The State of the Sports Web3 Market

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Strap yourself in for a long Sporting Crypto newsletter this week.

As I have some time on the plane - I thought it’d be great to decant my thoughts on the year so far and how the industry is shaping up, and how Web3 is impacting the sports and entertainment industry at the moment.

Usually in Sporting Crypto, I like to go deep and focused on a specific topic or story — but this time I’ve tried to cover most bases at a deep enough level that might provide some insight — but not at the usual level of intricacy.

This is probably the closest thing I’ll ever write to an essay… to some that might be good, to others, bad!

So, what is the state of the Web3 market and what are the sports industry implications?

In this newsletter, I discuss:

🌐 State of the Market🎢 The difference between this crypto cycle and the last🏦 Regulatory and institutional tailwinds❓ Where are the opportunities?

🌐 State of the Market

So where are we right now?

Let’s start top-down, and because it’s crypto… we’ll start with prices.

Cryptoassets have traded largely sideways this year, and have been mostly impacted by regulatory news following the collapse of FTX in late 2022.

Laddering down to NFTs, the most prominent type of cryptoasset we’ve seen on the sports, entertainment and brand side — the interest from retail has diminished.

Retail is bored of JPEGs, and offerings that aren’t novel, or have some sort of storyline or strong IP, functionality or utility are probably not going to last long.

The numbers back up that take.

Over the past year, there’s been a drop in sales, unique buyers and sellers.

The sales in dollar terms especially have crashed dramatically since June 2022.

The sports NFT market has not been insulated from this drop in demand. 

Over the past 12 months, sales and units traded have dropped significantly across all major sports-related platforms. Declines are in the range of 50-80%, which match up with the broader NFT market.

What has this meant for the sports x Web3 market?

The following:

• Renegotiation of rights deals: almost every sports rights holder is back at the negotiating table with Web3 companies. It’s complicated because, whilst rights holders may think they have the leverage here, there is nowhere else for them to go and sell their Web3 rights to. So, their options are to sell for ‘a price’ or not sell them at all.

• Layoffs: With the exception of Sorare, DraftKings and Panini — many Web3 companies that work in the sports industry have made their teams leaner. OneFootball, Candy Digital (who merged with Palm Studios), Dapper Labs and Autograph have been consistently in the headlines over the last 9-12 months making cuts. And look, when Google and Amazon are cutting employees, you know the macro outlook isn’t good — but the down market in Web3 has certainly accelerated and emphasised the pain for some of these businesses.

• Closures: OneFootball, after raising $300 million in funding in April 2022, with the intention to expand its Web3 activities, closed its AERA Web3 platform meaning their Serie A video moments are no more. That is some 14 months. They’re not the only ones who have been impacted though, over the last 12 months many, many sports Web3 projects, agencies and consultancies have shut up shop or pivoted. Survival of the fittest is unfortunately what we’re seeing here.

🎢 The difference between this crypto cycle and ones of yesteryear

Crypto is cyclical.

A lot of the raises we saw at the frothy peak of the market this time around were companies looking to pounce on the opportunity, get the money in the bank, and then figure out what they wanted to do.

In the 2017 cycle, we saw something similar but with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) — where a crypto bubble was created based on the promise of tokenising ‘X’ — with no means to profitability in the long term. Some of these projects were actually quite unlucky because they had good ideas, but were either too early or their treasury management was terrible. For example, many projects I know sold their token allocation in Ether, Ethereum’s native token, but never converted it into dollars due to fear of being called a ‘traitor’ by hardcore crypto maximalists. As you can imagine, having your runway tied up in a volatile asset is asking for trouble. And trouble did ensue! ETH dropped 90% from peaks, and many of these projects were forced to liquidate at the bottom, not at the point of sale of their initial token. You might be reading this and thinking “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” but legitimately, many projects have died because they didn’t convert to stablecoins or cash quickly enough.

Incredibly, in this current cycle, I’ve had conversations with some NFT projects who have asked simple questions like; “how much of our treasury should be allocated to dollars?” Well… as much of it as you can.

