In this episode, cows stuck inside for the winter are given virtual reality goggles to simulate being outside, GameStop launches its NFT marketplace, Lootex raises $9 million in a seed funding round, OpenSea secures a whopping $13.3 billion valuation, Animoca Brands and Delphi Digital lead a $40 million funding round to back Fan Controlled Football, and so much more!

Episode 8 Keywords: cows, virtual reality goggles, GameStop NFT marketplace, Lootex $9 million seed funding round, OpenSea $13.3 billion valuation, Animoca Brands & Delphi Digital lead Fan Controlled Football funding round

Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The Metaverse and web three are bringing about the

biggest revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the prophet Dawalibi And Jeff the

juice Cohen. We will be bringing you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into what it

all means. The meta business podcast starts now.

From the boardroom to the metaverse. This is the meta business podcast. I am

Paul Dawalibi. I'm joined today by my friend and co host, Jeff the juice Cohen. For those of you

who are new to the meta business podcast welcome. What we do here is we cover the most pressing,

Metaverse, stories and news of the week. We look at all of it through a business and C suite lens,

we dissect, we analyze the business implications of everything happening in the metaverse and web

three industries. For our regular listeners for the people who have tuned in every single week.

This is episode eight. Thank you guys. If you haven't yet, make sure you hit subscribe wherever

you get this podcast, your favorite podcast apps, and be watching on YouTube. Wherever you get this.

Make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button and tell your friends and family share it. That's

the biggest thing we could ask for if you share it with your friends, family colleagues. If you love

the content if you enjoy the metaverse content that we're putting out every week, really

appreciate if you guys would share it. Jeff, how you doing this week?

Doing good? Doing good. How about you?

Oh, you may have noticed I'm wearing this New Jersey that has that has me on it

the profit which was a very nice gift from our, you know, our mutual friend, Jimmy, who, as you

guys anyone who listens to this may know co hosts the business of esports podcast with me. But the

cool part is it has met a TV on the business of esports on the other sleeve. It's it's pretty

decked out I've got the profit on the back.

Man. I guess me mine. Mine's probably just in the mail. I haven't checked the mail in a

while. So I actually funny enough. This is gonna sound weird. I am. This is literally Jimmy shirt.

So Jimmy, Jimmy sent me a couple of shirts in the mail. After one noon. We were out in Vegas one

night and I told them I liked the shirt he was wearing. And a week later, he asked me for my

address and he literally sent me four shirts. So so we were both wearing gifts from Jimmy. This is

not interesting to anyone besides you and Jimmy probably. But yeah,

well, it's a good it's a good plug to say. Make sure you guys watch the business of

esports or listen to the business of esports podcast also, I will just say good chance that we

will all get jerseys like this. We will need meta business merch at some point. But I think I'm the

only one that has this right now. I know Jimmy wanted one but doesn't have one like you. And so I

think we will have to get that done for everybody at some point. But we need to get into the news

because there's a lot of Metaverse news this week. And I think maybe more important than the jersey

is the first story here, which is by far the biggest Metaverse news, business news that came

out this week, and I'll read the headline here. The headline is cows stuck indoors for winter are

getting virtual reality goggles to feel like they're outside. Maybe the best part of this

article is a picture. I thought this was photoshopped at first, but it genuinely seems it's

quoted as saying this is a cow with VR glasses on. It was taken in by end of December. So you can't

see the picture. It's also it appears the cow is wearing two separate VR headsets, one

on each eye, which I have to imagine it's pretty trippy. So one eye thinks it's in one world the

other eye thinks it's in the other. I mean that is interesting, unless they're I guess they could be

synced up. Yeah, this is. This is what we were promised.

This is this is the metaverse

technology.

I mean, it's it's it's it may be seems like a nothing story. Okay. And maybe people

will think we're just being silly. But I genuinely feel like there's a really interesting two

discussion to be had here. Because everyone talks about the metaverse from a gaming perspective,

right? That's not new. I you know, since Facebook's rebranding, there's a lot of discussion

around the metaverse for work from a work perspective, right how it's going to change work.

