SportVerse Podcast Episode 6 – Motor DAO, LFC NFTs and SailGP’s plan to launch a DAO

Our first update is about the world’s 1st DAO For Global Motorsports – MotorDAO.

MotorDAO as the name suggests is built to provide motorsport followers and online communities the prospect to finance groups, drivers, and occasions utilizing NFT based mostly memberships.

MotorDAO is the brainchild of Phoenicia Sport and Entertainment CEO and former NASCAR Team Owner Chris Lencheski and Adrian Maurer, Co-Founder and CEO of Toronto-based and Silicon Valley-backed Web3 content management platform, Kubelt. MotorDAO is also supported by Near Protocol, Superdao, KlimaDAO and Mentha Partners.

What is MotorDAO?

MotorDAO is a membership-based platform for motorsports fans to directly participate in the benefits of team ownership, driver sponsorships, events and more. In addition to retail perks, ticket packages, and race day NFT airdrops, members of MotorDAO can influence acquisition decisions and participate in owner-related perks such as Hot Pit Passes that provide access to the paddock areas, team radio transmissions, driver meet and greet invitations, as well as invitations to the MotorDAO Annual Token Holders meetings planned for racing facilities around the world as voted upon by the Token Holders.

According to Lencheski, the DAO can provide a mezzanine financing mechanism for deserving drivers and teams to compete at the highest levels in their chosen series and with the people and companies involved with MotorDAO being best-in-class, collectively, we could not be more aligned with the global Web3 and crypto communities.

Our second update is about Liverpool FC’s upcoming NFT drops.

Liverpool FC has partnered with auction house Sotheby’s and Nike to launch NFT projects on the Polygon blockchain. The first project is titled “LFC Heroes Club” which comprises animated, cartoon-style digital artwork of 23 players and manager Jurgen Klopp. There will be three days of sales, beginning on March 30 and ending on April 1. 

There is also the “Hero Edition” drop consisting of 171,072 unique images based on 23 players plus Klopp having 7,128 unique customisations each. The NFTs are estimated to cost roughly in the range of $75/£57 a pop.

 If all the NFTs are purchased the club will rake in nearly £10 million, with 10 per cent of that being donated to the LFC Foundation.

There will also be a sale of 24 individual “Legendary” NFTs via auction, with 50 per cent going to the LFC Foundation. These images are like their “Hero Edition” counterparts except it see first-team players such as Virgil van Dijk, Jordan Henderson and Mohamed Salah illustrated and animated as superheroes.

Liverpool FC has made it clear that won’t be encouraging secondary trading on websites such as OpenSea or any other platforms and the NFTs are digital collectable works of art and should not be considered investments.

With the launch of the NFT projects, it is very clear that Liverpool FC is aiming for high volume and lower costs to try to reach a mass audience.

What about the utility element?

There are two levels of utilities associated with the NFT drops. The buyers will get access to a “community forum” and will get unique experiences, virtual hangouts and retail discounts all this without making them sort of attached to NFTs because clubs have several similar rewards for fans and the second utility is the fact that a percentage of sales will be donated to the Liverpool foundation which supports charitable causes in the city.  I am not convinced about the second one and I hope that it is not a medium to dampen criticism of NFTs in sports.

Our third update is about a unique story of SailGp wanting to sell a franchise to fans through a DAO!

SailGP, a global franchise based sailing competition has become the first sports rights holder to officially sell a franchise via a DAO! This is a truly unique story in the world of sports on Web3.

SailGP has agreed to a technological partnership with sustainable blockchain firm Near to work together on Web 3.0 innovations which also include launching SailGP NFTs and selling a future team to a DAO.

As a matter of personal interest, I will focus on the DAO element of this story. Having said that, the specifics of how the DAO will operate are still to be determined but the owners will have complete control over athlete selection, team management, commercial decisions, operations and strategy. This will ensure fans will get more power and for SailGP it will offer a unique selling point leading to empowering the SailGP community and laying the foundations of an even stronger fan engagement.

In addition to the DAO, SailGP and Near will also create initiatives to educate and promote the potential of Web 3.0 technologies to fans at live events. The partners have also pledged to collaborate on blockchain-based innovations that can drive fan engagement and efficiency.

On a personal note, Since I have started immersing myself in sports on Web3 and learning about NFTs etc, I have firmly started believing that DAOs are the most effective in the world of sports compared to NFTs and fan tokens and there are so many success stories like LinksDAO, MotorDAO and now the SailGPDAO, it’s time for fans to experience ownership in sports business which generally dominated by a handful of ultra-rich businesses. SailGp is flipping the business model and I hope more sports rights holders think so progressively and change how their sport is perceived. This is about going beyond the Marketing/PR optic, this is about fan ownership and new levels of fan engagement.

In other news,

In India, a Chennai-based blockchain solutions provider GuardianLink has launched a play-to-earn (P2E) cricket game involving NFTs — a first for the sport of Cricket. The format is a multiplayer game. The official website of the game was launched on March 23 and is being hosted on Jump.trade, which is GuardianLink’s NFT marketplace. Supporters and interested NFT buyers can join the waitlist, with registrations set to go on for the next 27 days.

And,

In a first of it’s kind NFT X agency representation deal – Leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency has signed Cool Cats, producers of the widely known Cool Cats and Cool Pets NFT collections. In collaboration with the gamified NFT company, the agency will identify and create opportunities for Cool Cats characters across an array of areas, including licensing and merchandising, animated content, brand partnerships, live events, publishing, and more. The relationship marks the next step in Cool Cats’ rapid maturation of the massive Cooltopia NFT gaming ecosystem. The original Cool Cats NFTs debuted on the Ethereum blockchain in July 2021.