Recognising that social media savvy sports fans now engage with content in very different ways, by transitioning the league to a DAO, Karate Combat will be able to utilise web3 tools to provide fans with unprecedented access, ownership and interactivity. The league is committed to an open decentralisation model to foster a broad and emergent Karate Combat Universe, built by the community.
The DAO launch is part of Karate Combat’s landmark, three-year sponsorship agreement with the HBAR Foundation, which is fueling the development of the Hedera ecosystem. The league has previously formed partnerships with SushiSwap and Epic Games Unreal Engine, which power’s Karate Combat’s unique blend of live action and immersive CGI environments.
December 2022 will see the league issue its native $KARATE governance token. This token will allow the community of fans to fully govern the DAO and shape the future direction of the league by making decisions on fighter selection, rule changes, intellectual property licensing, budget approvals, grant and bounty distribution and marketing strategy. Karate Combat will give away half of the $KARATE tokens over time to its community through an airdrop on the Hedera blockchain. The airdrop will coincide with the launch of the Karate Combat mobile app.
“From inception, Karate Combat has pioneered new concepts in sports entertainment – from our signature fighting pit to our groundbreaking virtual production utilising Unreal Engine,” said Adam Kovacs, Karate Combat League President. “The sporting world must evolve to increase engagement with a new generation of fans who have grown up on social media and digital gaming. They expect to be active participants in the action, rather than passive viewers. When the DAO launches, Karate Combat fans and fighters will participate in governance, which will provide unmatched levels of interaction and engagement at all levels of our community.”
Since debuting publicly in 2018, Karate Combat has become one of the world’s fastest growing sports franchises with television broadcast distribution in more than 100 countries. Karate Combat events are also simultaneously streamed for free on global platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok and the league has built an online community of over 3.5 million fans.
