, investigated people’s awareness of blockchain, and analyzed people’s demand for blockchain and worry. The research results show that the blockchain can be applied to sports lottery, sports equipment, event crowd funding, ticket sales, athlete training, physical testing, etc., and most people prefer the blockchain to be preferentially applied to sports lottery. People’s concerns about the blockchain are mainly reflected in privacy issues. Blockchain technology must solve privacy issues if it is to be widely used and recognized.

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1. Introduction

From a technical point of view, blockchain involves many technical issues such as mathematics, cryptography, Internet, and computer programming. From the perspective of application, it can surmount specific technical problems, apply the “first principle” thinking method, and use basic principles to think about complex phenomena [1]. The blockchain has the characteristic of not being tampered with and provides a solution to the problem of “keeping certificates” in economic and social development [2]. For example, in the field of copyright, blockchain can be used to store electronic evidence, which can ensure that it will not be tampered with. It can link the original platform, copyright bureau, judicial organs, and other parties through distributed books, which can greatly improve the efficiency of dealing with infringement acts [3]. In financial, judicial, medical, copyright, and other fields that require high data authenticity, blockchain can create safe and efficient application scenarios. At the same time, because the blockchain records all transaction information, the blockchain itself can form credit investigation, providing a new idea for realizing social credit investigation [4, 5]. Different from centralized data storage, the information on the blockchain will be distributed to each node in the form of point-to-point broadcasting, and all information will be faithfully recorded through full-network witness [5, 6]. In the field of public service, the blockchain can realize the common maintenance and utilization of government data across departments and regions, bringing better government service experience to the people. Blockchain can realize cooperative trust among multiple subjects, thus, greatly expanding the scope and depth of human cooperation. Market economy is a complex system. Many actions involve complex actors. How to achieve efficient coordination among multiple actors is a common problem in economic development [7–9]. Especially in the global context, cross-border payment, cross-border trade, and cross-border logistics are all related to the export, import, transportation, and supervision of various countries.

Sports industry is the fastest growing industry in the second decade of the new century [10]. According to a report by US News Agency, the market value of the global sports industry is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1% a year, reaching 253.46 billion US dollars by 2024. The global sports market (including infrastructure, sports competitions, sports training, and related commodities) is worth about US$ 600-700 billion annually, and its growth rate far exceeds the GDP growth of most countries in the world [11]. The emergence of blockchain has brought new dawn to the growth of sports industry. With the advent of blockchain technology, the sports industry will usher in a revolutionary upgrade again, which seems to have gained a certain consensus in the industry [12]. The global sports industry market is huge and has various profit models. From athlete training and education, ticket sales, broadcast rights sales, commercial advertising sponsorship, derivative development to sports lottery, and realization of user data, all belong to the category of sports industry. However, behind the seemingly vigorous development, it has fallen into a dilemma that is difficult to break through. The emergence of blockchain technology can completely change this situation. Blockchains can also help develop sports souvenirs [13]. Sports souvenir industry is an industry with not less than billions of dollars. It needs blockchain technology to strengthen its system. For many years, it has been difficult for producers to prove the authenticity of their souvenirs, which is the same as in all walks of life. There are some problems in the sports industry, such as unclear definition of value, lack of business model, improper allocation of resources, and overcentralization. No one can see the backstage data and odds of the competition, which will lead to many illegal acts [14]. However, some people in the industry said that the value system of the sports industry can be reconstructed with the blockchain technology.

At present, there is still less research on the blockchain in the sports industry. However, there has been a lot of research on blockchain and sports industry. Wu et al. proposed the first comprehensive empirical study of DAPP based on blockchain so far, which is based on extensive data sets of numerous transaction logs. This paper summarizes the mode of how to use intelligent contract to access the underlying block chain and discusses the value of deploying and operating Dapp [15]. Nassar et al. have studied the application of blockchain in artificial intelligence [16]. Liu et al. proposed a lightweight block chain system named light chain, which is resource efficient and suitable for IIoT scenarios with limited power. A lightweight data structure named light block is proposed to simplify broadcast content [17]. Donghui proposed a block chain privacy protection scheme using account and multiasset model. Anonymous address and anonymous asset metadata and proposed the method of asset transfer and double expenditure detection [18]. Dai et al. propose a safe and intelligent next-generation wireless network architecture, which integrates artificial intelligence and blockchain into wireless network to realize flexible and safe resource sharing. On this basis, a content caching problem based on blockchain authorization is proposed to maximize the system utility, and a caching scheme based on deep reinforcement learning is proposed. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the scheme [19]. Hassan et al. discussed the integration of blockchains in intelligent energy systems. This paper introduces various technical solutions of blockchain and reviews the important blockchain platform [20]. Du et al., after a great deal of exploratory research, put forward the deployment application mode and the method of miners’ distribution and put forward some difficult problems to be solved [21]. Xu et al. discussed the decentralized space situational awareness access control strategy based on blockchain [22]. Dong discussed and analyzed the help of blockchain to the reform of financial science and technology rules [23–26].

