Clive Mayhew

Mar 13, 2023

Share Aussie golf technology start-up Play Today will unveil its new metaverse golf club this week in time for the NSW Open Championship, for which it has acquired exclusive broadcast rights for fans to watch inside the virtual world. The company is funded by veteran technology entrepreneur, investor and golf enthusiast Clive Mayhew , who also recently became its chief executive. Mr Mayhew previously announced plans to introduce golfers to the web3 world of non-fungible tokens and blockchain-based scorecards. Play Today’s metaverse will let golf fans mingle, watch the NSW Open inside its virtual world. The early stage start-up has built its metaverse using the skills brought to the company by its co-founders Mark and Michael Dries, who previously ran a software and application design agency that made augmented and virtual reality projects for clients. Play Today has signed a commercial partnership with Drummond Golf to launch an innovation centre inside the metaverse, so customers can virtually view physical products before buying them. It has also signed on as naming sponsor for the NSW Open Championship, which begins on Thursday. Mr Mayhew told The Australian Financial Review the company was acting as an early pioneer for a new era of sports broadcasting rights, by negotiating a deal to broadcast the tournament live within a metaverse. Advertisement The company paid $120,000 to be the naming rights sponsor and negotiated to include the metaverse digital rights. Mr Mayhew said this was something that had not been part of broadcast deals in the past. Clive Mayhew says the NSW Open will represent a chance for sports rights holders to see new potential for carving out metaverse rights for other tournaments and sports. The tournament will be streamed live and exclusive in Play Today’s metaverse for the first two days of the tournament on Thursday and Friday, before sharing coverage with Kayo and Fox Sports on Saturday and Sunday. “What this shows is that there is more value on offer to rights holders if they unbundle their packages because in the past, TV rights covered everything,” Mr Mayhew said. “Technology changes that, as you can have cable, free-to-air, streaming services, mobile apps and metaverse rights, then soon it will be virtual reality rights. All will have different audiences and value propositions for the owners of these rights.” The company estimates that it will attract more than 20,000 viewers a day, and is hoping the unique virtual delivery will result in an audience that is younger and has a greater international presence. Advertisement Mr Mayhew said it was still early days for the current iteration of its metaverse, but it gave early adopters an idea of what would be possible in the future, when larger groups could watch events together, or catch up in the virtual clubhouse to discuss their real-world golf rounds. The metaverse has the ability to recreate previous rounds of golf virtually, based on scorecards minted on the blockchain. An aerial view of the Drummond Golf innovation centre inside Play Today’s metaverse. The Drummond Innovation Centre is an example of one facet of Play Today’s business model. Mr Mayhew said the golf clothing and equipment retailer paid Play Today a “considerable sum” to build its virtual presence and other brands, such as Callaway, paid to have their latest clubs rendered for virtual inspection. “As a start-up, that’s really exciting as an initial revenue stream, and going forward, once we get the audience in, that will sit alongside revenue from the digital wallets,” Mr Mayhew said. “When people log in, they are logging in with their digital wallets, and will have a capability to bring their NFT’s across into the space as well. Advertisement “So the business model going forward is a combination of companies paying for brand activations, combined with digital transactions for virtual goods.” After the NSW Open, Mr Mayhew said Play Today was keen to tap into golf’s huge global audience, with the possibility of becoming a central destination for fans to get together to watch and talk about the sport. “We are in discussions with all of the tours. This is a world first, and we really see the NSW Open as the first one to get in to everybody else,” he said. “The problem you have with live broadcast content is the metaverse rights are very complicated to carve out from traditional rights packages because, to be honest, none of the people who own the content have actually started to think about that yet.” Paul Smith edits the technology coverage and has been a leading writer on the sector for 20 years. He covers big tech, business use of tech, the fast-growing Australian tech industry and start-ups, telecommunications and national innovation policy. Connect with Paul on Twitter . Email Paul at psmith@afr.com Save