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Intro Notes, Plugs & Amendments 🔌🔧

After a big push, I managed to launch an audio documentary I’ve been working on all about media in crypto. It’s something I’ve been producing for the past 9 months and I’m very happy to have finally launched it!On the Sporting Crypto front, we’re fast approaching 2000 subscribers - which is pretty awesome. Thanks to all of you who have been on this journey with me. It’s also brought with it numerous consultancy and advisory opportunities which I’m extremely grateful for.

On the broader Sports Crypto front, it’s been a super busy week in terms of sports crypto news but the thing that has caught my eye is FIFA + — FIFA’s NFT play that I wrote about a few weeks back, which has had some reasonably strong metrics.

🔌 After 9 months of production - I launched my latest audio documentary all about crypto media! You can listen to it here! 

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This Week’s Deep Dive: FIFA Make Their Mark on Sports NFTs

Being an incumbent and moving in any direction when it comes to Web3 is exceptionally difficult.

That’s why I always use, to this day, the NBA and Top Shot as a great example of how a simple concept, that requires a blockchain, can succeed in attracting a large scale audience beyond Web3.

FIFA + Collect is FIFA’s attempt at digital assets in the same format.

I wrote about it in a previous newsletter when FIFA’s Plus Collect website went live.

Before I get into my thoughts on the platform, setting some context is important.

When you’re a brand or big incumbent - it’s incredibly important to level set internally and figure out *who* you’re creating for.

I’m unsure of how accurate these numbers are, but Ian in this tweet talks about creating value in Web3 in three different ways.1) Onboarding millions of news users by creating a product that requires the use of blockchains (TopShot, Sorare)

2) Creating a product or proposition that is attractive to the 2.5m active wallets in Crypto - aka - a crypto native audience (Most NFT projects)

3) Creating a product that attracts the highest spenders in crypto (NFTiffs by Tiffany & Co)

A lot of Sports related NFT projects get this badly wrong. There are obviously a lot of nuances here, but early on in a project’s formation — brands should be thinking about who they’re looking to attract. I’ve openly criticised Liverpool’s NFT project for example, for attempting to sell ~170,000 NFTs even though their raw numbers, selling ~9000 of them, aren’t bad.

Especially compared to how badly most sport related NFT projects perform. What they did very badly was choose to create a ‘PFP’ (profile picture) collectable project that they had no resources to sustain in terms of utility. Fans paid ~$40 per NFT, and expected them to act as novel collectables but also as a token that proved their fandom — or in other words — a sort of membership scheme.

But when Liverpool failed to sell out the Liverpool Legends project, they didn’t have the money (nor desire?) required to follow up on their promises. Which isn’t great.

FIFA+ Collect 

FIFA’s NFT platform FIFA+ Collect, built on the Algorand blockchain, has launched its first proposition with historical World Cup moments, similar to NBA Top Shots.

This is a simple proposition.

They are like Panini stickers but instead of being static images, they’re moving moments in video form.

They’re also incredibly cheap at $5 a pack and I actually went and bought one to test out the platform. Creating an account was really easy, I could pay by card and the general user experience was pretty flawless.

My moments weren’t anything to shout about, but looking further at the platform the marketplace and ‘my collection’ tabs work well.

Who knows just how much liquidity there will be on the secondary market when it really gets going (I can’t think there’ll be much) but so far, FIFA have sold 164,000+ packs so far from a supply of ~550,000 on their primary marketplace. 

Unpopular opinion; I actually think these numbers are fairly solid. 

Although they’ve not sold out, there’s been very little marketing done here — especially if you compare it to how hard NFL All Day and NBA Top Shot have been pushed in the states.

Why am I more bullish or kind to FIFA for not selling out compared to Liverpool.

First of all - the raw numbers are strong. ~165k packs sold is no small feat and the user experience is fairly flawless.

They’ve also not promised anything beyond the collectable moments so far, which is important. The IP is also something that people can associate with. They are video moments that fans will naturally associate with a memory they have of that specific moment.

To summarise:

• The packs are incredibly accessible and easy to buy using fiat.

• The platform itself is robust and the UI and UX are both flawless.

• Sports fans like video collectable moments. They associate them with memories they have of those specific moments. Where they were, who they were with etc.

• 165k packs sold is fairly strong. I actually have a weird urge to buy another one right now… I’ll call it research?!

Unlike Liverpool — FIFA have created something that has genuine demand leveraging their incredible archive of footage that football fans have genuine memories tied to, good or bad.

FIFA have a solid base here to further digitise their assets in the future, all on one slick platform.

A win for Algorand?

For any blockchain partnering with a sports organisation, the intention is to simply gain new users and developers building on the chain.

It looks like, from the metrics — that Algorand have managed to attract more people to their blockchain.

Whether it’s worth the money they’ve paid for, I’m unsure, but it’s positive for them at least.

FIFA and Algorand have started off their marriage on the right foot. It’ll be really interesting to see where FIFA and their blockchain partner take the FIFA+ Collect platform.

More sports crypto stories & things to put on your radar

• DigitalBits are apparently not responding to Inter Milan, whom they sponsor. DigitalBits were late to pay Inter earlier this season for their shirt sponsorship.

• Martian Premier League, a football NFT project, have partnered with Immutable for their play-and-earn FM game. 

• Liverpool FC have launched virtual merchandise on the Meta Avatars Store. 

• DAPs are a business that allows athletes to directly connect to fans via videos, gaming and such. There are a lot of Web3 projects that are focusing on this specific vertical within Sports.

• DigiDaigaku, a fairly large NFT project, have bought a commercial spot during this season’s coming Superbowl. 

• NBA Top Shot have launched their 2022-23 season roadmap. 

• Matchday, a new football web3 project is teasing on social. 

• F1 have filed 8 trademarks covering NFTs and Metaverse. 

• SPORTFIVE have joint forces with Polygon to help sports rightsholders and brands accelerate their journeys in Web3. 

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

• Meta’s Horizon Worlds has fewer than 200,000 monthly users. I don’t know whether that’s good or not.

• Bear markets in crypto present huge opportunities. There are some huge things happening behind the scenes and buy big brands.

• A really great diagram tweeted by Matthew Ball about different types of ‘Metaverse Gateways’ explaining visually the way they differ. 

Thank you!

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 person, business or entity.