But I feel like there's there hasn't been a lot of discussion around all of like the ancillary kind

of metaphors benefits if you want to call that. And and this is just one of those that I'm going

well, this is so clever, and I feel like there are probably human benefits that are that like that

are similar to this right. Like the headline is that the idea is that cows that are stuck indoors

for winter, I guess they produce better milk, more milk if they're less stressed, right? And if they

feel like they're outside that that'll make them less stressed. How was this Different than, like,

human beings. And when we talk about mental health and things like that,

it's I mean, it's absolutely a great point, I do wonder if maybe it's a little

different that the human would know they're in VR, whereas the cow may may really be tricked to

thinking that they're, they're in, you know, a different pasture. But besides that, I mean, there

certainly can be other benefits. I mean, we've talked on a live stream many times about potential

military, you know, training exercises, doctors, like, you know, you don't want your doctor to be

doing his first open heart surgery on you as the patient. But if it's, you know, he's doing it in

VR, that's a great way to practice and learn. So there definitely are and and this is all stuff

that's, you know, that is happening. So there definitely are a ton of different uses for I

guess, what we would consider VR and also, you know, you could kind of expand that to be the

metaverse.

But I just think again, it's one. It's one of those things where, you know, and I've

made I've blogged about this stuff. And I've had discussions around this. And I've sort of made

lists in my own head of here are all the industries that the metaverse essentially

disrupts, right? Like the meta capital and Metaverse will disrupt, you know, the travel

industry, the adult industry, right, like all these other industries that get massively

disrupted by the metaverse. But then, you know, one of the ones that was one that was not on my

list was agriculture, right? Like, that's not something I had thought of, but you see this real

world application with and it's not five years or 10 years from now, right? It's today. And, and

that can be big business. Like I think people underestimate how big agriculture is, as an

industry. And if you can, you know, if you can make an impact in even in a relatively small way,

you're talking about pretty big dollars,

I think about just just impacting yields, or, you know, any sort of anything, in a

small way is massive, I mean, look at kind of agrotech like, there's a lot of these these

things, you know, if you could increase the crop yield by 5%. I mean, that's, that's worth billions

of dollars. So, you know, if these VR goggles can actually make the cows produce better, or, you

know, grow faster, you know, that's going to be a massive impact. And it's a fun story, obviously,

it's a fun story. But I also I think it's great that we highlight impact on

industries that maybe other people aren't thinking about, right, that are not as sexy, not as top of

mind. And I wouldn't be surprised, like, again, maybe the cows are fooled, but I think human

brains are not, you know, they're obviously more sophisticated. But, you know, your brain is a

powerful organ. It can fool your body into into having positive benefits, right? Like I see this

translating to human beings. And I know there are app VR apps and things around meditation and

things like that. But I love seeing the story. And I love seeing the metaverse sort of creeping into

other industries. Jeff, let's, let's you know, let's get a bit more serious here. And we've got

three stories back to back. And I, you know, you sent these to me, and I think it was really

interesting to see sort of, in one week, three stories in the exact same kind of realm. And then

the realm here is NFT marketplaces. So let me just, let me show you the three stories. Let me

read the three stories for those of you who are listening, at least the headlines, and then let's

discuss them as a group because I think they go together. And, and so the first one here is

Gamestop to launch NFT marketplace for gamers. Shares of the beleaguered gaming retailer were up

about 20%. In New York pre market trading, this was last Friday. So this is Gamestop coming out

with their own NFT marketplace for gamers. Second story is the headline here is game fi NFT

marketplace. Lou Tex closes $9 million funding round. The Taiwan based asset marketplace features

over 12,000 NF T's across 500 collections. So if you're not noticing the the theme here, it's NFT

marketplaces. And then the third story is leading NFT marketplace open sea raises 300 million firms

post money valuation tops 13 point 3 billion, they announced that they had raised 30 300 million in a

Series C funding round led by paradigm and Cotu that compelled to propel the company to a $13.3

billion post money valuation. So we've got three stories, Jeff about NFT marketplaces, some earlier

stage, some later stage and in game stops case, this is an established, you know, public company,

launching one. I'm curious, just general thoughts on these stories as you've seen them back to back.

And maybe sort of the specific question I have is, is this an environment where we're going to see

100 winners 10 Winners one winner is it Winner Take All right. So to speak? And what do you how

do you feel about the chances of these three kind of competitors?

