Today, Karate Combat, a full combat martial arts sports league, announced a successful $18 million funding round to assist the brand in launching an XR mobile application to enhance its broadcasts.
BITKRAFT Ventures led the $18 million funding round, with additional participation from groups including but not limited to Delphi Digital, The Operating Group, Alpha Wave Global, Hashkey, Lattice, M13, Santiago Santos, RooxieXBT.
Moreover, Karate Combat has broadcasting deals secured with Eurosport, Globo’s Combate, MatchTV, BeIN Sports, CBS Sports, and ESPN Deportes.
The funding enables the sports firm to operate a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) application to keep fans engaged during a live event.
Carlos Pereira, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures added:
Sports league value largely emerges from the quality of the competition and the passion and loyalty of the fan base. Karate Combat is leveraging its Web3 tools and ethos to shift how fans engage with their favourite sports by building direct relationships, aligning incentives, and enabling influence over every aspect of the league.
Karate Combat also employs virtual environments for its broadcast events. The brand uses MR environments the team created on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to broadcast athletes competing while surrounded by a visually enhanced RT3D backdrop.
Karate Combat’s DAO Application
Launching May 10th, the Karate Combat UP Only Gaming App and $KARATE token will gamify the brand’s broadcasts.
The application keeps viewers at home engaged by providing web3 browser and mobile-based applications; users can also vote on fighters and other elements of an event to gain the platform’s $KARATE token.
Robert Bryan, the Co-Founder of Karate Combat, added:
Karate Combat has done a great job fulfilling the need of sports content for younger fans in a manner vastly different from traditional sports. We are thrilled to now have BITKRAFT Ventures, a distinguished investment firm led by a team of venture capitalist heavyweights, in our corner and believe the DAO will continue to supercharge our ongoing success and create a new category of entertainment within Web3.
The introduction of Web3 and emerging XR solutions create new ways for brands to connect with audiences. Also, XR infrastructures allow for digital space, which connects fans with each other over brand loyalty.
AR-lite filters are a popular example of how marketing teams successfully leverage immersive technology on social media applications to increase audience retention and engagement via sponsored interactable visualizations.
XR, a Growing Tool for Sports Broadcasting and Marketing
For many marketing teams, XR technology provides a lucrative growing avenue to enhance customer experiences. Immersive solutions such as AR visualizations, metaverse, and smart glasses assist sports marketing teams from various business perspectives.
XR’s increasing presence is leading sports firms, from clothing brands to broadcast groups, to leverage immersive solutions. A notable example is NIKELAND, which has seven million members from roughly 223 countries interacting with the sports brand – as of August 2022.
The relationship between XR and sports media is vital in terms of broadcasting. Last year the Tour De France 2022 leveraged Nreal smartglasses, with assistance from immersive technology firms Immmersive.IO, MATSUKO, and Zwift, to present an AR-enhanced broadcast of the event.
Viewers wearing Nreal Air smart glasses can interact with AR visualizations of the French region and view the event on a large, immersive screen.
Viewers can discover metrics like the positions and checkpoints of cyclists thanks to the streamed RT3D AR assets. A digital avatar of the tour’s Director, Christian Prudhomme, who leads viewers through the event, was also shown on the live stream.
The partnership also allowed project partners Orange to install a mixture of 3G, 4G, and 5G cables across the region to support the AR-ready event and increase the telecommunication firm’s wireless coverage of the area.
Orange deployed 4G mobile relays in 46 stopover towns, 5G towers in ten locations, a Hertzian relay, and a reinforced 4G/5G installation at Col du Granon’s peak. Moreover, Orange’s increased network cable coverage includes 637 4G ready and 457 fibre optic ready municipalities.
Virtual Productions and XR in Media Production
Additionally, major international sports brands such as FIFA, BT Sports, and the NFL leverage XR in their broadcast events, including virtual production tools.
In 2022, the NFL first started using virtual production technology to take its broadcasts to the next level while experimenting with an emerging technology stack that could save money.
The production took place at a Los Angeles studio which includes GhostFrame, a solution from Megapixel which displays up to four MR virtual sets behind a presenter. The solution lets studio technicians manage hidden chromakey, tracking, and four projection cameras simultaneously.
The solution allows production staff to employ real-time AR visualizations during a broadcast, streaming RT3D content such as player profiles, stats, or virtual backgrounds.
Moreover, virtual production tools are gaining ground as a new tool for broader media production staff. On-set personnel can use immersive solutions like high-quality LED walls, known as volumes, with virtual production-ready sets to create realistic environments for actors to perform.
Using XR, media production specialists and department heads can save time and money using RT3D environments as an immersive backdrop.
A volume displays RT3D backdrops that respond to camera movement enabling a realistic, dynamic, and adaptable solution visible to the actors and the camera crew.