Back to the 2017 cycle in crypto, it was a huge bubble that had a massive lack of maturity in it. Even more so than the NFT bubble we saw in 2020-22.

There are two stark differences, though, between the cycle of yesteryear and the one we are currently in (albeit the bear market and tail end of):

1. Brands are here to stay. In 2017, brands were crypto-curious at best. In 2023, brands are exploring how blockchain can impact their businesses, at the very least in a research or educational capacity. At worst, brands are saying “This thing isn’t going away, we should know what it is, how it works and how it might impact us”

2. The regulatory and institutional tailwinds are too strong to turn back. Regulators, institutions and central banks are now taking large steps forward respectively when it comes to blockchain-based tech or assets. They are no longer taking small steps that they can backtrack on, these are firm, strong moves.

This is important because price and volatility are less of a factor when it comes to interest or innovation. There are more people interested in crypto at the pits of this market cycle than there were at the peak of the last one. Perhaps not from a retail perspective, but from a developer activity, brand innovation and actual proposition creation perspective - that’s definitely the case.

Retail comes and goes, but this time, brands, blockchains, builders, and developers are here to stay. 

🏦 Regulatory and institutional tailwinds

One of, if not the biggest thing this cycle has going for it is that institutions and regulators have made steps forward too large to turn back.

So what is actually happening here?

Well — when FTX collapsed in late 2022 — that was essentially the last straw for regulators. Remember, FTX was a follow-on to the collapse of LUNA - which also sent tremors in the industry, as a $40bn market cap crypto token collapsed in a matter of days. The fact an algorithmic stablecoin was tied (Terra, or UST) to the LUNA ecosystem, has had a big impact on regulation we’ve seen subsequently.

It is time to put rules in place.

Globally, we’ve seen different approaches in 2023.

In Europe, we saw the EU adopt MICA - a set of regulations in the European Union that governs the issuance and provision of services pertaining to cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and related assets. Stablecoins will be subjected to tighter controls and algorithmic stablecoins like Terra are completely banned. Token issuers will have to have clearer and more robust whitepapers, and depending on the protocol, those whitepapers may be subject to regulator approval. The rules also require crypto-asset service providers to adhere to common standards regarding security, anti-money laundering protections, and a host of other protocols.

MICA doesn’t cover NFTs, DeFi — but focuses on tokens — which is a good enough start for now. It attempts to create some dotted line frameworks around specific types of tokens. It’s a watershed moment because now, there is a ruleset to adhere to — and if you’re a crypto firm or institution looking to open up a crypto arm, there’s less murky water to swim in. For some this is great because it’s what they’ve been asking of regulators for a long time, for others who like murky waters — it isn’t as great.

Asia has had progressive crypto regulation for a while, but Hong Kong and Singapore have opened up their shores even more so to entities looking to relocate from more stringent territories. We also saw China launch a crypto whitepaper, which is another interesting headline to note.

Specific territories such as the UK, France and Portugal are warming to crypto also. The UK for example recently dismissed calls to regulate crypto like gambling, and Stablecoin rules have received Royal Assent, passing into law. More watershed moments.

The US on the other hand… have attempted regulation by enforcement — namely through the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It’s a battle that the SEC look to be losing, at least on points so far if this was a boxing match. There’s been no knockout blow so far, but the SEC came out swinging earlier this year by filing suits against both Coinbase and Binance, alleging several tokens traded on both, or each respective exchange to be securities. Binance have shut up shop in the US, which may have been one of the SEC’s intentions, but Coinbase were willing to stand firm and go to court. A couple of weeks later, a high judge ruled ‘in favour of crypto’ adjudging that XRP, a token launched by company Ripple, was indeed not a security — at least in its sale to retail buyers. This puts the SEC’s case against Binance and Coinbase somewhat in jeopardy, because if XRP was deemed not security - many of the tokens that were alleged to be securities in the respective suits against the exchanges will feel there’s a good chance they will find similar fate.

