InPlay Global, a market for live sports performance, has announced a strategic partnership with tZERO Group, Inc., a leader in blockchain-based financial infrastructure, to build an equity market for sports performance. The two companies are developing Sports Performance Securities™—equity instruments whose value is tied to team performance—creating a new category of market participation for sports fans, investors, traders, and institutions.
“Sportsbooks allow users to wager on outcomes. Prediction markets allow users to trade probabilities. Yet no equity market exists for sports performance itself. We're changing that,” said Edwin Johnson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of InPlay Global. “Sports performance is becoming an investable asset class, and InPlay is building the market designed to support it.”
The partnership combines InPlay's market model with tZERO's regulated digital securities infrastructure. Alan Konevsky, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of tZERO, noted, “Tokenization, coupled with the right market structure, transforms real-world rights, interests, and economic activity into investable assets. Sports performance represents a compelling and largely untapped frontier.”
This announcement comes as InPlay prepares to launch the InPlay Trading Challenge™, a free-to-enter national competition aligned with the 2026 professional and college football seasons. Featuring cash prizes and participants from more than 15 universities, the competition aims to introduce students and sports fans to sports markets, trading concepts, and financial literacy.
The implications of this partnership are significant. For the sports industry, it could unlock new revenue streams and deepen fan engagement by allowing fans to invest in team performance rather than just wager on outcomes. For investors, it offers a new asset class that previously did not exist in equity markets. For the broader financial industry, it represents another step in the tokenization of real-world assets, bringing transparency and accessibility to previously illiquid markets.
tZERO's infrastructure, provided through its broker-dealer subsidiaries such as tZERO Digital Asset Securities, LLC and tZERO Securities, LLC, is designed to handle digital asset securities. However, the companies caution that digital asset securities involve risks, including potential loss of principal, lack of liquidity, and unique risks like fraud and theft. The securities described are subject to qualification by the SEC under Regulation A+ and have not yet been qualified.
As InPlay and tZERO work to bring this market to fruition, they are positioning sports performance as a frontier that could transform how fans and investors engage with sports. For more information, visit InPlay's website at https://www.inplayglobal.com.
