The football industry "has never been slow to adapt to new ideas and technologies," according to Bill Wilson of the BBC. Now the sport -- if a "little tentatively" -- is starting to "dip its boots into the world of crypto-currency and its supporting blockchain technology." Earlier this year, Arsenal "became the first major football club to sign a deal to promote a crypto-currency." It reached an agreement with gaming company CashBet to advertise its CashBet Coin -- used for gambling -- at Arsenal's home league games. Even Lionel Messi "has got involved in this new world," claiming in a promotional post on behalf of one company that he had been "digging deeper into blockchain and decentralised systems." But despite such high-profile endorsement, football has "yet to explore this new world fully, with most clubs, federations, and industry experts adopting a wait-and-see attitude." Football business expert Michael Broughton said, "Sport, including football, has a great opportunity to utilize this new technology and be at the forefront of its future adoption." He said that there "a number of sports-related spheres where blockchain technology can be used, among them gambling and ticketing." He said that using blockchain technology should mean no one "can fake bets; there will be an unchangeable record of who made the bet, and when it was time-stamped." But he "believes it is with ticketing that there is the most potential for blockchain in sport." Broughton: "The football clubs may know a ticket was used, but not always by whom. So they will never be able to target any further club marketing towards these spectators. ... If you put your ticketing system onto the blockchain, you can verify if people attended, or who they gave their tickets to" (BBC, 5/6).