While this has all been happening, and on the face of it, it looks like the US is at war with crypto — many of the largest institutions in the world have taken this as a sign to step in and step up their crypto game. Cynics might say this is coordinated, and that regulators would rather deal with a BlackRock offering crypto custody solutions than a Binance, but just how much institutional interest we’ve seen in 2023 is pretty astounding.

Here are a few major headlines we’ve seen in the past 3 months. (Yes, these are all from the last 3 months)

• Blackrock, the largest asset manager in the world, files for a Bitcoin ETF

• Fidelity is preparing to submit a spot Bitcoin ETF filing

• Deutsche Bank has applied for a digital assets custody license

• Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Citadel crypto exchange goes live

• CACEIS, the asset servicing arm of Crédit Agricole + Banco Santander, was registered by French regulators to provide crypto custody service

• Invesco Reapplies for Bitcoin ETF, Advocates for More Crypto Investment Product

• Britain rejects call to regulate crypto as gambling

• UK Crypto, Stablecoin Rules Receive Royal Assent, Passing Into Law

In isolation, this activity is important - but the regulatory backdrop it's happening against makes it impossible to ignore. In addition to this, you have central banks all over the world figuring out how to create Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) in a fight to become more digital.

So why does this all matter for the sports industry?

The short answer is that compliance issues are often the biggest hurdle brands face when launching something ‘Web3’.

Obviously, the most important thing is finding a proposition that makes sense for your fans or customers, but a close second is compliance.

Many Rights holders I’ve spoken to who have taken the plunge into Web3 always say this:

They always wish they had gotten legal and accounting involved earlier.

• “What if we get paid in crypto?”

• “How do we custody crypto that gets sent to us?”

• “What do NFT T&Cs usually look like?”

• “How do we create something that is globally compliant?”

• “Can we afford to risk having something that is available to purchase digitally from any location?”

• “How do we abide by advertising regulations when marketing this?”

It is good that big brands are thinking about this, but the reason some of them don’t at the beginning of a project internally is that you don’t know what you don’t know (sorry to steal this from excellent podcast guest Mark Epps). Until you reach a hurdle as per some of the above examples, it’s difficult to predict where you’ll get stuck.

Now, this is where working with someone who has done something in Web3 helps, but even then — they may not have expertise in what is and isn’t allowed by regulators in India for example, or how crypto is treated from a tax perspective in Montenegro.

The brilliant, global and borderless nature of crypto also presents some of the biggest operational and logistical issues for brands at scale.

With all that in mind, if a brand knows upfront what the legal, compliance and accounting hurdles they have to face to go to market - it makes everything easier. Whether it’s what you can and can’t do, to what your margins are — everything becomes that much easier.

So, whilst things like MICA and the UK having stablecoin laws on the face of it might look boring to your creative department internally who are working on your next digital collectable drop — it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to regulation globally. And when there are firmer rules about derivatives of crypto like NFTs, which is where brands are playing mostly, it will massively change their workflow.

The institutional side is also incredibly important. 

The backlash that brands get from creating something that touches crypto is usually big. But does that become less so when BlackRock are offering a Bitcoin ETF?

❓ Where are the opportunities?

Almost everywhere you can think of.

But a bear market forces a brand to create excellent propositions. And they have to be almost flawless if the brand in question wants to make money.

Let’s get into where some of the opportunities might lie.

Firstly, DAOs in sport might be on the come up. 

When the sports world thinks of a DAO, they think of a crazy crypto community that wants to own and soccer team and micromanage every decision.

But, like most things that are ‘early’ — the idea that excites everyone almost always doesn’t end up becoming the mainstream use case. That’s even more complex when we talk about things like crypto — because it’s a technology. There’s no one use case that covers everything, there’s a multitude of things it could do — on a spectrum of decentralisation. Yes, things do get quite complex when you’re trying to shift paradigms. 

Whilst DAOs from a tech stack perspective are very primitive right now (shared on-chain wallet, voting system, some governance tokens and a Discord community) their social capital is incredible.

