The impact of the metaverse on the future business of professional football clubs – A prospective study

The emergence of the metaverse, driven by advancements in transformative technologies, is expected to profoundly influence how individuals interact in the future, potentially disrupting entire business sectors and society at large. Professional football clubs (PFCs) have already initiated explorative forays into the metaverse. Therefore, we examine the impact of the emerging metaverse on the future business of PFCs, both in the medium (until 2026) and long term (until 2030). Building on growing metaverse business literature, this paper presents a Delphi study with quantitative and qualitative assessments from 103 experts. We develop twelve projections clustered around business model innovation (BMI) items and test them with our group of experts. Moreover, we collect information about participants' deep-level characteristics to enhance our analysis and gain additional insights. We identify and discuss two possible future scenarios projected until 2030, both of them emphasizing PFCs' opportunities in the metaverse. Experts concur that underlying metaverse technologies, such as AR/VR equipment and AI, will innovate value creation and value capture in the metaversal future. PFCs will likely expand their value proposition and generate new revenues through innovative models, including perpetual royalties from metaverse activities or platform fees from transactions among fans, commercial partners, and media collaborators.