Through the chain of blocks, the sports industry will be able to connect the world faster, more efficiently and truly in the future and reestablish the correct sports value. Let more people believe in sports, participate in sports, and love sports. As a new technology, blockchain technology has been concerned by all walks of life so far. Many people hope that it can be an antidote to solve the painful problems in all walks of life. Through the analysis of the application scenarios and technology selection of blockchain technology in the sports industry, the application dilemma and development vision can be clarified, which can effectively promote the healthy and sustainable development of the sports industry. The main research content of this article is roughly divided into five parts. The first part is an introduction to the blockchain and the sports industry, and an exposition of the purpose and significance of the research as well as the current research situation. The second part is the theory and method, introducing the research methods needed for the application of blockchain in sports industry. This paper mainly uses the methods of literature research and investigation. The third part introduces the specific research steps of this paper. First, this paper puts forward some application schemes of blockchain in sports industry. After that, a questionnaire survey was conducted among the public to find out the public’s attitude towards the blockchain. The fourth part is the analysis of the survey results, comparing what causes people to have greater worries, and comparing what aspects we hope to apply the blockchain technology. The fifth part is the conclusion, which briefly summarizes and combs the contents of this article and finally discusses and explains the experimental results. The results show that most people prefer the blockchain to be applied to sports lottery and competition crowd funding and are more worried about privacy disclosure. Most people who know about blockchain think that blockchain technology can empower sports, not only improve the standard of interaction between fans and their favorite sports but also create new market opportunities, solve the problem of low efficiency of existing technology, and better attract fans as a whole.

2. Proposed Method

2.1. Research Method

The development of blockchain technology brings new opportunities to the trillion-level sports industry. With the birth of blockchain technology, a new model will appear again and will change the world of sports. This article mainly uses the following methods for the application of blockchain in sports industry.

2.1.1. Literature Review Method

During the research and writing process of the paper, it is necessary to understand the theoretical knowledge of various disciplines in many aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to read a large amount of literature materials. Through the restriction of key words in the article, it is necessary to download the data on the blockchain and the sports industry on Baidu Academic, Wanfang, CNKI, school library, and other platforms and collect the data, pictures, and data related to the paper in the literature. Drawing lessons from the research theories, etc., to provide theoretical support and practical guidance for the research issues in this paper.

2.1.2. Case Analysis

Through the analysis and comparison of 10 volunteers’ worries about the blockchain, the reasons for the greater possibility are sorted out, and then a questionnaire survey is conducted to make the research of the article more universal, referential, and feasible.

2.1.3. Investigation Method

The method of investigation and analysis is one of the most commonly used means and methods in scientific and technological research of higher education. The survey uses the form of conversation and questionnaire to understand people’s attitude towards the blockchain and people’s main worries about the application of the blockchain. The investigation method is a basic scientific research method and method commonly used in scientific and technological research. It comprehensively uses scientific methods such as historical method and observation method to systematically investigate the popularity of blockchain and analyzes, synthesizes, compares, and summarizes a large number of blockchain and sports industry data and data collected through investigation, thus providing regular scientific knowledge for the application of blockchain in sports industry.

2.1.4. Experience Summary Method

The main purpose of the application method of experience summary is to systematically summarize and analyze the social management practice in our country, the development process of human economic and social activities, and some actual specific situations, so as to make it more consistent with systematization and theorization and rise to be an effective guiding method for promoting advanced management experience. Experience summary is one of the more effective methods of experience summary and promotion that has been widely used for a long time in the history of the development of human economic and social sciences in our country.

