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 collaboration aims to create Sports Performance Securities™—equity instruments whose value is linked to team performance—combining InPlay's market model with tZERO's regulated digital securities infrastructure. The initiative seeks to introduce a new category of market participation for sports fans, investors, traders, and institutions.
According to the announcement, sportsbooks allow users to wager on outcomes, and prediction markets allow users to trade probabilities, but no equity market exists for sports performance itself. Edwin Johnson, Founder and CEO of InPlay Global, stated, "We're changing that. Sports performance is becoming an investable asset class, and InPlay is building the market designed to support it." Alan Konevsky, Chairman and CEO of tZERO, added, "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."
The partnership 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 through active participation.
InPlay Global is developing Sports Performance Securities as equity instruments whose value is linked to team performance, combining sports, finance, and technology to create a new form of participation that allows users to analyze, value, and trade team performance through market-based engagement rather than wagering on or predicting discrete outcomes. tZERO Group, Inc. and its broker-dealer subsidiaries provide an innovative liquidity platform for private companies and assets, offering institutional-grade solutions for issuers looking to digitize their capital table through blockchain technology and making such equity available for trading on an alternative trading system.
For more information about tZERO, visit their website. tZERO Digital Asset Securities, LLC and tZERO Securities, LLC are broker-dealers registered with the SEC and members of FINRA and SIPC. More information about tZERO Digital Asset Securities can be found on FINRA's BrokerCheck. The announcement also includes forward-looking statements regarding the potential of the partnership and the new asset class.
