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Intro Notes, Plugs & Amendments 🔌🔧

It’s crazy to think that it’s already the 17th of January. It feels very much like 2021 took a very brief hiatus, and that energy, exuberance and ambition that came with working in crypto just kept trucking into 2022. This is a bubble - but do not underestimate just how much legitimate attention, and legitimate capital is being pointed toward this crazy new thing. There could be a 70% , wash out correction at any point - but as I keep saying, the genie is out of the bottle. And it’s very hard to put it back in.

🔌 New podcast alert! I’ve started a podcast about NFTs with the Floor NFT community:

🔌 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 :)

Stories of the week

Amazon’s first investment in NFT — sports platform, Dibbs

You would be forgiven for thinking this is just a clickbaity headline. Amazon makes investments all the time, right?

So what is Dibbs?

Dibbs have created a marketplace that allows people to sell fractions of a physical trading card, in the form of an NFT. They’ve previously raised $16m - and have a group of athlete investors including NBA stars Chris Paul and Kevin Love. One of their services, sell with Dibbs, allows you to send your cards to the company - for verification and insurance - and wait for your card to be vaulted. You are then able to sell that card on the marketplace, and also fractionalize it so multiple people can own a % of that card - where the NFT is the token that proves ownership of your stake. Fractionalisation is nothing new in crypto, but from a sports perspective, it’s something we will see more and more of.

Whether it’s buying a sports team or a sports card, fan owned and fan run things deserve a home in sports. This is a world that has become commoditized and commercialised far too much.

If we take a step back, NFTs have come to the fore primarily in arts and collectables. During the start of the Covid-19 pandemic especially, we saw physical collectables, trading cards, digital art and NFT collectables all gain traction from a volume perspective almost in unison.

For NFTs in a Sporting sense, 2019-2021 was the year of the digital collectable. Whether you look at NBA TopShots or Sorare, it’s clear that’s where the market welled.

Digital first collectables are where it started.

Digital first collectables are where it’s going, the more digitally native we become. But that bit in the middle, that bit that connects real world fans who don’t really care about NFTs, with a more digitally native world, is very important.

From 2022 - 2024, I see a few trends from an NFT perspective:

• More physically-backed, digital collectables

• Physical sports memorabilia & collectables utilising NFTs to authenticate ownership

• NFTs being created, curated and traded during games

• NFTs that link to physical events in a more immersive way than just ticketing, or as an add-on to tickets

• NFTs that are contingent on real life sporting moments happening (Australian Open NFTs as an example)

The next generation won’t need to have something physical to have a sense of attachment or value.

They won’t need to go to games to feel as immersed as the real life crowd.

But the meat in the middle, that bridge between physical and digital, has to come from somewhere.

• 2019-2021: An era of digital collectables that are still relatively niche in real world terms

• 2022-2024: The bridge between physical and digital, where products and services are built to create NFTs that connect the two

• 2025: Where things get freaky - exit physical, enter the metaverse. 

And now, these timelines may be massively off. That middle part might take 2 years, it could take 8 or 15. Nevertheless, you can’t just flick a switch.

Dibbs feels like one of the many products or services that are going to help within that middle layer, helping transition people from a purely physical world - to a hybrid digital-physical one.

This is a generational shift just like the internet was.

A lot of people I know in their mid 30s and over either:

1. Think that Web3 and digital collectables are dumb

2. Think it’s all a scam

3. Think it’s a huge bubble that will crumble but the underlying tech has merit

4. Do not want to entertain the notion of NFTs until it impacts their daily lives

Dibbs won’t be the answer but will help on point number 4 on that list. Sports collectables are still, in real world numbers a niche, but leveraging NFTs to create collective ownership of physical assets is not something to be sniffed at.The sports trading card market is really big. In 2019, the market was valued at almost $14 billion.

NFTs, were a $40 billion market in 2021. But that’s including all types of NFTs. If Sports, or sports linked NFTs are to leverage plenty of multi-billion dollar markets in this way - we’re likely to see a slow, but sure move in this direction.

We’re at a point where sports NFTs need some grounding, substance and maturation. 

Investments like this show that this is coming over the next few years.

More big stories & things to put on your radar

• LinksDAO fly after Steph Curry buys a membership

• Futera, the trading card company, are trying to build a football club from the ground up - using their NFT community.

• Man City have announced their latest digital art drop

• Norwich have partnered up with Scallop, who allow digital asset trading 

• Club Necaxa have bought a Bored Ape…weird, but also cool…I think?

• The AO has done NFTs right. If you’re working in Sports and want a template of what *to* do, rather than what not to do - this is up there.

• A tribute to Dirk - in NFT form

Great reads, great tweeting and more general ‘stuff’

• This is a must read by Dror Poleg

• Always the case

• Ryan Watkins is a must follow - posts some awesome things

• I mean, I don’t know where to start with this headline

• The interest is in every single industry

• Big lols

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 :)