Sports at the edge

Earlier in the year Grant McCraken posited a stock market for music. Because the market for music is (disastrously) broken; because no new band in their right minds would sign with a label (YouTube); because the smartest bands are already remaking the relationship between their IP and their fans; but most of all because the fans, not the A&R guys, are best placed to judge the value of music creators, we can't be far away from a music stock-exchange.

Now comes news (from the new Portfolio magazine - that thing is already everywhere) of a possible stock exchange for athletes. The concept seems much the same - there is so much data already known about spots professionals (much more than about business leaders) that fans are ideally placed to invest in athletes. Much as the availability of public data makes it possible to move music ownership to the edge, the web makes possible a sporting stock exchange.

This edge-investment model is already being tried out in gaming at Manifesto games, and in film-making with Matt Hansen's Swarm of Angels. The celebrity/film/sports exchange is already tested with the various fantasy leagues for sports or with Cantor Fitzgerald's Hollywood Stock Exchange and the BBC's Celebdaq. All the pieces are, in fact, already in place.