2.1.5. Comparative Analysis

The results of the questionnaire survey need to be compared and analyzed in order to know what people are worried about the blockchain and in which aspects people prefer to apply the blockchain technology.

2.2. Basic Concept Characteristics of Blockchain

The blockchain is technically a database. This is the basic concept, which is the software that keeps the account book records. In the field of traditional technology, it belongs to the category of database technology.

2.2.1. Traceability and Nontampering

The unique genetic chain data structure essentially guarantees that the data will not be changed. The data block will not be retroactively changed to the previous timestamp. Once the data is written, it cannot be changed (no matter what happens now, it will not affect the facts that happened before). Moreover, such data chains are evenly distributed among point-to-point node networks.

2.2.2. Decentralization

Blockchain technology can realize the consensus mechanism of decentralization. The transaction recorded in the public account book can be verified by how many people in the participating nodes on the chain vote and reach a consensus.

2.2.3. Trust the Machine

Blockchain technology is a technology that establishes trust relationships between nodes that do not trust each other. Beyond digital cash, the blockchain enables people who have no trust mechanism to build trust and reach agreement efficiently and cooperatively without authorization from an authoritative center in a centralized way.

The blockchain in the narrow sense is a chain data structure that combines data blocks in a sequential manner according to time sequence and is an untamperable and unforgeable distributed ledger guaranteed by cryptography. The generalized blockchain technology is to use the blockchain data structure to verify and store data, use distributed node consensus algorithm to generate and update data, use cryptography to ensure the security of data transmission and access, and use smart contracts composed of automated script codes, a new distributed infrastructure and computing paradigm for programming and manipulating data.

A public blockchain means that any individual or group in the world can send a transaction, the transaction can be effectively confirmed by the blockchain, and anyone can participate in its consensus process. The public blockchain is the earliest blockchain and the most widely used blockchain. The virtual digital currencies of the major bitcoins series are all based on the public blockchain. There is only one blockchain corresponding to this currency in the world.

Industry blockchain: multiple preselected nodes are designated as bookkeepers within a group, and the generation of each block is jointly determined by all preselected nodes (preselected nodes participate in the consensus process), and other access nodes can participate in transactions, but however, if you ask the bookkeeping process (essentially, it is still managed bookkeeping, but it becomes distributed bookkeeping, how many nodes are preselected, and how to determine the bookkeeper of each block to become the main risk point of the blockchain), anyone else can qualified query through the open API of this blockchain.

Private blockchain: only use the general ledger technology of the blockchain for bookkeeping. It can be a company or an individual and has exclusive access to the blockchain. This chain is not too big from other distributed storage solutions. Traditional finance wants to experiment with private blockchains, while the applications of public blockchains such as bitcoin have been industrialized, and the application products of private blockchains are still being explored.

2.3. Basic Principle of Blockchain

Blockchain has many characteristics and advantages, supporting such a magical trust machine requires some special principles.

2.3.1. Digital Encryption Hash Function

Without any secret key, it is mainly used to provide integrity and anticounterfeiting support for the parts that need to be protected during symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption. This means that no one can reverse calculate the password before encryption, but can proofread the result obtained after the password is encrypted by the hash function.

2.3.2. Hash Pointer Data Structure

Ensure that the hash pointer-linked data link cannot be changed once it is generated. Hash pointer is a kind of data structure, which contains not only common pointer but also some data information and password hash value related to this information, which makes normal pointer available to retrieve information and hash pointer used to verify whether information has changed.

2.3.3. Asymmetric Digital Signature

Digital signature is a kind of common physical signature similar to that written on paper, but it is realized by using the technology in the field of public key encryption and is used to identify digital information. A set of digital signatures usually defines two complementary operations, one for signature and the other for verification. The characteristics of asymmetric crypto-system: the strength of the algorithm is complex, and the security depends on the algorithm and key. However, due to the complexity of its algorithm, the encryption and decryption speed are not as fast as that of symmetric encryption and decryption. However, asymmetric key systems have two types of keys, one of which is public, so that it is not necessary to transmit the other’s keys like symmetric passwords. It means that only one can sign, anyone can check, but no one can modify, move, or delete.

Why cannot data be tampered with? If the attacker tampers with any data on the blockchain, the tampered data cannot generate the correct (unique) hash pointer to the next block. Even if the tamperer put the data and pointers of the whole blockchain, he could not generate the first header pointer because he did not know the original input password, thus causing all nodes on the network to detect such tampering attempts.

