The SCOR Thesis: Why Sports Needs an Identity Layer

In this article, we explore the key problems facing the sports industry and how they can be solved through a programmable sports identity layer.

Introduction

SCOR is an infrastructure layer for programmable fandom and sports IP.

At its core, SCOR brings licensed sports IP and fan engagement onchain, transforming them into digital assets that are verifiable, measurable, and usable across multiple applications, from games and social experiences to DeFi, in a scalable way.

While sports is one of the largest industries in the world, its underlying infrastructure has not evolved at the same pace as digital behavior, AI, or modern economic systems. This gap creates structural inefficiencies for both IP holders and fans.

The Core Problems in the Sports Industry

1. Outdated Monetization Models

Sports IP still operates through slow intermediaries and rigid contracts. Licensing deals are time-consuming, expensive, and inflexible. Once signed, IP can only be used in narrowly defined ways, limiting experimentation and innovation.

As a result, large portions of IP value remain untapped. New digital formats, interactive experiences, and emerging platforms are difficult to support under traditional licensing structures.

At the same time, large volumes of false, unauthorized, or derivative content are created when sports IP is reused or transformed. This usage can violate licensing terms, ethical standards, and in some cases, existing laws. Today, there is no way to monitor or control IP usage globally and across platforms.

The only enforcement mechanism available to rights holders is reactive and centralized: they can approach large platforms and request content takedowns. While this may limit distribution locally on a single platform, it does not solve the problem at a global or cross-platform level, nor does it prevent the content from continuing to circulate elsewhere.

2. Lack of Native Digital Infrastructure for Sports IP

Building games, interactive products, or digital experiences using real teams or athletes remains complex and rarely scalable. Access to IP is fragmented, heavily gated, and difficult to track.

Without a unified digital framework, IP usage is hard to monitor, measure, or protect. Critically, sports IP lacks native metadata that can update dynamically as the IP is used and move with it from platform to platform.

Today, major content distribution platforms operate with partial and centralized knowledge. They only know what rights holders explicitly provide to them, and that information is stored and used within closed systems. There is no shared, portable layer of truth that tracks how IP is used, transformed, or monetized across the broader digital ecosystem.

3. Fans Receive Little in Return for Their Engagement

Sports fans spend heavily on tickets, merchandise, travel, and subscriptions. They invest time, attention, and emotional energy. Yet they rarely own anything or receive meaningful recognition for their loyalty.

At the same time, teams lack a unified view of their audience. Fan data is scattered across platforms, making it difficult to understand engagement holistically or reward it economically. As a result, revenue sharing and long-term incentive models for fans are almost nonexistent.

4. The AI Era Amplifies These Risks

AI intensifies existing problems around IP control and monetization. Sports content is increasingly reused, transformed, and remixed, making it difficult to trace outputs back to original sources.

Rights holders lack clear mechanisms to track how their imagery, video, or written content is used in AI-generated outputs. This creates real risks: loss of IP control, revenue leakage, and declining quality as models are trained on derivative or transformed content rather than verified originals.

End users also face uncertainty. They may unknowingly engage with unauthorized or low-quality AI-generated content, while also risking restrictions for using IP without proper authorization.

Without digitally native, programmable IP, the sports industry risks losing control over how its brands, identities, and content are used in the AI era.

SCOR is building infrastructure designed specifically for this future. Through SCOR, sports IP and fan profiles acquire unique, programmable identifiers and critical metadata that follows content as it moves downstream, from broadcast to highlight, from social clip to AI training set, from interactive game to prediction market.

Fan digital profiles are treated in a similar way, with structured, privacy-preserving data that makes engagement measurable, portable, and rewardable across applications.

Why SCOR Focuses on Sports Specifically

Sports is a trillion-dollar global industry, with sports IP alone estimated at over $500 billion. But size alone does not explain the opportunity.

Both sides of the industry, IP holders and fans, have reached a point where they clearly understand the challenges they are facing. This awareness is partially driven by the fact that other industries have already demonstrated that these problems are solvable.

In film and music, models such as crowdfunding and tokenized ownership allow audiences to participate economically, not just emotionally. Sports, despite its unmatched engagement, has largely remained on the sidelines.

In DeFi, participation is measurable and rewarded. Users who provide liquidity or contribute activity are directly compensated. In sports, fan engagement plays a similar economic role, yet there is still no infrastructure to recognize or reward it.

SCOR focuses on sports because:

Stakeholder demand is clear

Key participants across the industry understand these pain points and are actively seeking solutions. As a result, Sweet, SCOR’s Labs company, has signed over 3,000 agreements with major sports IP holders, including leagues, teams, and sports associations. These organizations are actively looking for advanced technologies to protect and monetize their IP.

The addressable market is massive and already engaged

Billions of fans are emotionally invested and already spending time and money around teams and athletes. SCOR does not need to invent demand, it unlocks existing demand.

Similar technological gaps have been solved elsewhere

Other industries have successfully implemented programmable, incentive-aligned digital infrastructure. Sports is next.

Conclusion

Despite its scale and cultural importance, sports remains one of the least digitally native industries. IP holders are losing control, fans are under-rewarded, and AI is accelerating both problems.

SCOR provides the missing infrastructure: programmable identification for sports IP and fandom, enabling measurable engagement, fair monetization, and sustainable innovation in the AI era.

This is the foundation SCOR is building on.