Coinsights #9: Basketball & Web3
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I would argue that out of all professional sports leagues in America, the NBA is the most influential in terms of pop culture. So it’s no surprise that the NBA and their players are big proponents of web3, first with NBA Top Shot and now with Michael Jordan’s HEIR platform.
HEIR
From Decrypt:
HEIR is designed to link professional athletes with their most ardent supporters. It will feature an HEIR token minted on the Solana blockchain, and will showcase NFT assets along with community-building features that let fans join an athlete’s limited-capacity “huddle” for exclusive access and benefits.
HEIR seems to be fairly similar to other creator token focused platforms: Rally, Calaxy (started by NBA player Spencer Dinwiddie), and to some extent DeSo come to mind. As a result, it’s unclear if and how a single platform can “win,” since:
The data is all open and on chain, making an influencer’s fans or an individual’s preferences easily exportable, even cross chain
The experiences allowed to token holders like private livestreams can easily be copied from product to product
The token itself (eg. $HEIR) can potentially be swapped easily on an exchange like Uniswap
One important caveat is since DeSo is a blockchain that can support multiple applications, it’s much harder to simply “port it.” This stands in stark contrast to HEIR, which will be built on top of Solana and may face the problems mentioned above.
With no real competitive moat, it seems like platforms built on top of existing chains (unlike DeSo) are going to have to engage in an arms race to sign influencers and build community as fast as possible.
Some questions:
Will there be a world where multiple platforms coexist and compete for exclusive deals with influencers, much like how Nike / Adidas / Under Armor operate?
Will the fact that an influencer chooses to be on both HEIR and Calaxy mean that their token prices on the respective platforms are much lower to a comparable influencer that is just on one?
2974
Stephen Curry recently broke the record for the most 3-pointers scored ever and subsequently released an NFT collection commemorating the achievement.
From the website 2974sc.com:
The 2974 Collection will surprise NFT holders at future times with gifts that may include autographed memorabilia, tickets to games, additional NFT drops and early access to Curry Brand limited-edition items. Future communication will live on the FTXLand NFT Discord channel, 2974SC.com and @SC30inc on Twitter
The best place to go for all the info on future 2974 drops and events is the FTXLand NFT Discord, where there is a special channel for all things 2974.
Steph Curry, who has a massive reach around the world (38M followers on Instagram, 15M on Twitter), doesn’t need to use Calaxy or HEIR to launch into the web3 world. The cost of launching an NFT collection like this is fairly low, and I wonder in the long term how influencers will weigh the pros and cons of simply doing their own thing versus joining a platform like HEIR.
My prediction is that early, small time influencers will join platforms to capitalize on the already built infrastructure. However, as they grow their reach, they’ll likely spin off their own projects to more tightly control their fans’ experience and to skip paying commissions. An interesting idea here could be a white labeled experience for creators looking to launch their own token, similar to how Shopify operates for storefronts. Does that exist?