Generally speaking, the blockchain system consists of data layer, network layer, consensus layer, incentive layer, contract layer, and application layer. Among them, the data layer encapsulates the underlying data blocks and related basic data and basic algorithms such as data encryption and timestamp; the network layer includes distributed networking mechanisms, data dissemination mechanisms, and data verification mechanisms; the consensus layer mainly encapsulates network nodes. The incentive layer integrates economic factors into the blockchain technology system, mainly including the issuance mechanism and distribution mechanism of economic incentives, etc. The contract layer mainly encapsulates various scripts, algorithms, and smart contracts, which is a blockchain on the basis of programmable features; the application layer encapsulates various application scenarios and cases of the blockchain. In this model, the timestamp-based chain block structure, the consensus mechanism of distributed nodes, the economic incentives based on consensus computing power, and flexible and programmable smart contracts are the most representative innovations of blockchain technology.

Different from traditional distributed storage, the uniqueness of blockchain distributed storage is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, each node of the blockchain stores complete data according to the blockchain structure and traditional distributed storage. Generally, the data is divided into multiple copies according to certain rules for storage. Second, the storage of each node in the blockchain is independent and has the same status and relies on the consensus mechanism to ensure the consistency of storage, while traditional distributed storage generally synchronizes data to other backup nodes through the central node. No node can record the ledger data alone, thus avoiding the possibility of a single bookkeeper being controlled or bribed to keep false accounts. There are also enough accounting nodes. In theory, unless all nodes are destroyed, the account will not be lost, thus ensuring the security of the account data.

3. Experiments

3.1. Experimental Content

The experiment is mainly divided into two parts. The first part is to invite 10 information technicians to summarize the main application scenarios of the blockchain. According to their own situation, this paper discusses the main reasons why the public is not willing to accept the application of blockchain to the sports industry. The second part is to list the results of the discussion and make a questionnaire for investigation.

After discussion, the following main application scenarios are summarized. The first aspect is the deposit of certificates. The “tamper-proof” feature of the blockchain provides a solution to the “certificate keeping” problem in economic and social development. As long as the authenticity of the linked information and data can be ensured, the blockchain can solve the problem of “storage” and “authentication” of information. For example, in the field of copyright, blockchain can be used to store electronic evidence, which can ensure that it will not be tampered with. It can link the original platform, copyright bureau, judicial organs, and other parties through distributed books, which can greatly improve the efficiency of dealing with infringement. In financial, judicial, medical, copyright, and other fields that require high data authenticity, blockchain can create safe and efficient application scenarios. At the same time, because the blockchain records all transaction information, the blockchain itself can form credit investigation, providing a new idea for realizing social credit investigation.

The second aspect is sharing. The “distributed” feature of the blockchain can break through the “data barrier” between departments and realize information and data sharing. Different from centralized data storage, the information on the blockchain will be distributed to each node in the form of point-to-point broadcasting, and “true recording” of all information will be realized through “whole network witness.” In the field of public service, the blockchain can realize the common maintenance and utilization of government data across departments and regions, bringing better government service experience to the people. At present, some places have already explored linking up the real estate data. When buying a house, the common people only need to go to the bank once to transfer the ownership.

The third aspect is trust. The formation of a “consensus mechanism” in the blockchain can solve the problem of information asymmetry and truly realize the transformation from “information internet” to “trust internet.” Trust is the cornerstone of market economy and a scarce commodity. Many problems in economic development are difficult to solve, largely due to lack of trust, high transaction costs, and high risk of default. Blockchain can bridge the trust gap in supply chain finance. Blockchain can enhance the credibility of information upstream and downstream of the supply chain.

The fourth aspect is cooperation. Through “intelligent contract,” the blockchain can realize cooperative trust among multiple subjects, thus greatly expanding the scope and depth of human cooperation. Market economy is a complex system. Many actions involve complex actors. How to achieve efficient coordination among multiple actors is a common problem in economic development. Especially in the global context, cross-border payment, cross-border trade, and cross-border logistics are all related to the export, import, transportation, and supervision of various countries. Some people have made a statistic: in 2014, Maersk shipping transported avocados and roses from Kenya in Africa to Holland in Europe, and the one-month cross-border transportation involved more than 200 communications between more than 30 subjects. When the blockchain is applied to global trade, all parties can cooperate and manage at the same time to ensure the electronic and real-time sharing of all information.