It's a bunch of questions. I'll kind of go through a couple of them and then have some,

you know, maybe some questions to put to volley back to you. Yeah. You know, I do think this is

going to, there will be a several different winners. I think, right now, open sea is

definitely the leader in terms of kind of the broad NFT marketplaces. And the way I like to

think about this and the question I'll pose to you is sort of, you know, on one hand, you have broad

based kind of, you're trying to be The Everything Store the Amazon, that's kind of what open sea is

doing. I think that's what you know, FTX is doing that's what Coinbase is looking to launch NFT

marketplace, and that sort of being like, The Everything Store, you know, the place where if you

want to buy an NF t you just go there and you know, it'll probably be there. versus sort of the

niche vertical focused, I think NFT stores, you know, where you have something like NBA top shots

you have what DraftKings is doing with their DraftKings marketplace? And that's where I think,

you know, the question I have posed for you with gaming. Where does that fit in? I have my opinion.

And I kind of want to hear hear yours first. Do you think the ultimate winner? Because I think we

you and I both agree. You know, we're both big believers in kind of web three in sort of

blockchain gaming, I do think that there will be at least one massive gaming NFT marketplace. Will

it be one of these bigger players like an open seat? Or is there room for kind of a vertical

focused sort of competitor to be that one winner?

It's a great question. I'm not convinced that genre specific marketplaces will

carve large enough niches to justify the kinds of valuations. Maybe we're seeing now. You know, Lou

Tech's raised, you know, according to this article, and I'll bring it back up, raised a $9

million seed round, right, like, we're talking, we're talking about the first money in right, the

very first dollars $9 million, is a really big seed round. And I know, not so much these days.

I'm a little old fashioned in that sense, I guess in this the current world, we live in that more

and more normal. But, you know, in a world where in the same week, a direct competitor raise 300

million. I question a little bit, the thought process of the investors in the game specific NFT

marketplace loot Tex Right. And, and I take my use as a comparison, just ecommerce in general,

because fundamentally, we can call them NFT marketplaces, their stores write their storefronts

to go by and trade and fts. Amazon has dominated, right, like, there's a reason Gamestop as a

specialty vertical retailer has struggled, and yes, you know, they're burdened with physical

stores and things like that. But specialty retail, for the most part, has been, has been defeated by

Amazon, right? Like, we seem to be in live in a world where everything stores when at least Amazon

does

fair, but I guess the counter example is that you have seen some product categories do

well, like chewy with pet food and pet supplies Wayfair with, you know, furniture like this sort

of concept of, you know, growing niches like this happened, I think with eBay, where eBay was sort

of trying to be, you know, sort of the, the platform for everything. And then you did see a

bunch of different kind of niches split off. You know, even if you look at Craigslist kind of got

defeated by Airbnb and some of these more vertical kind of focused things. But I think I think you do

bring up a good point with with Amazon and kind of having one place wherever one goes, this is

definitely a network effects. Because we're not talking about physical goods, here, we're talking.

This is purely network effects. It's like, where do I want to list my NFT, probably the place where

there's the most buyers, and buyers want to come to the place where there's the most liquidity and

most things to buy. So you know, we are definitely talking about a network effects driven platform.

So maybe it is just hey, the one winner, the open see that whoever is the biggest will end up being

the biggest just because of network effects. But to me, I am more on the side of vertical focus. So

I do think for games, particularly with the gamer audience, like I just think there's something

about the branding to gamers like I do think you're going, you know, part of the reason why,

you know Amazon hasn't won in game distribution, like why do people go to steam versus, you know,

various other places that they could be buying games? You know, I think there's something to be

said for gamers wanting their own platform and kind of their own user experience and their own

marketing. So I'd be a little more bullish on the vertical focus one than maybe you are.

I mean, Jeff, the question I have for you is like, or at least the comment I would

make is vertical focus to me has has to add some value In some way, right, like, I buy, I would buy

furniture from Wayfair instead of from Amazon, because I believe Wayfair knows more about

furniture, they, you know, they they don't source anything that's, you know, like such low quality

that it's gonna fall apart in the first day. Right? Whereas if I buy furniture on Amazon, maybe

I don't know, it's, you know, it's, it's made in China and it falls apart two seconds later, you

know, in some ways you go to a vertical, like a highly specialized retailer, because you're

getting some value. They're, they're, they're doing some of the thinking for you some of the

curation for you. And I'm just not sure that's, that's what's driving the NFT space today, right?

