🏈 NFL Rivals is the *most successful* Web3 sports game ever.

Thanks to the 2,759 readers who are exploring where Sports meets Web3. If you're reading this and still haven't signed up, click the subscribe button!

Introduction 🔌🔧

Nike are using their resources in the bear market to steal a march on the competition, this time announcing that their Web3 platform .Swoosh has teamed up with Epic Games. It’s another huge bit of news from Nike but this isn’t a Nike newsletter. And actually, the more digging I did on NFL Rivals, the subject of today’s newsletter, the more impressed I was.

Outside of sports — it feels like Wallstreet is coming for crypto.

A plethora of announcements this week have come from the likes of Citadel, Blackrock, HSBC and more — with their intentions to have crypto asset propositions in the market soon.

🔌 Check out the Sporting Crypto Job Board via the button below! I’m hiring a growth intern to help grow Sporting Crypto for the rest of the year — and there are a bunch of other cool roles on the board.

🔌We’re hosting an event in NYC on the 25th of July 2023 and are looking for a sponsor. It’s a 25-person dinner + drinks, and we have RSVPs from leaders from AWS, Rockstar Games, Apple, Candy Digital, and Redbeard Ventures all confirmed as attendees! Reply to this email if you’re interested in partnering or attending, or go to our events website.

🔌This week I’m speaking at SEG3, on home turf at the Emirates Stadium in London. If you’re around and want to meet, email me back at this address and we can grab a coffee.

🏈 NFL Rivals is the *most successful* Web3 sports game ever.

The Sporting Crypto Newsletter is supported by The HBAR Foundation.

Gaming is the fastest-growing and biggest entertainment industry in the world. PwC forecasts the total gaming market in the US alone to grow from $54B to $72B from 2022 to 2027. 

It just so happens that many in the Web3 space think that blockchain-based tech will have a huge role to play in making gaming an even bigger market.

And, investors are backing up that thesis and putting their money where their mouth is, with $739m invested in Blockchain games in Q1 2023 alone which is staggering. Especially because most of these games have stayed relatively niche.

It does however, feel like we’re on the cusp of a few big activations, and games, having millions of users on a regular basis and having staying power, rather than just being the flavour of the month.

In today’s newsletter, I cover:🏈 NFL Rivals 🔢 The numbers⚖ Finding the Balance

🏈 What is NFL Rivals?

NFL Rivals is the *most successful* Web3 sports game ever. That’s some niche, but it’s impressive nonetheless.

What is it?

NFL Rivals is an NFT-based mobile game by Mythical Games that allows players the opportunity to collect and trade officially licensed NFL player NFTs.

The NFTs in the game are player cards used to build out teams and compete in the game. Each player card has different rarity levels from common to legendary. 

Players can play against each other in online games and also buy packs of players to improve and level up their squad.

Gems, Gold, and Coins are the only three resource items as far as purchasing in-game items goes. Gems are the major resource, which is used for purchasing rare items and packs. Rival Coins or Coins are used for purchasing items, packs, and upgrading players. Gold offers players to purchase exclusive offers in the Connect section.

🔢 The Stats

The numbers NFL Rivals have generated are pretty remarkable.

• 1 million downloads since its debut in April 2023

• 15 million matches played to date

•  4.8/5 rating based on over 22k reviews

• 10% of users have so far interacted with the NFT marketplace

• Average of two hours of gameplay per player per day

• NFL Rivals has seen nearly 15 million matches played

• There has been ~$187,760 of volume in the past 30 days, from almost 10,000 transactions 

Considering this has all been done in the space of 2 months, I’m impressed by the level of reach, and retention so far.

In isolation, some of these numbers could be looked at as vanity metrics but when taking all of this into account, NFL Rivals has done seriously well from the outset.

⚖ Finding the Balance

NFL Rivals have found the perfect balance between scale, stickiness and speculation.

1 million downloads show this has gone beyond just being a game that is played by crypto speculators, and that’s backed up by only 10% of their audience so far interacting with their marketplace.

The stickiness, in 22k reviews and the average game sessions shows that this game is actually *fun* and people want to play it.

And there is still room to speculate. 

In my opinion, the best NFT propositions, games or not, will have an audience that is split 90/10 between a) people that just love this digital thing and b) people that love speculating, trading and building a collection of online assets.

There is this weird push and pull from crypto sceptics and enthusiasts that goes a bit like this:

There is no right or wrong way of using this technology, of course. I do find it strange that people are so incensed by anything that doesn’t fit into either end of that spectrum. Of course, brands are going to be more conservative — there’s a plethora of reasons for this — but it’s mainly legal.

The reality is, the projects that have done well in the sports market are the ones that aren’t ‘pure Web3’ — whatever that means, anyway. They are propositions like Top Shot, Sorare, NFL Rivals, .Swoosh — that doesn’t feel too alien to the end-user on the front end. They’re not getting people to create self-sovereign digital wallets and making them store their private keys under their pillows. They’re simply letting them sign up with an account, and play the game or collect the digital assets. The more ‘crypto’ stuff is still available, and most of these propositions allow the exporting of assets, and doing what they want with them — which is where they find the balance.

One of the criticisms people had of the NFL when it comes to this space is that they didn’t move fast enough. But being a fast follower to the likes of the NBA and MLB, with NFL All DAY and NFL Rivals has been successful in a very difficult market. It just shows that you have to don't have to be first when it comes to leveraging anything nascent, especially when we’re this early technology-wise.