In general, the blockchain creates value by creating trust. The blockchain creates trust because the information and data stored in it cannot be tampered with and witnessed by the whole network, thus enabling trust to be completed automatically through point-to-point without endorsement by a third-party organization. Blockchain promotes cooperation, because distributed data can realize information sharing of all nodes, while intelligent contracts can coordinate the behaviors of both parties to the transaction. The blockchain expands the foundation of human trust. Apart from third-party guarantee and enforcement, the blockchain enables human trust to be based on logic and mathematics invented by human beings themselves for the first time. This is the victory of human rationality and has greatly improved the ability of human cooperation.

In the sports industry, it can be mainly applied to sports lottery, sports equipment, competition crowd funding, ticket sales, athlete training, physical fitness testing, etc. Take sports lottery and competition crowd funding as examples to make a brief explanation.

An important derivative industry of the sports industry is the guessing sports lottery. Compared with the traditional mode of selling color at physical outlets, there are many risks and untrustworthy places in the process of selling color on the Internet. The first is the risk of sales data and authorization. Lotteries are purchased by lottery buyers. Lottery selling websites do not necessarily issue tickets for lottery buyers through formal channels such as the National Sports Lottery Center, which is equivalent to such lottery websites issuing lottery tickets themselves. There is a great deal of illegal profiteering, and the risk of websites running away after the grand prize is awarded. Whether it is the mainland sports lottery or the Hong Kong horse lottery, the huge lottery sales revenue is public welfare that feeds the society. However, if illegal lottery sales websites take advantage of the loopholes, it is not only the lottery buyers who suffer but also the whole society. Second, because the online lottery sales data are not transparent, do not have real names, and do not know the identity of the lottery buyers, there is not only the problem of not being able to supervise the illegal purchase of lottery by minors, but also the risk that athletes, judges, and other participants in sports events may violate professional ethics to participate in the competition and manipulate the results of the competition. However, the existing pain points of Internet competition can be solved perfectly by blockchain technology.

For the organizers of sports events, who will watch the games and who will sponsor the games are their most important concerns. However, the traditional income structure of the games is relatively single, mainly relying on the audience to buy tickets and advertisers to provide sponsorship. However, the organizers of the games have to pay a lot of expenses for the games, such as the cost of athletes and the publicity of the games. Maybe they will lose money if they hold a game. In order to solve this pain point, a more dynamic competition organizing mode is needed to ensure that the competition receives enough attention. The blockchain thinking reminds us of the upgraded competition operating mode of sharing economy, namely, competition crowd funding. In this mode, stars, media, and even ordinary fans can contribute their influence to promote the competition and then get points based on the blockchain through the quantitative conversion ratio of intelligent contracts. The on-site audience and the online audience can buy points and exchange them for watching and participating qualifications to pay for the competition they want to watch. The competition organizer can bid for a part of the points to host the competition. Athletes can also get points for participating in the competition, and the participants who get points can realize the points through a certain form of value conversion. In this way, the biggest cost in traditional competitions—athletes and publicity—was solved in a highly participatory competition crowd-raising and communication carnival.

In addition, people’s worries about the blockchain may mainly come from lack of understanding of the blockchain, worries about privacy issues, worries about technical issues, etc. These were collated into questionnaires to investigate people.

3.2. Experimental Results

There were a total of 200 questionnaires. The questionnaire first investigated people’s understanding of the blockchain. The setting options are vague concept, slight understanding, basic understanding, and relatively proficient. Each person can choose one item. The extent of people’s understanding of the blockchain is shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Knowledge of blockchain.

Degree	Number of votes	Degree	Number of votes
The concept of fuzzy	48	Basic understanding	13
A little understanding	137	More proficient	2

Second, the questionnaire lists the application of the blockchain in the sports industry, so that people can choose which aspect they want the blockchain to be applied in. Each person can choose 3 items. The application scenario support is shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Application scenario support.