It's not like, We need someone to curate it. For us. There's, they're the biggest drops make all

the money, right? The biggest artists make the majority of the money. And I think people will go

where the biggest drops go, is my cents today. Now, is there is there room five years from now

for a specialty sort of marketplace, that's more gamer specific. I buy that. I just don't know if

they'll ever become that big, right? Like Wayfair. Compared to Amazon, we're talking at least two

orders of magnitude, right? Probably

more but but but we're still talking about Wayfarer, I think is a multi, you know, at

least a multi billion dollar company. So there's, there's juice to be squeezed. They're like

they're, you know, you wouldn't be upset if you created the next Wayfair. No,

no. And you know, $9 million seed round tells me there's real commitment around

whatever this vision is, right? They have some money. But it's also like, again, if my competitor

tomorrow, raise 300 million to go do exactly what I'm doing. I mean, that would keep me up at night,

it would also justify what I'm doing. Right? I go, Well, I'm in the right space. So I'm not It's not

that I'm down on Lu tech see or what, you know, what they're trying to accomplish? And I think

they have to do this. So that's I think the other part of the my the conversation, which is, what

choice do they have, right? When you already have two or three, everything stores, you you're not

going to be the fourth everything store that definitely doesn't work, you have to specialize.

And you hope you carve out a significant enough niche that you have a very profitable business or

her that The Everything Store eventually buys you.

Yeah, which, which Amazon has done, you know, many of you, right? They did with

diapers, or whatever was called they did it with jet codes. They they've done it with toys, Zappos

like they. So you know, that is I guess a model where you you create a nice kind of, you know,

again, Zappos was just selling shoes, Quinsey, just selling diapers, I think it's a baby

products. And then, you know, the open sea or the, you know, the Amazon, you know, comes in buys

them. So maybe that is that is part of the approach here. But I think there's an opening,

like a flank with, you know, discoverability, potentially. And then the only other thing I was

gonna say why maybe I'm a little more bullish on GameStop. And I kind of had thought I would be,

you know, because I think when, when people saw this headline at first, with GameStop, there was a

lot of eye rolling, and it was like, oh, classic, the meme stock, you know, is going after the most

buzzword possible at the moment, you know, they're never gonna be able to execute on this. And then I

thought about it a little bit. And, you know, I'm not sure that Gamestop can execute on this, I

don't know that they have the developers to do so. But if we assume they're able to actually build

something that's technically sound, I think they have some decent advantages in terms of when

you're thinking about building a platform, you need a couple things you need, kind of player

relationships. And I'll call that customer relationships, you need a lot of people coming to

your site, name recognition, they have that, particularly with the kinds of people right now

that are into this community of Let's call a spade a spade, it's a little bit of speculation and

gambling. But guess what they have the community of hundreds of 1000s of quote unquote, apes that

went and bought their stock and love GameStop. Those are pretty much the exact people that are

going to go trade and buy on these kind of marketplaces, at least as the early adopters. And

then to I think, to be a games focused platform here, you're going to need publisher and developer

support. So you need blockchain games to say, Hey, this is where I'm going to list my NFT. And

Gamestop has those relationships. So if they execute on this, right, they could be one of the

few platforms that has the name recognition, sort of the trust, and both sides have that kind of

platform to bring, you know, to the table to really gain scale quickly. And so yeah, I think

I'm more bullish than most on the Gamestop NFT announcement.

And you know, when you started this thought, I was like, Man, I'm gonna come after

Jeff. I'm just I like, I totally disagree with this. Like I get the open sea one. I'm a big fan

of, you know, they did over 14 billion in sales of NFT sales on open sea last year, right like this.