The idea though, that this social capital alone is enough to own and operate a soccer team, or a professional sports team is pretty far-fetched, especially considering the tooling and infrastructure these DAOs use to coordinate.

That being said, we are beginning to see them impact sports in a real way.

In the last 3-6 months:

• LinksDAO, the golf community bought a golf course in Spey Bay, Scotland achieving the initial goal the DAO had set.

• Karate Combat restructured their entire league as a DAO, creating a governance token that gives their fans input on shaping the future of the league

• Krause House, who wants to own and operate an NBA team, were listed as one of the potential buyers of the Phoenix Suns before the franchise was sold

Whilst the utopian idea of a thousand fans operating and owning a team hasn’t happened, and probably won’t — DAOs are still a thing and they’re at the cutting edge of innovation from an operational and fan engagement perspective.

Again, DAOs in their initial form might not be the thing that has an impact on sport in some way, but this next generation that are actually doing stuff could have a real impact on their respective sports.

On the currently unreleased episode 4 of the Sporting Crypto Podcast, the co-founder of Krause House Flex Chapman said:

Which is pretty awesome. That’s not ‘nothing’ and the fact they were in the running to take a minority stake in the Phoenix Suns is pretty incredible. NBA owners aren’t dumb, and Krause House are being taken very seriously. When I first saw Krause House’s whitepaper 18 months ago, I thought they were crazy and would never have a chance. But that isn’t how it’s panned out, at all.

Platformification, aggregation and Loyalty

One of the things that I found incredibly weird about sports web3 projects, either from sports teams or otherwise — is that there was nowhere to kind of aggregate this stuff.

What I mean is, before Nike launched .Swoosh — there was a lot of Nike or Nike branded (via RTFKT) NFT content that was created, but was sort of just ‘there’. This makes sense in hindsight — the products, or the primitives of future propositions were being built without the frameworks or housing. NFTs were basically the furniture but without a house to furnish. 

Sports teams have still got this issue. Many have licensed digital collectables, a fan token, Web3 gaming partners and so on — but there’s no aggregated dashboard that fans can use to interact with all these things.

One of the disadvantages of starting with the product and not the platform is the fact that one bad NFT drop might completely stop you in your tracks. Starbucks Odyssey, for example, started with a loyalty app — and any NFT drops are within this hub. This makes life easier for a brand because there’s more control, but also — and crucially — you’re creating something that has a longer lifespan than one NFT project.

The inspiration from this has come from Web3 native projects, that have reverse-engineered this. They’ve launched the digital product (NFTs) and sold the content — but there’s nothing to do with it yet. But, they have cash in abundance (if it’s sold well and there are further drops) — and plan to build the infrastructure around the digital content they’ve created. For a brand, this makes no sense. 

Because you already have a brand. And you have the capital. 

Yuga Labs, for example, creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), had neither of these things. And therefore selling ‘monkey JPEGs’ fulfilled their needs; generate revenue and create a strong brand and community. They’re now building the infrastructure around that.

Because there was no playbook 18 months ago for a brand doing an NFT drop well — the inspiration came from these Web3 native brands. But it really is apples and oranges when you’re coming from the ‘Web2’ side of things. This stemmed from well-meaning people internally at big brands, who put a mandate out to specific individuals to go and ‘figure this stuff out’, or, from agencies who sold ideas and strategies into brands that were inspired by Web3 native brands such as BAYC. But once again, this type of strategy is not fit for purpose. 

2023 has seen that tide turn, slowly, however. With .Swoosh picking up steam, Adidas launching Alts by Adidas and Starbucks continuing to push hard on Odyssey, there will be more platforms, apps and loyalty programs over the next 12-18 months from big brands.

I’ve written before that there is a first-mover disadvantage for brands in Web3, but actually with a ‘platform’ that’s less the case.

.Swoosh have already shown the way on some of the ‘interoperability’ pieces that have been so exciting to the Web3 crowd for so long, for example.

By partnering with both EA Games and Fortnite, in slightly different ways respectively, your Nike NFTs and .Swoosh IDs have connections to worlds outside of Nike. Which is incredibly exciting.

