- Decentra Daily
- Posts
- Disney and the NFL are doubling down on NFTs and Web3
Disney and the NFL are doubling down on NFTs and Web3
Winter is here, but so are more big brands
Decentra Daily
July 14, 2022
Happy Thursday! or Friday if you live in Australia, which way is your water flushing?
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
More tales from the metaverse, cropped and compressed just for you:
1. This year’s Disney Accelerator has been announced, and it’s all about Web3
Participants include NFT social apps, virtual eCommerce stores, dynamic AR headsets – and most interestingly, the blockchain Polygon.
2. The NFL is expanding its NFT commemorative tickets to 100+ games next season
In other Polygon news, the NFL is switching from Polygon to the Flow blockchain and giving away commemorative NFT tickets for over 100 games – that’s a huge expansion over last season.
Also today:
Winners and Losers
The Daily Listen
Polygon X Disney (2022 Accelerator)
Disney’s 2022 Accelerator is all about “building the future of immersive experiences,” meaning there’s a heavy focus on NFTs, AR, and a bunch of other Web3 stuff.
It’s another sign that those pantless-duck-loving Imagineers are turning towards the metaverse, after news in April that the company’s “Next Generation Storytelling” team is busy developing fundamental strategies to take Disney into Web3.
Yesterday, the six participating companies were announced, including the blockchain Polygon, plus AR headset company Red 6.
What do the companies get? A summer of “guidance from Disney’s senior leadership team, as well as a dedicated executive mentor.” Considering Disney’s history of pivoting to the latest tech-driven storytelling methods (and ability to monetize storytelling experiences), it all seems like a good fit.
Previous Disney accelerator success stories?
Since Disney’s program began in 2014, over 50 startups across toys, entertainment, education, and other Disney-related niches have taken part.
Epic Games and Kahoot! both graduated from the accelerator in 2017 – although they were already a considerable size at the time.
LittleBits from the class of 2016 creates tech toys that have ranked 1st on Amazon over the holiday season.
Earlier participants VOID and ILMxLAB collaborated with Lucasfilm to create the Star Wars VR experience Secrets of the Empire.
Other notables include Hanson Robotics, Sphero, and Tyffon.
What’s going on with Polygon right now?
Alongside the accelerator, Polygon has been involved in a few good news stories recently.
Last week, they announced a partnership with Reddit for an NFT-based avatar marketplace. Redditors will be able to collect blockchain-backed avatars, many of which are designed by longstanding Reddit artists.
According to the social media company, “each avatar has been priced at a fixed amount and is purchasable with fiat (government-issued) currencies.” So, no auctions. But owners are still free to use their avatars off-platform like regular NFTs.
Why care about the Disney accelerator?
Listen to 𝖕 𝖚 𝖋 𝖋:
It’s true. These projects aren’t publicity stunts (at least, mostly) but validated startups already doing real things to help integrate IRL experiences with Web3.
The other 5 companies taking part in Disney’s 2022 accelerator:
Flickplay – an AR social app for discovering NFTs in real-world locations
Inworld – an AI character engine
Lockerverse – the Web 3.0 platform that empowers creators and brands to tell culture-defining stories and deliver unique access and experiences.
Obsess – a virtual store e-commerce platform
Red 6 – an AR headset company focused on dynamic environments
Here’s @PuffYatty’s full thread with more about the chosen companies.
NFT ticket stubs coming to loads of NFL games
Do you keep ticket stubs for concerts, movies, and memorable sports games? As a level-64 minimalist, I would never dream of cluttering up my dojo with such useless nostalgia.
But last season’s NFL NFT ticket stubs proved popular enough for the league to expand the project by 5X, now rolling out to over 100 games in the 2022/23 season.
How it works:
Attend one of these NFL games
After the game, redeem your NFT counterpart stub on Ticketmaster
Add the NFT to your virtual collection or resell it on the Ticketmaster marketplace (sales via crypto are not yet supported)
As with last year, the whole project is run through Ticketmaster, meaning interested fans are restricted to buying tickets through the company and accessing their NFTs using the Ticketmaster wallet. You can also view your ticket collection at nfl.live-nfts.com/.
Still, it’s a great way to recapture some of the magic lost in the transition from paper to digital ticketing. The NFL also admit they’re still “in the test-and-learn phase” of digital collectibles, and are “keeping an eye on resale interest.”
For the new season, the stubs will be built on Flow instead of Polygon, in line with another NFL project NFL All Day, backed by NBA Top Shot creators Dapper Labs.
The virtual stubs are only available to attendees of the related games – and the best part: they’re free. So whether you’re collecting them as a fan or investor, you may even recoup your losses on overpriced stadium beer.
Here’s the full story, by Decrypt.
Winners and Losers
The projects that have stood out to us the most in the past 24 hours, the good, and bad.
Winner: Nice Official - Floor price up 95% in the last 24 hours (0.067 ETH → 0.15 ETH)
I don’t pretend to know much about E-Sports, but these guys seem to. This is a pass into the Nice ecosystem, which aims to build a community in the E-Sports world. Hosting tournaments, creating a DAO, signing teams eventually. Who knows if they can deliver, but the pass was free to mint so you know it’s not a cash grab.
Loser: Nina's Super Cool World - Floor Price down 31% in the last 24 hours (0.901 ETH → 0.625 ETH)
Nina Chanel Abney is a renowned artist. But sometimes, as we’ve seen with David Choe’s recent release (Munkos) and Takashi Murakami’s Murakami.Flowers project which was put on hold, being a mainstream artist doesn’t always translate into NFT success. Still up from the mint price of 0.5 ETH though! This was the first release from GODA, the Gallery of Digital Assets that are bringing contemporary artists into the NFT space. Those GODA mint passes ain’t cheap so hopefully, they find ways to bring value.
The Daily Listen
New section here today, where we highlight our favourite podcasts and episodes from Web3.
A great podcast overall for learning more about web 3, Jay was there from Web3 Academy and had some cool takeaways. My personal favourite? That NFT NYC didn’t use NFTs as access passes to their events!! Just boring old badges like your Dads annual sales conference in Orlando. Find out if it’s worth your time to check it out next year. (Spoiler: The parties are where it’s at).
Headlines of the day
Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.