These are big numbers, big fan of that sort of transaction. Lou Tex, I get it specialty, still a

big financing. But you know, I could see where that goes. It was the Gamestop one that I didn't

really understand, right that that that was the head scratcher for me. And I was my mind was in a

place of like, this is just pumping them, you know, get the apes to pump the stock, which seems

to be in line with the nothing else game stops doing right? They, they have this new management,

supposedly this new vision, and they've done nothing, right, literally nothing. And then I was

trying to find a reason for this NFT marketplace. And when you started on that point, I was about to

sort of cut you off and say that you're totally wrong. And then I think Jeff, you made a great

point about like, maybe it's the tie in with the publishers, right? Maybe they leverage those

relationships. Here's my question to you, though, if you're GameStop, and that is the play. And I

think that's a smart play. Now, big question mark, if the publisher still respect them at all? Or if

they're still, you know, who knows? Because Gamestop hasn't really been relevant for quite a

while now. But if that's the case, why kind of advertise that strategy? Right? Why not? Why are

we not seeing, you know, Ryan Cohn come out and be like, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is not

just a pump and dump, where this NFT marketplace is gonna fit in with, you know, we're gonna

leverage these publisher relationships, we're gonna be the one stop shop for all the big games

and FTS, right. Like, one thing.

Usually, if you're if you're going around saying we're not a pump enough, that's

usually a sign that you're I think, I think part of it is they like, sort of being sure, and I'm

totally guessing this, obviously, I think they'd like kind of being shrouded in mystery a little

bit where I sort of think this Ryan Cohen guy gets off on this a little bit being like this man of

mystery that the apes follow. And, you know, I am sure if you're an analyst, or you were, you know,

an real investor in their company, and you talk to them, this right, these guys are smart guys,

right? They hired a bunch of people from Amazon, that Ryan Cohen, founder of chewy, which was

obviously an example that we use that someone who sort of Nish attacked Amazon in the past, so has

sort of expertise of building kind of a digital platform, or an E commerce platform. I would

imagine if you sat down with him that this is what he would be saying, I think they sort of like

having kind of this devil may care like a fish attitude a little bit. And maybe they're just not

good at communicating to investors. I could be either of those, but part of me thinks it's like,

they're they're a little bit shrewd. I'm giving them a little bit of credit here.

Let me let me offer a third explanation is that you're right there, you, you

advanced the more clever idea that they've thought of. And so I have my doubts that they've thought

of this, I'll do it. Although I do agree. It's a great idea. And if I was them, I would definitely

be doing it or thinking about it. The bigger problem to me is, I just suspect they can't do it

at this point, that it's a combination of two things, their own market power has eroded, right?

They're not as relevant as they used to be to gamers. And so that's like, that's a bit of a,

it's a it's a tougher sell. And second, I think the publishers, when they're looking at web three,

when they're looking at Metaverse, now when they're looking at all this, call it next gen

stuff, right, I think they've most have come to the conclusion that they can figure it out

themselves like that. I think they learned the hard way that handing power to marketplaces with

games in the past, has not, you know, that they would have been better off going direct to the

customer. And I think we're seeing more of an aversion to marketplace, to marketplaces with the

big publishers, right, who are all launching their own stores who are all trying to go direct, who

are all, you know, have their own services. Now. I suspect most of them do not want to deal with a

third party when it comes to NF T's and won't want to deal with the third party.

That's an absolutely great point as it relates to triple A publishers. But I think as a

relate because I do think you're right, I don't I don't see, you know, an Activision or an EA

anytime soon wanting to give up control up what effectively could be an incredibly important

marketplace and distribution platform. And we've already seen them doing the opposite as as you

mentioned. But as it as it relates to, you know, these new blockchain games and sort of web three

gaming, I kind of think it has to be that way. Because I just don't know if gamer, that customer,

I think doesn't want too much power with the developer. I think they want to be a bit they

specifically want to be able to take their assets from one game and go sell them on a different

platform. If they're selling them on the same platform that they bought them. I think that

almost like it's like disqualifies it immediately from being what they consider in this web three

ethos.

But in this is the point I wanted to sort of close this out on, which is the bigger

philosophical question, which I think you've alluded to here, which is, you know, we're talking

about a an object in an NFT. That is fundamentally decentralized, right? It's, it's recorded on a

blockchain that is decentralized. It's right that the product itself, the object itself, is

distributed and decentralized. And then we're trying to like we're having a discussion around

very centralized kind of like monolithic marketplaces, where all of this still has to

happen. It seems philosophically like at odds with the the, the ethos and the thinking behind NF T's

in the first place. I'm

sure you saw this became like a big sort of theme on Twitter over the last couple of

weeks with like Jack Dorsey. And I forget who he was kind of arguing back and forth with basically,

you know, the argument was like, Who owns web three? And it's like, can you really say web three

is decentralized, if something like open sea, you know, is owned by venture capitalists, and just

took $300 million from coke to which the massive hedge fund so it's like, Who is it really

decentralized? If it's, like you just said, owned by one monolithic platform, and that monolithic

platform is owned by the same people owned web do?