Platformification mitigates the first mover disadvantage for brands in Web3. 

Speaking of EA Games, Fortnite and .Swoosh by Nike...

What about Gaming?

Gaming is seen by many as one of the greatest potential unlocks for Web3.

What if you could actually own your in-game items?

The principles and the theory surrounding a world where games have complete interoperability sounds amazing, but in practice incredibly difficult.

Game publishers don’t want you to take the sword they’ve sold you into another realm, they want you to buy the shield that goes with it.

Web3 gaming has had its pragmatist moment, and it’s finding some sort of ‘crypto’ spectrum.

What I mean by this, is that game creators who are looking to utilise blockchain are realising that there doesn’t need to be a Web3 aspect touching every part of their game. And, crucially, the games have to be fun.

NFL Rivals, for example, has quickly flown up the Apple gaming charts. The mobile game is simple, allowing players to compete in American Football matches — and also allowing them to buy useable NFTs. The NFTs in the game are player cards used to build out teams and compete in the game.

The aforementioned .Swoosh x Fortnite collaboration simply gives users the chance to claim a commemorative NFT based on in-game actions. The NFT is not useable in game, however.

Slowly, we’ve found a spectrum in Web3 gaming.

On one end you have games and publishers that will simply utilise NFTs and blockchain for commemorative or engagement purposes.

On the other end, you have games that are going all out — where everything in the game is an NFT, there is a token that rules the in-game economics and so on.

There’s also, I think, the realisation that interoperability does not necessarily need to mean ‘take this sword and move it to another game’. The very fact I can take that sword out of the game, sell it on a 3rd party marketplace or showcase it in a museum, or on a social app showing that it is provably mine — all of this is interoperability. Just because it’s not as exciting as a fully interoperable gaming metaverse, doesn’t mean it’s not interoperability. 

There is no longer a one-size-fits-all approach — and that’s good. Because it’s much more palatable for EA Games to start off with something that doesn’t inherently conflict with its business model, test and learn, and see what works.

The reports that you used to read from consultancies and research firms titled ‘What if FIFA Ultimate Team had NFTs’ are no longer here, and that’s because it makes no business sense for someone like EA to kill the golden goose.

Now, let’s talk about licensing

Licensing from a Web3 standpoint will always be there. The leverage that rights holders have, especially at Tier 1 brands is still weighty. But some of the deals we have seen, especially in the sports world over the last 18 months have been equivalent to sponsorship deals signed with banks, and incumbent institutions — and not that of a fast-paced, volatile and nascent market.

It will take a long time before there’s some maturity over deal sizes. New economic models that make sense for both licensee and vendor need to be created, for this to be sustainable long term.

What has happened up until now, has actually meant there’s less competition for the rights being issued. Simply put, there are only so many businesses that have the resources to buy specific Web3 rights categories from the really big brands. Hence, the renegotiating table is frequently revisited.

Where to now for licensed digital collectables? My prediction is that we’ll see less upfront cash and more revenue sharing in the short term, but in the long term, I do think we will see some of the bigger players involved.

Disney, Apple, Amazon — for businesses of this size — there is an appetite for eyeballs, always. And if they think at some point, some form of Web3 rights alongside a broadcast or distribution package makes sense, then they will start to become bundled.

If Apple think that MLS digital collectable rights can help them get more viewers, or help them cross-sell across the rest of their business lines — the numbers being touted won’t scare them at all.

Between now and then, though, rights holders and those vying for licenses will have to get more creative, and probably take a longer-term approach to things.

What about ticketing? 

Everyone says ticketing is a huge unlock for Web3. And they’re right. But in the short term, how that pans out at scale is difficult to predict.

There are a couple of reasons for this

1. The behemoths such as Ticketmaster have huge resources to pay partners money that NFT ticketing businesses could only dream of.

2. A lot of the ticketing deals are done with venues rather than teams directly, adding to the complexity of just how blockchain ticketing ‘happens’ in the short term. 

