Andy Murray drops Wimbledon Art NFT

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Introduction 🔌🔧

Amongst the chaos, there are some really big and exciting conversations brewing globally when it comes to Web3.

Sport, as usual, is slightly behind these conversations, but the industry will get there.

A few things I’ve noticed over the past few months:

1. I’m often torn as I have so much I could write about as a deep dive, which is an amazing problem to have in a very deep bear market

2. Brands are here to stay, but retail interest has dried up. Whether brands persist or follow retail is to be determined.

3. I’m stunned by how often the value add of Web3 is over-complicated by brands internally. The bottom line is owning things online is the biggest consumer-facing web-based unlock we’ve seen since social media.

4. Regulatory and institutional tailwinds are the strongest they’ve ever been. Whether it’s the UK government, HK, Singapore or Japan — Blackrock, HSBC or Fidelity — the regulators and institutions have stopped taking baby steps. This is big for brands, for a plethora of reasons. Sports brands are included in this.

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🎾Andy Murray drops Wimbledon Art NFT

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Two years ago, almost to the day, an NFT representing the moment Andy Murray won Wimbledon in 2013 sold for $177,777 at auction on a marketplace called WENEW, set up by the famous digital artist Beeple.

Two years on, he and his team collaborated with Wimbledon and Refik Anadol studios to launch a new digital art proposition called The Exposition.

In this newsletter, I discuss:

🎾 What is 'The Exposition'?🎨 Is Art still the best NFT use case?💰 Price point and comms barrier…

🎾 What is 'The Exposition'?

Andy Murray has dropped an NFT art collection called The Exposition. In collaboration with Wimbledon and Refik Anadol Studios, they have created digital artwork fuelled by sports data.

Here’s a breakdown for the uninitiated:

• Refik Anadol is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence.

• The artwork is a visual representation of stroke choice, body movement and points played over the course of Andy Murray's 20-year career

• It celebrates 10 years since Andy won the Men's Singles Championship at Wimbledon, becoming the first Brit to do so in 77 years.

• Scientists and developers have created a unique algorithm to create this fine art digital sculpture, using millions of inputs from statistics, motion, audio and visual data.

• The artwork is going to be an open edition, priced at $147.

• The artwork can be purchased from today until the end of Wimbledon on the 16th of July.

• Owners will have the exclusive right to buy a physical print edition of the artwork.

🎨 Is Art still the best NFT use case?

The pieces of art aren’t the first digital art x sports crossover we’ve seen, and it won’t be the last.

Right now, the most natural and obvious unlock when it comes to NFTs is art. It's the easiest-to-understand concept; it's art, just digital and you own it.

The simplicity has made it to date the most scalable and sustainable use case for NFTs. This will definitely change, but for now, this is where we are.

It’s something that humans are used to paying money for too. This is crucial for the sports industry — because commercials are drivers for 80% of the activations in Web3.

I’ve always been a fan of commemorating or celebrating specific events or achievements. Because celebrating with your fans makes sense, and doing so digitally in the world we currently live in is smart. Whether it's free to claim or paid memorabilia, sports teams and athletes with high profiles will look to celebrate with their fans digitally, globally and in a frictionless manner.

We've seen this before with the likes of 100Thieves dropping a free-to-claim digital version of the championship chain their team won in 2022.

I’m actually surprised more sports brands or athletes haven’t turned to this model, at least from an engagement perspective.

💰 Price point and comms barrier…

At $147 I don't think the price point is crazy - but it may stop this from reaching a mass audience, but I don’t actually think the price point is the biggest issue here.

It’s the communication and explanation surrounding the physical piece. 

The artwork itself is a digital piece and it’s animated. The ‘box’ the art is encased in spins on its y-axis clockwise.

So then, the question becomes — what does your physical piece look like here? What angle is the art physically imprinted in?

And actually — the NFT piece only gives you the *right* to buy the physical piece. This information wasn’t clear in press releases originally, and on the manifold landing page — prospective buyers have to click ‘show more’ on the information and the information about the physical piece was one of the last lines of communication.