I don't know. It was a question I love. I look, I'd love feedback from our listeners

on this one, just what do they think in terms of what do you guys think in terms of, you know,

fundamentally decentralized kind of a product's objects being at odds with completely centralized

and monolithic marketplaces that have clear ownership and things like that? So it's a power

struggle, I think we haven't seen the end of and and I'm, I am curious how it plays out. And I'm

curious, what are you know, listeners think about it. Jeff, let's move on. Because there's a story

here, which also very interesting. And you know, I'll say sort of a fringe Metaverse story here.

And the headline here is, this is from Forbes. The headline is fan controlled Football League raises

40 million Series A round led by cryptocurrency investors. And and so for those of you don't know,

fan controlled football, it's exactly what it is. But what they says it is, I think it's seven on

seven football, where the spectators you the fan can make decisions in terms of the play that's

called in terms of the players that are drafted, right, like you have some level of control over

what goes on on the field. And and they've raised a bunch of money now from Animoca brands and

Delphi, digital, both VCs that specialize in cryptocurrency investments. And let me just be

clear here what the thing they're doing. That is crypto or web three related is they are going to

be minting I think, yeah, they're gonna launch 8888 NF T's related to the four new franchises

that are that are that are coming out. And people who purchase the NF T's will become fans of the

team and have a chance to draft players choose plays and receive other perks. So NF T's I guess

as as as a method of owning and having influence over these new franchises. I'm curious, what are

your I know, Jeff, you're a football fan. What do you think of fan controlled football? And they're

sort of tie in with crypto and NF T's and the metaverse here.

I I actually really like it. You know, so I had been pretty bearish on fan controlled

football previously. Mostly because any any Football League that has tried to start, that

wasn't the NFL has basically failed for the last 30 years, you know, the XFL, twice USFL once the

one they tried last year that failed, the one they're doing this year that I guarantee was also

gonna fail this one prior to this, you know, resuscitation via crypto. So none of them none of

them have worked. That's that's sort of not not the point of the story here. I think the crypto

angle and sort of the NFT angle is interesting. Because it gives one you know it's it's pretty

amazing decentralization the fact that you're sort of giving up ownership of these teams to to the

players kind of almost in a in a dowel like function. To me, I think that's really

interesting. And just to be a fascinating sort of social experiment. And I like that all of them

have sort of like popular crypto personalities behind them like I saw on the article. One of them

was owned by Steve Aoki and other ones owned by Marshawn Lynch and various different

personalities, I think, you know, could potentially grow to have almost like a board a

yacht club type following, you know, if this gets to, you know, a further extent so I think that's

pretty cool. Also, as someone who's a big Madden fan, I love the idea of being able to call plays

and then watch them happen on the field. I've always every time I watch a football game, I think

I can be better than than the coaches. I think it's a cool thing that you know, you'll be able to

do that. Also. I like that it's perfectly to how much of the NFT you own. So it's like if you

theoretically on 51% of the NFT, you can control the game, you're literally the coach or the the

owner of the team. And you're essentially controlling the players on the field. I think

that's, you know, that and of itself is pretty cool and can drive some some value to these coins.

I'm curious how long it's going to be until we see an esports League do this, because to me, this is

essentially, a lot of this can be done with esports. You know, right now you're just doing it

with players like actual human being players, rather than digital players. But a lot of these

same concepts could could easily work with esports. That are those those are some of my

musings. But I'm curious what you think.

No question. Let me just, there was one quote from this, which I want to hone in on.

And I'm curious, specifically what you think on it, because I have some thoughts. And the quote

is, this was from a partner at lightspeed venture capital. And this they're the VC firm that led

FCFS fan control football seed round. And they participated in this current Series A round. And

and he is quoted as saying, there's a ton of overlap of crypto enthusiast, as sports and sports

fans. It's definitely a big Venn diagram overlap, that specifically stood out for me, because I'm

not I wasn't sure if that was actually true. You know, we've had these discussions on business of

esports, around overlap of esports fans and sports fans, and overlap of esports fans in crypto. And

there's very strong overlap between esport like gamers and crypto very strong. But gamers and

sports fans, there's not a lot of overlap. So like by what is it the it's true? Like what is the the

transitive mathematical trillia? Transitive Property? Whatever, right? Like, I'm not convinced

that crypto and sports, there's a ton of overlap here. So while I buy kind of the the premise, and

I think it's cool, personally, right? Is there enough interest from sports fans for this kind of

tie in?