I have spoken to dozens of ticketing businesses that are at differing stages of their company lifecycle. A lot of them are able to raise decent funds via venture capital but struggle to drive revenue quickly. This makes total sense because this is a very difficult market to crack. The big issue now is that VC cheques are harder to come by, and some of these businesses will need to display a path to profitability, let alone revenue.

The smart ones I know have:

1. Co-existed within the current ticketing industry — commemorative claims, proof of attendance tokens and other propositions that are adjacent to ticketing and not a replacement. Smart ticketing startups have created a plethora of products that can be used in collaboration with most of their partners, regardless of deals that are already in place.

2. Protected runway and stayed lean — the scrappiest startups in the blockchain ticketing world are the ones I think have the biggest chance of winning. This is probably the toughest sports Web3 market to crack, and sometimes when you speak to people who have come from industry incumbents who want to change the face of ticketing — they are often shocked at what it takes to become the disruptor in this world.

3. Proved their concept — many blockchain ticketing companies, while well-meaning, have tried to go straight to the sports industry when it comes to their go-to-market strategy. Prove it out at smaller scale, concerts, greenfield sports leagues, local sports teams etc. — then go out to market. The ones who are methodically scaling, in a slower and steadier way I’m more bullish on.

There are a lot of ticketing businesses out there trying to crack this complex code. I think there are probably too many, many of whom have very similar propositions. This will unfortunately mean, many won’t make it, and many in fact have already folded.

I also think that in the next 18-36 months, one of the industry leaders in this field will be acquired by one of the ticketing behemoths.

It’s both the most obvious unlock for blockchain in sport, and the most difficult one to execute at scale due to the infrastructure and ticketing deals in place.

🧠 Concluding thoughts 

There are still ample opportunities across all of Web3 for sports, but the first cycle has shown there is a lot of tweaking to be done - whether it be in loyalty, digital collectables, ticketing, DAOs or anything else.

So much has happened in 2023, both in the sports industry and more broadly in Web3, that it feels like we’re slowly seeing the foundations created for the next wave of innovation.

It’s a really exciting time. 

Expectations are low, but activity beneath the surface is high.

People still hate crypto and some think it’s a scam, but soon there will be crypto ETFs via some of the most trusted institutions in the world. Those two things coexisting is weird.

Retail interest is low, but brand interest has never been higher. It’ll be interesting to see if brands stay the course or follow retail sentiment. But there are no indications of them slowing down in the short term.

What a fascinating time to be building something in this world.

💡 Sporting Crypto Spotlight - Brought to you by SailGP

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More Sports & Web3 Stories

• BIG3 team have launched a weekly pick ‘em game powered by the NEAR foundation (Read more here)

• Patrick Mahomes Is Launching His Own NFT hub; Museum of Mahomes (Read more here)

• Latin America: Digital Asset Firm Bitso, Mobile Streams to Offer Sports NFTs (Read more here)

• Reality+ and OTZ Sports announced a new Web3 women’s soccer game dubbed Own The Zone: FIFA Women’s World Cup AU NZ 2023 edition. (Read more here)

• The Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships will have a "phygital" dimension, thanks to the innovative project developed by the EuroRoma 2024 Foundation (LOC) and XMetaReal (Read more here)

• Italian Soccer Club AC Milan Extends Crypto Sponsorship With BitMEX (Read more here)

• Binance Ends Argentina’s Soccer Association Partnership Citing Contract Breach (Read more here)

General ‘Stuff’ that Could Impact You

• Ubisoft join the Cronos ecosystem as a network validator (Read more here)

• Futureverse, the creator of the Altered State Mind project and FIFA partners, have raised $54m (Read more here)

• Britain rejects call to regulate crypto as gambling (Read more here)

• NBA Rumoured to Join Apple Vision Pro for Sports Livestreaming (Read more here)

• Thirdweb have acquired Paper (Read more here)

• Meta, Google, and OpenAI promise the White House they’ll develop AI responsibly (Read more here)

Thanks for reading the latest edition of the Sporting Crypto newsletter. I’m happy to see so many people enjoying and sharing it with their networks.

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