Yeehaw and happy Wednesday,
In case you’re curious about what I’ll be doing now that I’ve left the agency I worked at for 12 years, then I’ve got something for you!
The intersection of sports and web3 will be a big focus of mine. I can’t publicly say what I’ll be doing, or who I’ll be working with just yet, but it will no doubt be a lot of fun.
I believe that leagues, teams, and players are going to be the most important X-factor in bringing the masses to web3.
Why?
It comes down to attention. And there’s no better attention grabber than the NFL. This is not a debate—it is fact. The NFL has eight of the top ten highest rated moments in television history, and continues to dominate every year. Yes, people are cutting the cord but they’re still watching the big screen in their living room and sports is an American religion. The stadiums are our temples, and the athletes are the gods and goddesses that the masses worship.
Combine the dominance of the NFL with the incredible growth of the NBA, NHL, and MLS, along with the ever steady MLB, and we’re talking about massive attention.
We’re talking every household in America being tied to sports in some way. Each league, team, and player are like their own social network and economy. And when we’re talking web3, the economy part is huge.
Today, I want to touch on a few key highlights where pro sports and web3 have crossed paths so we can get a feel for where the world is headed.
THE MLB
Let’s start with the MLB. In August 2018, the MLB licensed IP to Lucid Sight to create MLB Champions. The project seems to be dead, but the basis of collectibles and gamification is something to remember.
Teijuan Walker, pitcher for the Florida Marlines, is the first major league baseball player to create and sell an NFT. It sold for $4,275 on Opensea.
THE NFL
The NFL has largely been absent from the conversation, however two players have jumped to the front of the NFT race. Both Patrick Mahomes and Mark Gronkowski have sold a bundle of NFTs, generating around $3.5 and $1.5 million USD respectively.
You can expect the NFL to be outlining guidelines very soon given what we’re seeing with the NBA.
THE NBA
There’s no doubt it feels like the NBA is front running every league right now. Their licensing deal with Dapper Labs, creator of the Flow blockchain and NBA Top Shot, has be a slam dunk :)
Dapper recently raised $305 million from Michael Jordan, Will Smith, and 30 other pro athletes, bringing its valuation to $2.6 billion.
A lesser known project, and potentially even more fascinating, is Calaxy. It is being led by NBA forward Spencer Dinwiddie. Calaxy is aiming to allow influencers, athletes and celebrities to issue “creator tokens.” Token holders will have special privileges as well as be able to capture upside if the athlete becomes more popular. This is the ownership economy coming to life.
Then there’s Mark Cuban. He’s been making a lot of noise in the NFT space. Here’s a rundown:
Cuban will be one of the judges on, “NFTs The Pitch”, a Shark Tank style show that plans to invest $1,000,000 on NFT ideas.
Investor in Nifty’s, the Instagram of NFTs.
Investor in Mintable, a portal to mint NFTs.
Investor in Lazy, the lazy way to show off your NFTs. This feels similar to Nifty, so we’ll see where both projects lead.
Cuban appeared on both the Defiant and Bankless podcasts to discuss NFTs and I highly recommend listening to both.
He’s also been talking about “trying to find a good option for turning our tickets into NFTs.”
There’s no doubt that Mark Cuban is going to capture a big piece of this market.
SOCCER
There’s a lot more experimentation happening outside of the U.S. due to lighter regulations. Keep an eye on the global soccer scene and you’ll get a glimpse into the future of what’s to come in the U.S.
Sorare is a portal to collect and trade NFT player cards. Unlike Dapper Labs, creator of Top Shot, Sorare hasn’t built their own blockchain and instead have decided to build on top of Ethereum. To-date they’ve raised $60 million.
The bigger project to watch is the Chiliz blockchain, which is powering Socios. Chiliz claims to be the world leading blockchain provider for sports and entertainment. This set up is more in-line with how Dapper Labs created the Flow blockchain, which powers Top Shot.
Socios allows teams to created branded fan tokens. This video will explain it all. Fans can buy tokens, but the more interesting way to acquire tokens is via an AR experience where you hunt them down.
The intersection of fan tokens, NFTs, Sports, and the world of AR/VR is going to be absolutely astonishing in the coming years.
CONCLUSION
So where does all this head? One thing is for certain, throughout 2021 and 2022, we’re going to see 10’s of millions of sports fans adopt new technology so they can better connect with their teams, the athletes they love, and other passionate fans.
The big question is what will happen after the majority of fans have downloaded a new breed of tools, such as crypto wallets? The Internet is about to get really weird and I’m excited to see it come to life.
Talk to you again soon and let me know if I missed anything important in the world of web3 and pro sports.
Jeff
@jeffkauffmanjr