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Intro Notes, Plugs & Amendments 🔌🔧

Metaverse has become one of the most nebulous terms that has dominated a lot of the narrative whenever anyone talks about technology in the future, or more appropriately for this newsletter, Web3.

But what actually is it?

And what does it mean for Sports?

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This Week’s Deep Dive: What does the Metaverse mean for Sports?

One of the terms that has been thrown around a lot in conversations I’ve been having over the last 12 months is:

Before we look at what the Metaverse might mean for Sports, it’s wise to first try to define it.

Which is a really difficult thing to do. Actually, it’s the reason I decided that this was a good topic to write about.

One of the things that has been massively oversold to sports brands, broadly, is the idea of the, or a, ‘Metaverse’.

Does that mean I don’t believe it’s a thing or will become important? No.

What I mean by this is that many sports teams and brands have been sold a car — and promised it is fast. But when they drive it, it hardly gets out of first gear.

But back to defining the metaverse before I delve deeper into that terrible analogy.

The Metaverse is defined by author Matthew Ball as the following:

I would go one step further in terms of simplifying this. Anything that augments your physical life, to the digital, is in some way or form linked to what currently is, and what will become, ‘The Metaverse’. 

So a Zoom call or a free world game — whilst they don’t wholly agree with the notion of interoperability or persistence —they still are in essence part of the Metaverse.

Now, to give further context, there is the idea of ‘Metaverses’ — aka, Decentraland, Sandbox or any company building their own virtual world.

This is not ‘The Metaverse’ but technically, part of it.

If the Metaverse is a book, then Decentraland and Sandbox are chapters or pages of it. 

What Matthew refers to as interoperable and persistence, with continuity of data, implies that the backbone should be decentralised.

How likely or realistic that actually is, is another conversation altogether, and partially why I think this has been massively oversold to Sports brands.

Roblox, the virtual world, that claims to have ~200m monthly active users (MAU), is not the Metaverse. It could be called a ‘Metaverse’ — but I prefer the term virtual platform.

A few things can be simultaneously true, which I think makes this a really interesting topic to write about: 

• The next generation of sports fans are digitally native and will have grown up learning to read and write using tablets and computers as much as they do paper

• The Metaverse is ill-defined by marketers and consultants for the most part and has been massively oversold to brands in general.

• Roblox has 200m MAU, ~30m unique players participated in a Travis Scott concert on Fortnite and the number of smartphone users has increased by ~2 billion since 2017.

• Decentraland and Sandbox, two crypto native metaverses/virtual platforms have struggled to sustain large numbers of active users. 

I’ve written before that no one really knows where this thing, Web3, is heading precisely.

But there are enough clues to suggest the direction of travel.

Using some more Matthew Ball content, below is a slide from one of his decks that he tweeted recently:

It shows the rate of adoption for Roblox, one of the virtual platforms I mentioned, compared to the launch of the iPad in 2011.

This isn’t an exact science, but it’s very indicative of just how digitally native future generations will be even compared to the very digitally savvy Gen Z of today.

A one year old child thinking a magazine is a broken iPad is funny, but it’s also a clue that helps us predict the direction of travel we’re heading in.

The Sportverse

So what sparked the sudden need to write about the Metaverse and its relevance to sports?

I came off stage a couple of weeks ago at a Crypto event where I moderated a panel on the future of Sports & NFTs.

Quite often, my fellow panellists and I are greeted off-stage by many who are working in and around the space or simply want to chat more about some of the topics discussed on stage.

But one of the things that caught my attention was a team of three gentlemen who were, in their own words, building a metaverse — and they’d signed a Belgian defender and a Ligue 2 soccer club to ‘activate’ inside their metaverse.

I didn’t fully understand what they were building, or why they’d signed this mediocre player to exclusively activate inside the virtual space they’d created.

This had been built by a technologist or a tech team they’d hired.

And the team that approached me were clearly sports marketers or business people that had only recently started looking at Web3, evangelising for this virtual space they’re created.

A few thoughts crossed my mind at this point:

• What actually is this thing?

• How many users are going to be attracted to this platform due to the fact a Ligue 2 football club and average Belgian football have signed with them exclusively?

• What have they promised to the aforementioned parties to get them to sign deals?

• What can you actually do in this virtual platform?

• How are they leveraging the IP to make money?

I don’t think there’s anything malicious about projects like this.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a bad idea or something that professional sports brands or athletes should entertain.

Activating in the metaverse means different things, to different people.

To some, it means activating in a centralised virtual world like Roblox.

But the overarching theme I see is that most of the people creating things that are linked to, or involve the concept of the Metaverse, have no idea what it actually is.

And again, I don’t think anyone does.

But knowing the direction of travel is important, and too many are driving on the wrong side of the road. Athletes, teams and sports brands really need to take a step back and simplify things.

What is this thing? How do we think our fans and consumers are going to interact with this thing in the future?

Because right now, the activation is simply PR 99% of the time. Even 1% of the partnerships or companies focused on the niche of Sports Metaverses I’ve seen to date being here in 3-5 years would be a shock to me.

What’s the opportunity?

If we take a few statements to be true, then it’s easier to assess the opportunity for sports teams and brands:

• People are spending more time digitally, and that digital realm will increasingly become 3D and not look like the screenshots Zuck has been posing on Facebook

• Not everyone will spend all their free time in online 3D virtual worlds, but that time spent on average will increase drastically over the next 20 years

• Spending time in virtual worlds will be totally normal to the next generation of sports fans 

The consumer web and mobile have made all aspects of human culture converge.

Travis Scott holds an event on Fortnite, one of the most popular games on the earth.

Depop partner with Sims the game to bring thrifting in-game.

Social applications like Instagram have become e-commerce hubs.

Media companies and platforms are bringing commerce to content.

Content creators and influencers are more popular than pop stars and box office actors.

Rick and Morty just partnered with Arsenal Football Club.

The lines are less clear and nothing is set in stone.

Matthew’s idea of a 3D environment that is permanent and continuous makes sense if we think about all facets of culture converging, as well as the evolution of rendering capabilities, AR, wearables and mobile.

If we think about this in the context of a sports team — perhaps broadcasters in the future will offer premium, VR experiences.Experiencing a game as if you were there, from your living room.A pipe dream, right?

Well, probably not. But unreal engine is being used in a plethora of ways for very real things like military pilot training, and it’s only a matter of time before Google and Apple go after the VR hardware market that Meta is currently dominating.

It all seems quite far fetched until it’s here.

But actually, the Metaverse being a new realm for fan engagement in terms of consuming broadcasts makes sense. It makes far more sense to me than buying a virtual plot of land or interacting with not very lucrative exclusive IP on a siloed virtual platform.

Virtual stadiums would blow my 64 year old father’s mind.

And I’m quite scared of the types of things that will make me feel old over the next 20 years.

To conclude:

The Metaverse is already here, it’s just defined too often by people who don’t really know what they’re talking about. 

More sports crypto stories & things to put your radar

• The Premier League’s blockbuster NFT deal is reportedly being impacted by the drawdown in crypto

• I’m bearish on DAOs in Sports. But Karate Combat are doing something different to ‘let’s buy a sports team and run it as a DAO’.

• The Portland Trail Blazers have cut their Jersey sponsor partner deal with StormX

• Muhammad Ali - the next legends drop - is interesting because it allows an AI NFT to train your fighter, which is interesting. 

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

• Really interesting thread here by Sillytuna!

• Why does mainstream media persist on using data that isn’t accurate

• Tyler Hobbs’ latest drop sold out instantly. In a bear market.

• Really interesting brain dump by Meltem here. 

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.