NFL Rivals has also shown that the tech you use in the back end doesn’t really matter in the short term. Mythical Games, the producers, have actually used (almost) their own blockchain, called the Mythical Superchain, which is a parachain of the Polkadot blockchain. That might sound like gibberish to you but stay with me, it's important.

We're going to live in a multichain future and in the short term, and all that matters right now is the user experience on the front end. Nobody is questioning Mythical's back-end tech choices because the app has been a resounding success with 10s of thousands of active users that play the game with seamless ease.

In the future, if there’s more activity and ability to interoperate on another chain — Mythical may regret their choice but I don’t see that being the case in the short term.

🧠 Thoughts and why this is important:

NFL Rivals is the most successful Web3 sports game to date.

It remains to be seen whether it has staying power, but many regular NFT-game players have already said this is the first game that has kept them coming back for more.

Mythical have done a great job of creating something that people actually want to play in the first instance, with a subset of their audience revelling in the ability to collect and own in-game assets.

The balance they've struck is perfect and is the blueprint most NFT games, and NFT projects should be looking at.

I think there’s a pattern emerging when it comes to consumer-facing crypto propositions that scale.

“What is beyond actually just buying crypto?”

• Owning stuff online

• Gaming

• Digital identity

And a number of other routes that brands are taking on the consumer side.

But to make this scale, engaging, and profitable — propositions need to really follow the three S’s hard:

• Scale

• Stickiness

• Speculation

But with the right balance. If you’ve scaled to a user base of purely speculators, you will end up in the constant cycle of trying to get them to speculate on the next thing and end of spiralling to the point of not having a business.

I mentioned a 90/10 split earlier between scale and speculation but there’s no set formula. But by looking at what we’ve seen with the successes shown by the likes of Reddit, for example, and NFL Rivals, it’s clear this is one of the key ways of answering what actually makes a successful consumer-facing crypto proposition.

Mythical and the NFL have done a great job here and I’m looking forward to seeing how they iterate NFL Rivals.

💡 Sporting Crypto Spotlight - Job of the Week

I’m hiring a growth intern!

I’m looking for someone to help grow the newsletter and manage our social presence across LinkedIn and Twitter.If you’re looking for a paid placement where you can gain some awesome experience building something cool — apply below!

More Sports & Web3 Stories

• .Swoosh, Nike’s Web3 platform have partnered with Fortnite in a groundbreaking move (Read more here)

• Ian Poulter's LIV Golf Team Secures Sponsorship With Crypto Exchange OKX (Read more here)

• Binance and Ronaldo Return for ‘Forever CR7: The GOAT’ NFT Collection (Read more here)

• Spain welcomes Crypto.com as a registered service provider (Read more here)

• Johor FC will be the first Malaysian club to launch their Fan Token (Read more here)

• Oval3 Fantasy NFT Rugby Collection launches on Binance NFT Marketplace (Read more here)

• FIFA Dives Deeper Into Crypto – Files Nine New Metaverse Trademark Applications (Read more here) 

• Real Bedford Ladies have partnered with Galaxy Digital (Read more here)

• One Future Football’s virtual worldwide soccer league launches with backing from Blackbird (Read more here)

• FC Barcelona, World of Women Reveal 'Empowerment' Soccer NFT Auction (Read more here)

General ‘Stuff’ that Could Impact You

• One of the biggest Warzone streamers globally was annoyed that game items wouldn't carry through from Warzone 1 to future games (Read more here) 

• Nouns DAO and Atrium Launch First Animated Movie Funded by a DAO (Read more here)

• Lego and Epic Games want to prove the metaverse is alive and well (Read more here)

• 52% of Fortune 100 companies have pursued crypto and blockchain since 2020 (Read more here)

• LaLiga Launches its First Official Online Shop in Partnership with Fanatics (Read more here)

• Whilst your dad is telling you crypto is a scam, Wallstreet have quietly made their move during all the noise. 

Thanks for reading the latest edition of the Sporting Crypto newsletter. I’m happy to see so many people enjoying and sharing it with their networks.

If you enjoyed this, please tell your friends who might be interested - and share it on social!

Disclaimers

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not financial, business or legal advice.These are the author’s thoughts & opinions and do not represent the opinions of any other person, business, entity or sponsor. Any companies or projects mentioned are for illustrative purposes unless specified.

The contents of this newsletter should not be used in any public or private domain without the express permission of the author.

The contents of this newsletter should not be used for any commercial activity, for example - research report, consultancy activity, or paywalled article without the express permission of the author.

Please note, the services and products advertised by our sponsors (by use of terminology such as but not limited to; supported by, sponsored by or brought to you by) in this newsletter carry inherent risks and should not be regarded as completely safe or risk-free. These services and products are provided by third-party entities, and we do not control, endorse, or guarantee the accuracy, efficacy, or safety of their offerings.

It's crucial to provide our readers with clear information regarding the inherent nature of services and products that might be covered in this newsletter, including those advertised by our sponsors from time to time. When you buy cryptoassets (including NFTs) your capital is at risk. Risks associated with cryptoassets include price volatility, loss of capital (the value of your cryptoassets could drop to zero), complexity, lack of regulation and lack of protection. Most service providers operating in the cryptoasset-industry do not currently operate in a regulated industry. Therefore, please be aware that when you buy cryptoassets, you are not protected under financial compensation schemes and protections typically afforded to investors when dealing with entities that are regulated and authorised to operate as financial services firms.