Karate Combat: How This Web3 Startup Plans On Earning Its Black Belt
The first sports league that will be controlled by a DAO
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Karate is an ancient fighting method that dates back to the 14th century in Okinawa, Japan and is based on Chinese martial arts. Over the centuries karate has gained popularity as a self-defense technique, sport, and exercise. Today, over 100 million people practice karate across 192 countries, making it a truly global sport.
But, what led this centuries-old fighting technique to become so popular across the world? In the 1920s, karate masters from Okinawa, a small island off the coast of Japan, began traveling to Japan and teaching people about karate. Several years later in the 1930s, Japan’s government recognized karate as a legitimate martial art and instituted it as physical education in many school curriculums. During World War 2, a lot of American military personnel stationed in Japan learned about this new budding sport and began spreading the word about it in America. However, karate did not gain mainstream adoption until the 1970s when a slew of popular films came out. Enter the Dragon and The Karate Kid, two films with an emphasis on karate that would go on to become major box office successes.
Roughly 50 years later in 2018, Netflix launched a spin-off TV series of the movie The Karate Kid called Cobra Kai - featuring many of the original actors - that would quickly rise to #1 on the charts across several countries reinvigorating the world’s interest in the sport.
Enter Karate Combat
At this point you may be thinking “I thought this was a Web3-focused newsletter, why are we talking about the history and popularity of karate?” And you would have a valid point but don’t you worry because now we are going to get to the sports league that is at the intersection of Web3 and karate.
Karate Combat is the world's premier full contact striking league, blending the excitement of live-action, full-contact Karate with immersive CGI environments powered by the Epic Games Unreal gaming and virtual production engine. Olympic medalists and national champions from around the world are just some of the elite black belts invited to compete in eight different weight divisions in pursuit of a Karate Combat World Championship. The league is streamed and broadcast to over 100 countries worldwide.
Karate Combat was founded back in 2019 by two karate fans, Michael DePietro and Robert Bryan, who have a passion for mixed martial arts and technology. Since its founding, Karate Combat’s audience has grown to over 4.5 million followers across social media and events average over 10 million views from deals with major sports broadcasters such as ESPN and CBS Sports. Tune into their next fight on May 20th or buy tickets to attend if you are in Miami!
Robert Bryan, one of the founders, attributes some of the increased interest in karate to the Cobra Kai Netflix series we mentioned earlier. Whether it be Cobra Kai or an increased interest in learning self-defense, Karate Combat has been handsomely recognized by investors having just raised an $18M round led by Bitkraft Ventures with participation from Delphi Digital, Hashkey, and Not Boring Capital.
Karate Combat Embraces Web3
In its short history, Karate Combat has demonstrated a clear interest in being at the cutting edge of technology. The league hosted a black tie fighting event on the 102nd floor of the World Trade Center in 2018 as an indicator of its willingness to experiment with new ideas.
Despite the event’s success, it was clear that finding locations as enthralling as the World Trade Center on a consistent basis would not be sustainable. The Karate Combat team hit the whiteboard and brainstormed by communicating directly with fans and hosting focus groups to uncover what meant the most to them. The conclusion was leveraging Epic Games Unreal Engine, a 3D computer graphics engine, that allows users to create incredibly lifelike visual environments that Karate Combat could use as the setting for streamed events.
This innovative idea immediately appealed to younger generations and we have seen other leagues attempt to recreate the excitement that visual effects can bring to live events (NFL uses Nickelodeon-themed effects). Already being at the cutting edge of technology and sports was not enough for Karate Combat as they decided to integrate Web3 technology and ethos into their league by announcing plans to become a DAO.
In January, Karate Combat made the jump to Web3 by announcing plans to become a DAO.
Karate Combat will be the first sports league structured to function as a DAO so we can put fans and athletes at the center of decision-making. “Products, orgs and sports leagues built by the community can really live forever. People can’t, companies can’t.”
The founders are putting the fans front and center while giving them a voice in the league’s direction, with the ability to vote on the most important strategic decisions including media rights, IP, and events.
$KARATE Token
The $KARATE token will act as the governance mechanism for fans to participate and vote in this decentralized organization. Since January, Karate Combat has been airdropping tokens to its most loyal fans who signed up for the airdrop on their website, sign up here if you are interested in joining the DAO, and have plans to airdrop half of all tokens to the community.
Under the DAO structure, $KARATE token holders will determine the league’s budget, resource allocation, supplier selection, marketing strategy, rule changes and – within boundaries set by the league’s fight operations group – fighter contracts and fight match-up selections.
Up Only Gaming App
The airdrop of the $KARATE tokens to the community will coincide with the launch of their mobile app which aims to give fans a seamless way of claiming their tokens and placing bets on the fighters they think will win.
The Future of Sports
As Karate Combat continues to airdrop $KARATE tokens to its members, further decentralizing its operations, it will be interesting to see how it works. This is an experiment playing out in real-time with two key areas to pay attention to:
How effective can decentralized operations be for making key strategic decisions over time?
How does giving fans a voice and financial stake in the organization increase their interest?
These are questions that will be interesting to monitor over time and if they are proven to enhance what is already a successful league that just raised $18M from top VCs, has over 10M viewers for events, and has major broadcast deals, then I expect this won’t be the last sports league to be run by a DAO…
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