If this was a project I was consulting on — I would have definitely pushed for this to be a bigger piece of the story.

Owning art that commemorates Andy’s 20-year career and 10 years since winning Wimbledon, and getting a print of it and hanging it on your own wall — all within one price package — is a much more appealing proposition. It also reduces the friction of having to pay twice which I’m sure will turn a few buyers off.

If I compare this to how simple and easy to digest 100T made it for their audience to understand their 2022 World Championship Ring digital collectable, it’s a far cry from that.

The same goes for the successful McLaren digital collectables that are being given away at every Grand Prix this year — where they’re seeing 100s of thousands of claims per track.

We’re comparing apples and oranges here as one project is a paid artwork, and the two examples are free collectables— but the level of execution from a communications perspective can be compared to this Andy Murray drop. This is where I’m trying to emphasise how subtle differences in communication and positioning can lead to a much smoother process, and a more successful project overall.

To summarise:

• They should have wrapped the physical print into one transaction with the digital collectable.

• There should have been more emphasis on the physical print.

• The explanation on the landing page had to be clearer, more concise and to the point.

🧠 Concluding Thoughts

Overall, this feels like a well-thought-out project that has been considered in their strategy. So far, it’s only seen 174 buys which isn’t setting the world alight.

The ability to transact with your credit card rather than a wallet is a good move, but the communication around the physical print and complexity around the explanation of the project overall has no doubt weighed the project down.

It’s been confirmed that further collaborations between Murray, Wimbledon, and Anadol are due for release in the coming months. The creators captured Murray’s data from his latest Wimbledon run with aim of using it for future work. So this open edition artwork isn’t the end of the road.

I’ve talked about athlete direct-to-consumer digital assets for a while and I’m still where I was a year ago — there’s no market for it unless you’re a top-tier athlete with a big brand.

But Andy Murray is one of those. 

And therefore when you get the green light to create NFTs around the story of an athlete, you have to get it right. This project is almost there, but I wish they would have simplified the communication and explanation a little bit to take it up a level.

The thing about on-chain activations is there’s no going back and there’s no starting over. It’s difficult for the team to do this again and make tweaks. They have to go forward from here and hope their next activations land harder.

The decision to take your brand on chain should not be taken lightly and needs top-tier execution.

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More Sports & Web3 Stories

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• Staying with MLB - they launched a virtual ballpark with Improbable. Is the MLB Metaverse alive? (Read more here)

• Interactive ArtBall NFTs for the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open have been unveiled (Read more here)

• SorareNBA launch NBA Draft special editions (Read more here)

• All in For Sport, in collaboration with Krause House raise money for youth players to attend the Alaska 5-star basketball hoop camp (Read more here)

• Tom Brady Lost $30 Million in FTX Stock After Exchange’s Collapse (Read more here).

• There are also reports that Tom Brady’s Autograph venture is struggling (Read more here)

• Puma and Rocnation have teamed up to celebrate 50 years of hip hop with a phygital drop (Read more here)

• Credit Suisse and Swiss Football Association Collaborate to Release Women's Football NFT Collection (Read more here)

• SailGP have launched a Fan-Owned team (Read more here)

• GOALS have announced two new board members; Ebba Ljungerud and Oskar Gabrielsson (Read more here)

• The Sandbox Partners with MetaFight for a Unique MMA-Themed Virtual Experience (Readmore here)

General ‘Stuff’ that Could Impact You

• Gaming Studio Sega Pulls Back From Blockchain Gaming (Read more here)

• Seed Club have announced their latest crypto consumer cohort (Read more here)

• Dior put sneakers on Ethereum (Read more here)

• Premier League throws in AR trophy hunt for US soccer tournament (Read more here)

• Account Abstraction Could Be The Next Big Thing in Web3 (Read more here)

• London is looking to scoop up Crypto talent fleeing the US by creating ‘goldilocks zone’ regulation (Read more here)

• Hong Kong speeds up blockchain adoption under new Web3 task force (Read more here)

• How Companies Like Starbucks and Nike are Innovating with Web3 Customer Loyalty Programs (Read more here)

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