Application scenario	Number of votes	Application scenario	Number of votes
Sports lottery	183	Ticket sales	63
Sports equipment	27	Athletes training	19
Crowd source for the competition	103	Physical fitness test	5

In addition to sports lottery tickets, the popularity of crowd funding is also very high. The use of blockchains in competition crowd funding can save organizers more than half of the cost, greatly increase the incomes of competition parties, media, and athletes; reduce the expenditures of spectators; enhance the stickiness of users to competitions and athletes; and benefit from various aspects, thus effectively improving the operation efficiency of the whole industry. Based on blockchain competition crowd funding, anyone can understand the flow of funds on the blockchain, so that all stakeholders can reach a consensus on the credibility of the data. Blockchain crowd funding is essentially a public-interest crowd funding, which avoids the laws and regulations encountered in traditional equity crowd funding and the problems in actual operation, and at the same time, solves the problem of unsustainable user input in traditional public-interest crowd funding. More competitions will bring more tourists and more jobs, which can effectively promote the development of the real economy.

Finally, we conjectured people’s worries about the blockchain and put forward some reasons for conducting a questionnaire survey. Each person can choose one item. The reasons why people are worried about the blockchain are shown in Table 3.

Table 3

Reasons for worrying about blockchain.

Reason	Number of votes	Reason	Number of votes
Lack of understanding	64	Technical problems	3
Privacy issues	123	Other	10

The survey shows that people pay more attention to privacy issues. The inadequacy of the blockchain in privacy protection is indeed obvious. First, the nodes in the blockchain network are usually personal computers, which have poor antiattack capability. Moreover, because all nodes in the blockchain network have equal status and relatively scattered geographical locations, it is difficult to adopt the same security measures for many nodes. Some weak nodes may be the targets of attackers’ invasion. Second, the correlation between blockchain transactions can be used to infer sensitive information. All transactions in the blockchain are stored in a public global account book, and attackers can easily obtain all transaction information. The attacker discovered some private information by analyzing the correlation between transaction information. Third, a short board in the protection of blockchain privacy is that blockchain applications face various security threats.

The sports industry will continue to develop and science and technology will also advance with it, slowly shaping and optimizing the ways in which sports organizations, fans, and players participate in competitions. The charm of sports lies in that we are all moving towards the goal of “faster, higher and stronger.” Records are constantly being broken, and new legends and fans are being born. Sports enterprises and organizations need to keep up with the pace of the industry. There is still much room for improvement in the sports process. Fan interaction needs to be better. Sports organizations need to adopt not only new technologies, but also new modes of thinking.

In the field of sports industry, due to the lack of an open, transparent, and trustworthy identity credit system, it is necessary to use intermediaries to connect upstream and downstream. Substandard goods and fake goods in the field of sporting goods have reduced consumers’ trust to a certain extent. In order to solve the pain point of this industry, we can use the technical characteristics of blockchain to reshape the production and manufacturing process, provide transparent application development services and business transformation scenarios, give full play to the role of blockchain in production capacity and quality management, and effectively promote the sports industry healthy growth.

Risks from immature technology although the blockchain system is almost perfect from a mathematical point of view, it is only a technical perfection, and the gap between technical functions and practical applications is obvious. Since the current blockchain technology does not meet the theoretical requirements, system design, infrastructure, privacy protection, operation management, and technology update iterations still restrict its security.

4. Discussion

4.1. Analysis on Understanding Degree of Blockchain

Through the questionnaire survey, we got people’s understanding of the blockchain. According to these data, we can know people’s attention to the blockchain and make the voting situation into a pie chart, as shown in Figure 1.

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

From the pie chart, we can see intuitively that most people do not know about the blockchain, most people have only heard of a vague impression or a slight understanding, and most people do not know the concept and principle of the blockchain. This also verifies the following conjecture to some extent. The reason why people reject the blockchain may be that they do not know much about the blockchain.

Blockchain is closely related to people’s production and life in public management, energy, transportation, and other fields, but the centralized nature of these fields also brings some problems, which can be transformed with blockchain. The decentralized and fully distributed DNS service provided by the blockchain can realize the query and resolution of domain names through the point-to-point data transmission service between each node in the network, which can be used to ensure that the operating system and firmware of an important infrastructure are not. If tampered, you can monitor the status and integrity of the software, detect bad tampering, and ensure that the data transmitted by the system using IoT technology has not been tampered with.