So I'm not sure I've seen the data. But I do think anecdotally we've seen enough in

whether it's, you know, the Staples Center in LA was just renamed crypto comm center FTX invested

in, they renamed I think, the Miami Heat or so like, true, I sure there's enough and to be fair,

that could all just be driven by someone said this quote. And it's like now become a truism. Like,

Oh, of course, there's overlap between sports. But I imagine there's some sort of YouGov type data

source out there. That's that sort of informing all these investments, because we have seen a lot,

and a lot of athletes are taking, you know, doing investments in crypto, or sorry, getting

investments in crypto, and, you know, Tom Brady's a sponsor of FTX, stuff like that. So my guess is

that there is some data out there that showing that this is true. And it's not just everyone got

up believing this myth, but I have not seen the data.

And then might the second sort of thought I had which, and you alluded to it a

little bit, which is like, this is childhood dream, right? It's like, in some ways, it's like

Madden, but in real life. But but then the metaverse sort of the the metaverse Prophet in me

says, Why do we need the real life component then? Right? Like, fundamentally, couldn't we just do

all of this digitally? Right, it could just be fan controlled Madden, which is basically just Madden.

And this is where from a business standpoint, I'm not sure if fan controlled football survives long

term, right? It feels a little bit like a and I think that we're gonna see a lot of this where the

metaverse, we know that and we all talk about capital M is going to be massively disruptive to a

lot of things. And there will be sort of like these middle steps, right, these sort of these,

these not it's not the eventual, let's not the last step, it's not the first step. It's sort of

the small steps in between that you forget about. And this feels a little bit like that. And, and

I'm sure that will be a theme in other podcasts where we see these kind of middle steps that get

disintermediated as technology gets better and go away, like, at some point, VR football is going to

be so good that why would we have fan control, you know, with human players and things like this,

like why wouldn't we just do it all digitally or something like that? I just don't see it as a

viable business long term. And the NFT thing feels well, I get the point. Feels a little bit forced

to me here. Right. This is one of those things where it feels like we'll glom this on and, and

now it's attractive to investors because fundamentally, they could have done this without

NF T's Right? Like they didn't need NF T's to do what they're to do what they're doing

here. Well, some would argue that that's the case for any Anything with NF T's like

you rarely need decentralized blockchain technology. It's just the, you know, the pipes.

But I think I don't disagree with you, this probably probably won't work. I am, like I said

more bullish on this than I was about fan control football, I still don't really I probably wouldn't

be buying some of these tokens, just in my own personal money, but I am more bullish on it. I

will say though, just to give them some credit, in terms of NFT projects we've seen, like crossovers

between NFT and sports, this is one of the more interesting ones and the NFT does get you

something, right, like the fact that if I buy enough in the NFT, I could sit there on a Saturday

morning and literally call the plays that, you know, Johnny Football goes and goes out and does.

That, to me is a heck of a lot more interesting than buying an NBA Top Shot where it's just like,

Oh, I'm watching like a JPEG of someone shooting a free throw like that, you know, to me like that,

that never made sense to me. Like there was not a ton of value there. Whereas this, I do see there

some value. I think there will then be a next step where it gets even more interesting. And maybe

it's having to do with esports maybe it's disintermediating, the physical players, something

like that. But I do think it's a positive step in the right direction. And it's interesting for kind

of the sports Metaverse esports media scene to pay attention to it's an interesting experiment if

nothing else.

I agree. 100% You're right. You make a great point, which I hadn't, you know, I

hadn't thought of it's definitely better than an NBA top shot like that. No question. This is more

interesting. You there's some utility here, right? I come back to that point of like, well, there's

utility at least. It just, it feels like an intermediate step for me that that's the right

word like it feels like a stepping stone to something bigger and better and more interesting

and more true. metaverse. I guess, Jeff, that wraps up this week's podcast man that flew by

show.

That's the one yet best one yet.

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