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Intro Notes, Plugs & Amendments 🔌🔧

Happy new year everyone! I hope everyone reading had a happy holiday wherever you are in the world. 2021 was an amazing year, one which I started this newsletter! I hope this year is half as great as the last, and I’m wishing success and good health to all of you. Sports & Crypto converged in a way I don’t think many expected in 2021. In 2022, I see more partnerships - but I also see a year of maturation for this intersection. There are far too many bad actors, far too many scams and far too many people putting money before sports fans, which is something I don’t agree with.

With that in mind, I truly do think this thing, this space, is a new paradigm for the way sports are interacted with, and how fans are engaged by sports brands.

🔌 New year, new podcast. I’ve started something called Floorcast - The NFT Podcast, with the Floor NFT app community, and I’m really excited about it!

🔌 Early days, but if you're interested in getting ahead of the curve and sponsoring the newsletter - feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn. I've had some people reach out already, but I'll only accept those who I think will be genuinely engaging and benefit readers :)

Story of the week

Metakey Aces at the Australian Open Metaverse

Another big time sporting partnership or NFT initiative, and this one - is actually pretty great. This isn’t Sacramento Kings (the NBA franchise) trying their hand at a profile picture project, attempting to sell poorly drawn pictures of lions. This is really well thought out. From their press release:

A lot to unpack, but by reading the above, you have probably got the idea…this is not your run-of-the-mill NFT project by the Australian Open.

Let’s summarise how this works:

1. The Mint: You mint a 1/6776 NFT, that actually looks pretty cool.

2. Utility: The NFT tennis balls have real match data integration and trait updates dependent on real life, on-court, action

3. Court inspired NFTs: Every match point of every game at the Australian Open, is linked to your AO Art Ball NFT. Every ball is assigned a section of the court. 6776 NFTs = 6776 court sessions.

4. Own the Moment: Wherever the match-winning shot lands on the court, the corresponding Art Ball NFT has its data updated.

5. Enter the Metaverse: The AO has partnered with Decentraland to build Melbourne Park! Presumably, there’ll be some sort of permissioned access for AO Art Ball NFT holders

6. Community involvement: Until the 10th of January (today) artists can submit art that can be put on a ball - which may be selected to feature on one of the NFTs!

7. Carbon offsetting: The AO are offsetting the NFT carbon emissions in collab with Carbon Neutral AU

This is really smart.

Owners of the NFT balls are also given additional utility such as limited edition wearables, AO merch and more in the future. At the top of this newsletter, I wrote that 2022 was the year where Sports x Crypto partnerships mature. This is beginning to look a lot like what I’d envisioned truly immersive and engaging campaigns to look like.

Here, the AO and Metakey have combined:

1. A novel idea that isn’t *just* a static NFT

2. Physical world links that alter the state of said NFTs

3. A community element to the campaign, asking for artists to submit ball designs

We’re peering into what the next generation of NFTs by brands might look like. At first, it was about creating art, or a token that grants you access to specific things.

Now, it’s time for brands to really integrate NFTs fully into their marketing and engagement campaigns - and combine them with real world experiences in an immersive way, that makes their audience feel more comfortable with NFTs and this space.

There’s a lot of obsession about utility. All NFTs, to some extent, have utility. Some, have more than others. Utility alone does not mean your NFT collection will be successful or valuable. But for brands, it’s important to add a lot of utility to their NFTs so that they are to some extent, agnostic to the market. If the NFT or Crypto markets become depressed, brands can still fall back on real world experiences. Match tickets, physical merchandise, money can’t buy experiences etc. They feel safer knowing there’s utility behind the token they’re selling. I guess consumers, who aren’t crypto or NFT native, also feel safer with that fact. So if the shoe fits, wear it. I cringe sometimes when I’m pitched a project, or a brand tells me an idea that involves about ten different layers of utility. Not because they’re bad, but because they’re confusing and complicated. But with brands, those that find the sweet spot of creating utility that makes their buyers & audience feel more comfortable, but also don’t overcomplicate things - will be winners.

There’s been a fear from brands to push the boundaries. And maybe those boundaries are only pushed in the next bear market, by communities and crypto veterans alike. But it’s important that when creative agencies and marketing teams look at NFTs - they think of the unthinkable, and are as creative as possible. We’re in an era of experimentation, where each experiment (even then truly awful ones) leads us to innovate in a better way.

Start small, but be as creative as you can. And try t make it simple to understand.NFTs are and can be anything. What the AO has done here is novel, and amazing. But we’ll look back on it like we looked back on fruit ninja on the iPhone in 2008.

More big stories & things to put on your radar

• NFTs are about fashion and status 

• Sony launched a VR headset…interesting to see what they do in tandem with Manchester City in the future!

• LinksDAO raised over 83 ETH in secondary sales…probably a fair bit more now! 

• Metaverse football teams are creating kits and brands, with sponsors

• Publicity stunt or not - lots of sportspeople are being paid and investing in crypto

• I wonder how much praise Peter would be getting from his transparency on the football club he’s bought, Bedford FC, if he wasn’t associated with Bitcoin. Crypto has a branding problem, more broadly, but this is clearly someone who cares about this club.

Great reads, great tweeting and more general ‘stuff’

• What actually is Web3? The truth is nobody knows - and anybody telling you they know do - is lying to you.

• This is probably something - PayPal explore launching its own stablecoin

• There are very few ‘experts’ in this space. 

• Opensea raise - just look at those volumes…

• This is so well put 

• The award for the funniest NFT launch video goes to….Ozzy Osbourne?!

• This is amazing by Packy McCormick…we’re in the experimental phase of Web3 (whatever it is!)

Thanks!

Thanks for reading the latest edition of the Sporting Crypto newsletter. I’m really happy to see so many people enjoying it and sharing it with their networks. If you enjoyed this, please tell your friends who might be interested - and share it on social :)