At the technical level, blockchain still needs breakthrough progress. The blockchain application is still in the initial development stage of the laboratory, and there is no mature product that is intuitively available. Compared with Internet technology, people can use browsers, APPs, and other specific applications to realize the browsing, transmission, exchange, and application of information, but the blockchain obviously lacks such breakthrough applications and faces high technical barriers. Another example is the issue of block capacity. Since the blockchain needs to carry all the information generated before replication, the amount of information in the next block is greater than the amount of information in the previous block. If this is passed on, the block write information will increase infinitely, with the problems of information storage, verification, and capacity have yet to be solved.

4.2. Comparison of Support Rate in Application Scenes

Based on the research on the core application value of blockchain and the comprehensive analysis of existing application cases, it is found that the combination of blockchain technology with the sports industry not only gives birth to emerging business models but also solves the related pain points in the sports industry. For example, if a sports lottery occurs, the lack of supervision, corruption, and other problems will cause the credibility of sports lottery to decline; most of the income of sports IP is collected by some senior agents and related intermediaries in the industry, and the sports stars who are in it have no right to speak or too much. Income, although sports stars generally have agents or brokerage companies, most of them operate through traditional intermediary channels, among which there are too many intermediaries, such as Mendes predators, etc.; induction is in a chaotic situation, and the data is not true; the sports goods manufacturing industry has always occupied an important position in the sports industry, but fake and substandard goods interfere with the normal order of the sports goods market, and sports consumers often lack awareness of the products. The ability to distinguish the true from the false has caused the decline of sports consumers’ trust in the product.

In the questionnaire survey, people were asked to vote on the application of blockchain in the sports industry, to select the scenes that people most want to apply, and to draw the data into a column chart, as shown in Figure 2.

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

According to the column chart, it is not difficult to find that many college students think that the blockchain technology should be applied in the lottery industry first. The possible reason may be that the current sports lottery is not open and transparent enough. If the guessing sports lottery can be combined with the blockchain, its advantages are very obvious. First, the network lottery based on the blockchain is transparent, traceable, and tamper-proof. The lottery buyers can check whether their lottery tickets have been issued on the blockchain at any time to avoid being deceived by illegal channels. At the same time, the sports regulatory agencies can easily find matches suspected of being manipulated through dynamic analysis of the data on the chain. Second, the blockchain-based competition guessing can enable all participants to participate in the guessing, result confirmation, and award distribution to be automatically executed through intelligent contracts, thus, making the process more efficient and credible. Third, the blockchain-based competition guessing can provide more guessing methods, allowing users to participate in real-time guessing during the competition, thus, the real-time generated prediction data can also provide valuable reference for the sports industry.

However, it is not convenient to compare proportions only by data. Therefore, the application scene approval rate is calculated from all the data for comparative analysis. The approval rate of each application scenario is shown in Table 4.

Table 4

Application scenario approval rate.

Application scenario	Support rate %	Application scenario	Support rate %
Sports lottery	45.75	Ticket sales	15.75
Sports equipment	6.75	Athletes training	4.75
Crowd source for the competition	25.75	Physical fitness test	1.25

We have got the approval rate of each application scene. In order to make a more intuitive comparison, we chose to draw the approval rate of each application scene into a pie chart. The pie chart of application scenario approval rate is shown in Figure 3.

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

From the pie chart, we can see that the proportion supporting the application of blockchain to lottery tickets is much higher than others. This has been explained earlier. Crowd sourcing also has a high approval rate, because in this mode, stars, media, and even ordinary fans can contribute their influence to promote the competition. The biggest cost in traditional competitions—athletes and publicity—is solved in a highly participatory competition crowd-raising communication carnival. For ticket sales, it may be because many ticket dealers drive up ticket prices, causing people to dislike them. However, applying it to physical fitness tests is the least popular. It may be because it involves privacy issues.

The business application of the sports industry can generally adopt the governance model of the permission chain, which is a blockchain with role division and authority management. The business governance of the sports industry needs to develop corresponding business operations, platform operations, operation and maintenance development, supervision, and other authority controls on the license chain platform. At the same time, different business scenarios need to be considered when using blockchain technology. For example, in the sports lottery industry and the manufacturing of sports goods, the data of sports lottery and sports goods manufacturing need to be uploaded in real time and the data needs to be authentic. The data in the blockchain is encrypted with a cryptographic algorithm. The blocks are advanced in strict order in the form of timestamps, which are difficult to tamper with, and are distributed and synchronized to all nodes. Each node and participating parties have the sovereignty of their own data.

