Sporting Crypto - March 28th 2022: Liverpool FC Launch NFTs

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Intro Notes, Plugs & Amendments 🔌🔧

Thanks for returning to the newsletter, and I appreciate the people who are reaching out via email and Twitter off the back of this. If I haven’t gotten back to you, I definitely will soon!

More sports brands enter the metaverse! 

It’s becoming fascinating watching these chess pieces move.

Whether it be European Football clubs or the NFL - people are starting to move and put their chips on the table.

It is blatantly obvious though, as to who is doing this properly, and who isn’t. And there’s a huge lack of people doing the latter, both in the agency & sports brand world.

🔌I’m going to be speaking at the Ethereal Collective event on the 30th of March! If you’re there and we haven’t met, please say hi!

This Week’s Deep Dive: Liverpool FC Launch NFTs

On the 24th of March, Liverpool Football Club (LFC) launched their NFT offering - LFC Heroes Club

For those of you that aren’t European Football fans, Liverpool are one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Deloitte’s latest revenue report had Liverpool in at 7th this year, only €90m away from their domestic rivals in 1st; Manchester City.

To set some context, Liverpool are very much known as a working class club - as described by their fans, former and current players.

From the heritage, their tradition, their chant “You’ll never walk alone” to former legendary manager Bill Shankley being known for his socialist views - everything about the club aligns itself with the values of being ‘the people’s club’.

That’s why there’s a bit of controversy about Liverpool creating NFTs. 

Especially when we dive into what their offering is.

What is LFC Heroes Club?

LFC Heroes club is Liverpool FC’s first official NFT offering. They’ve partnered up with Sotheby’s Metaverse to auction off ‘legendary’ NFTs of the players and manager.

Liverpool then have ‘limited NFTs’. This is where you basically buy a pack of NFTs - like buying a pack of Panini stickers-just digital, and hope to get players you like or some rare NFTs.

According to the LFC Heroes site:

So as well as being digital collectables, there seem to be some added benefits to owning these NFTs.

Alongside partnering with Sotheby’s Metaverse, Liverpool decided to use Polygon as their blockchain of choice to create their NFTs. Polygon is a Layer 2 Solution, that is far more eco friendly than actually using Ethereum.

It’s also far cheaper, so there are a few reasons why Liverpool and many other big brands are choosing them.

Liverpool are likely to net about £8.5m from the endeavour, with 50% of the legendary auctioned pieces going to the Liverpool Foundation, and 10% of the limited ‘pack’ NFT proceeds also going to the foundation.

So to summarise 

• LFC are doing two different types of NFTs, Legendary & Limited

• They’re likely to make about £8.5m with 50% of Legendary auctions & 10% of limited sales going to the LFC Foundation

• Using Polygon

• Partnered with Sotheby’s Metaverse

Thoughts

I’ve already made my thoughts clear on this offering with the following tweet…

Maybe I was too harsh…

But brands need to do better.

And so do agencies. 

I genuinely don’t think you could have done this worse if you’d tried.

And I don’t say that because the agency at hand has done anything malicious. They need to get paid and they need to pay their employees.

But that doesn’t mean you do so by doing some below-par work.

What’s the issue with this?

The art is awful, to start. 

It just looks really bad.

I know there are many parameters from an IP perspective that football clubs need to stay within, but honestly, the artwork couldn’t have been worse.

They’ve clearly looked at NFT projects that have been successful previously and tried to take elements & inspirations from said designs.

There’s no connection between the traditions of Liverpool FC and the artwork. 

Their core values aren’t well represented.

And it’s a shame that Liverpool has signed off on such poor artwork. I know it’s difficult, but this doesn’t feel like it’s trying at all.

They also haven’t generated any new IP. 

What a great chance this was for Liverpool to create a brand new ‘thing’ as part of this collection. One that lives on beyond players and is more connected with the club. It’s crazy to me that they’ve just looked internally at their most valuable IP, and tried to milk it.

Partnering with Sotheby’s is questionable, to say the least

The average football fan does not frequent Sotheby’s. Many have likely not heard of it. We’re talking about one of the largest brokers of fine art, jewellery and collectibles…isn’t that quite tone deaf from a club heaped with ‘working class’ traditions and values? The club that had fans walk out due to season ticket price increases forcing their new American owners to reverse the decision…?

It’s as if the agency who did this, had little idea about Liverpool Football Club or European Football in general.

Football fans are hypersensitive to authenticity.

They’re very sensitive to anything ruining the beautiful game. 

Things like this, don’t help.

Do they need the money?

I understand as much as anyone that balancing the books is important for football clubs.

But Liverpool are the 7th richest club in terms of revenue, in the world.

Agencies need to encourage their clients as seeing NFTs as a marketing effort rather than a revenue generation model, at least in the short term before the industry matures.

Does the £8.5m really make it worth the hassle, distress and bad reaction you get from fans?

Why not give away a commemorative jersey or medal after winning the league cup this season? A rubbish idea - but you get where I’m coming from.

There are so many things Liverpool could have done, just off the top of my head without really thinking about it, which is why it makes it even more painful seeing it done like this in tandem with an agency.

If you’re an agency coming into football and looking at Web3, you need to understand football. It’s something you can’t learn on the job.

There are some good elements to this offering, don’t get me wrong.

The NFT explanation video is good.

The environmental concerns and answers to them - also good.

Discord set up for the community - good.

Supports a charitable foundation - good.

But this is all so generic.If I had a Web 3 agency, these are the minimum offerings. The modular things I can pitch to literally any client.

They’re not specific to Liverpool Football Club. They’ve not understood the club, its traditions or most importantly - their fans.

And now if Liverpool want to appease a global audience that really does want to spend lots of money on 1/1 Virgil Van Dijk auctions - fair enough. But is that really what they should be doing? Is it even what they want to do?

NFTs are a young industry with a lot of money flying around.

If you’re are a football club or sports brand, there’s no need to rush and follow that money.

Take your time and create something that really does add value to your fans and your local community.

You might only get one shot if the pushback is extreme, so do it right or don’t do it all.

More sports crypto stories & things to put on your radar

• Crypto.com continue their sports sponsorship spree, this time, the World Cup is in their sights!

• The NFL are slowly but surely lowering their guard on all things crypto. NFT ALL DAY, now crypto sponsorships - but no fan tokens or stadium signage allowed. Teams still can’t promote specific cryptocurrencies or accept payment in crypto. Weirdly, the NFL is doing all the right things here.

• Feels as though this is the calm before the storm for Nike x RTFKT. This didn’t happen, but whatever does in the near future I think is going to make people go nutty for their digital & physical products.

• Naomi Osaka is FTX’s latest ambassador

• WWE & Fanatics team up to to NFT trading cards

Great reads, great tweeting and more general ‘stuff’ that could impact you

• Unreal thread by the best NFT threader - Punk6529.

• Blockchains aren’t hard to track. People are getting caught scamming in the NFT space.

• Remember when it was just pictures of monkeys? The company behind them just raised $450m at a $4bn+ valuation…

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 :)This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not financial or business advice. These are my thoughts & opinions and do not represent the opinions of any other business or entity.