4.3. Analysis of the Reasons for Worrying about Blockchain

Many people’s impression of the blockchain is still in bitcoin, while many people are disgusted with bitcoin. Therefore, many people are worried about the application of blockchain. In the questionnaire, people have already answered the worries about the blockchain. Draw the data into radar chart, as shown in Figure 4.

[figure(s) omitted; refer to PDF]

From the radar chart, we can see intuitively that people’s worries about the application of blockchain mainly come from their worries about privacy and their ignorance of blockchain. As mentioned earlier, people do not understand the blockchain. Now let us talk about privacy. It is very important to protect people’s identities and personal information, especially considering the large-scale user information disclosure incidents that have occurred before in companies such as Facebook, Marriott, and Equifax. Although the advantages of blockchain are attractive, neither companies nor individuals are keen to publish all information in public databases, which can be freely read by their own governments, foreign governments, family members, colleagues, and business competitors. Privacy protection protocols in the blockchain have two major challenges. One of the challenges is statistical: in order to make any privacy preserving scheme computationally practical, the scheme can only change a small part of the blockchain state at each transaction. However, even if the changed content is private, there is inevitably some metadata. Therefore, statistical analysis can always analyze the relationship between them. At the very least, they will be able to capture the patterns of when transactions occur, and in many cases, they will be able to narrow their identities and find out who interacts with whom. The second challenge is the developer experience challenge. In blockchain mode, developers’ experience is far less than Turing’s. From the radar chart, we can also find that there are relatively few worries about technical problems. However, the privacy issue is actually part of the technical issue. The blockchain faces many technical challenges, including scalability.

In most conjectures, the identity based on the blockchain can not only enable players, fans, and business partners to gain unprecedented experience but also create new net worth in the sports industry by improving fans’ profits, crowd funding assets, issuing digital collectibles, and issuing super fan certification. The sports industry will continue to develop, and science and technology will also advance with it, slowly shaping and optimizing the ways in which sports organizations, fans, and players participate in competitions. The blockchain can provide new financing mechanisms for sports leagues, teams, and players. The Blockchain Digital Identity System can create unique personal files for fans and players. Distributed ledger technology can protect the data of players and fans while still performing data-driven analysis. Sports enterprises and organizations need to keep up with the pace of the industry. There is still much room for improvement in the sports process. Fan interaction needs to be better. Sports organizations need to adopt not only new technologies but also new modes of thinking.

Adhere to market orientation. The development of science and technology attracts people’s consumption level to upgrade constantly. Blockchain technology can create richer sports scenes, which is a potentially huge sports consumption market. At the same time, blockchain technology can further promote the growth of sports consumption. For example, in the field of sports lottery, due to the opaqueness of sports lottery, the lack of integrity of sports lottery will result in the loss of a large number of lottery players and the inefficient operation of the sports lottery industry. Blockchain technology can make sports lottery transparent. Due to decentralization, it eliminates the shady lottery, increases the trust of lottery players, and promotes sports consumption.

5. Conclusions

(1) The introduction of the blockchain and the sports industry, the purpose and significance of the research and the current research situation

(2) A brief introduction is given to the methods needed in this study. This paper mainly uses the methods of literature research and investigation. The basic concept and principle of blockchain are explained

(3) This paper first reviews the literature and then invites 10 information technicians to summarize the main application scenarios of blockchain in the sports industry. According to their own situation, this paper discusses the main reasons why the public is not willing to accept the application of blockchain to the sports industry. The second part is to list the results of the discussion and make a questionnaire for investigation

(4) Based on the analysis of the survey results, what aspects of the sports industry are people more eager to apply blockchain technology and what are people’s main concerns about blockchain? The analysis shows that people prefer to apply blockchain technology in sports lottery and have great concerns about privacy issues

(5) The development of blockchain must solve the problem of user privacy, otherwise, the application of blockchain will face great challenges

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Hubei Province Education Science Planning Project 2021 Key Project “Research on the Teaching Reform Path of Art and Sports Courses in Rural Primary Schools in Northwest Hubei under the Background of Rural Revitalization - Based on the Perspective of Traditional Culture Entering the Campus,” project number: 2021ZA01; and Hanjiang Normal University's 2016 scientific research project “Intervention Study on the Influence of Aerobics on Children's Physical and Mental Health in Northwest Hubei,” project number: 2016C02.

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