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Can the NBA Make NFTs Cool? (theverge.com) 103

Posted by BeauHD from the fun-for-the-whole-family dept.
NBA Top Shot is a new use of NFTs, letting users trade virtual clips of their favorite players. "Top Shot is the best chance so far that NFTs -- which are mostly the domain of cryptocurrency enthusiasts -- could go mainstream," writes Elizabeth Lopatto via The Verge. "More than 800,000 Top Shot accounts are registered, leading to $500 million in sales." From the report: There are three big things going for Top Shot: it's easy to use (and designed with people who are unfamiliar with cryptocurrency in mind), the NBA is the second-most-popular sport in America, and purchasable Moments have a familiar real-life parallel: trading cards. Each Moment, a video clip of a specific play, comes with stats about the game it's from and the player featured, as well as the history of sale prices. And like trading cards, you can buy them in packs. The investing community has taken notice. Today, the company that runs Top Shot, Dapper Labs, announced it had a new funding round of $305 million, led by Coatue. Other investors include NBA players such as Kevin Durant, JaVale McGee, and Klay Thompson, as well as a smattering of MLB players, NFL players, Ashton Kutcher, and Shawn Mendes. This round means that the company has raised more than $357 million, Dapper Labs says.

The process of "minting" an NBA Top Shot Moment starts with the basketball game. In any game, there is a handful of notable plays. This means deciding which Moments to mint is a time-consuming process, one that hasn't yet been standardized, says Adrienne O'Keeffe, who leads consumer products and gaming partnerships at the NBA. Right now, it's a stream of emails, Slack channels, and biweekly calls, she says. Once Dapper Labs and the NBA agree on a play, it goes through a review process that includes the National Basketball Players Association. Once it has signed off, the NBA and the Players Association send the Moment-to-be to Dapper Labs to go through the process of minting. In the future, O'Keeffe says, fans might help decide, too. After that, Top Shot mints the NFT -- which creates the beginning of the record. Price, ownership, and transfers will be recorded on the blockchain permanently. This is what makes each Moment unique; even if 100 Moments are made from the same play, no two will be identical. "It's hard not to view Top Shot as an inadvertent social experiment," writes Lopatto in closing. "Fans often feel a sense of ownership over the things they love, even if they don't actually own the intellectual property. Top Shot essentially monetizes this, letting hardcore fans buy a sense of ownership in their favorite plays..."

"Top Shot is a better system than the art NFTs for observing this because the community means there's consensus around price," adds Lopatto. "By contrast, Beeple's NFT famously sold for $69 million -- but there's no real way to know if that valuation is accurate. Whether there's a resale market for that Beeple NFT is an open question, one that might not be answered for some time."
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Can the NBA Make NFTs Cool? More

Can the NBA Make NFTs Cool?

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  • Can the NBA Make NFTs Cool? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @08:04PM (#61219002) Journal

    I sure hope not! But with all the free press I see here, it probably can't be avoided

    • I'm with you, I hope this never becomes a "thing", even though Beau REALLY seems to want it to.

      FTFS:

      purchasable Moments

      I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. And why is "Moments" capitalized, is this some sort of trademark attempt? This kind of shit is getting stupider by the minute. I guess PT Barnum was right, although since the birth rate has gone up since his day there are probably multiple suckers being born every minute.

      • Whoever thought up the idea of NFTs is an absolute genius.

        $500M for selling a bucket of bits? That is amazing.

        • from people trying to make them into a business. The rest have been transparent money laundering. NTFs are almost purpose built for money laundering. You establish a theoretical high dollar value for something that has little to no cost. Then you can "sell" them without raising anyone's suspicions.

          It's a classic money laundering tactic I see in the retro game community all the time (this is the example I keep bringing up because it's the one in a community I take part in, and also it annoys me because i
        • I agree, but the idea is about as novel as white bread. Capitalism is the endless pursuit of attempts to grow the monetary disparity between the cost of something and the ability to assert value as something greater. Baseball cards are the most cited and obvious example, but hell, what exactly dictates that a green plate-printed mug of Ben Franklin is so valuable? I hate to resort to so obvious an adage, but, something is worth precisely what a person will pay for it.
    • NFTs - the Pet Rocks of the 2020s.

      --

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cito ( 1725214 )

      There's so many people confused it seems by nft's. There's been a few folks that bought nft "videos" believing they bought and owned the video but then they uploaded video to YouTube only to get a dmca takedown over not owning copyright lol.

      Seems like a good way to troll people buying picture and video nft's who think they actually purchased ownership of something. It's really just a fancy crypto patreon account.

  • The real question is (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anachronous Coward ( 6177134 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @08:08PM (#61219018)

    When will the buyer's remorse set in?

    • When will the buyer's remorse set in?

      When the resale value collapses.

      But don't count on it. Vintage baseball cards have held up well in value for decades, and they are an equally silly "investment" that appeals to the same demographic.

    • They're buying these things with Bitcoins, so it's like getting buyer's remorse in WoW because maybe you should've bought the different purple armor.

  • NFT articles are SPAM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @08:09PM (#61219028) Journal
    First NFT article on slashdot was February 9th. That was 8 weeks ago. In that time, there’s been a total of 9 articles on NFTs on slashdot. These NFT articles aren’t news, they’re spam.
    • Of those 9 articles, 5 of them were submitted by the same person, BeauHD, and 3 of them were submitted by msmash. We are being spammed.

      • I believe the term you are looking for is investment opportunity. Both BeauHD and msmash want to make sure everyone is aware of the investment opportunities available.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I disagree. 3D printers and blockchains can and do have uses other than just financial gain. NFT's otoh are literally created just to extract cash from people and giving them nothing real in return.

        • Just like baseball cards.

          I actually think in this case all the naysayers are wrong and this kind of collectible will be big. It's really no different than Baseball cards, other than the cards being a physical object. A baseball card is a meaningless bit of cardboard that can be re-printed at anytime, by anybody - that doesn't seem to prevent people collecting them. For kids growing up now, collectibles being virtual is not a barrier. Just for clarity, I'm not saying I like it or support it - I just think i

          • Baseball cards printed today have about the same value leaving the factory when they are opened. That is to say a negligible amount. They only truly become valuable with scarcity and age. This is something the NFTs will never be able to achieve. There won't be large sums of money for keeping this particular piece of cardboard in pristine condition as any owner of the NFT will have a copy as good as the day it was minted. Passwords, accounts, 2FA, backups, etc all mean the chances of straight up losing the N

            • That's a fair point, but from the manufacturers point of view long term collectability is fairly meaningless. They only get money from the initial sale. I get that it might be good for marketing, but in general things have moved on as proven by the massive profits from skins within games like Fortnite.

              • Agreed. From the manufacturer or first sale point of view, it doesn't matter. Sale is a sale. Outside of the prestige of being the original manufacturer of a highly valued card providing some authority to the company there is little value add to the first sale. But... That can be a big feather in the cap for a business. We still (jokingly) talk about Beanie Babies. I've never owned a baseball card in my life but I know of Topps. That brand recognition that reaches across disciplines because of the money cha

          • I bet companies like Tops will get into this soon too as a way to try stay relevant. They already started using fast digital printing to release moments from a game by the next day. They could marry the two things and you could have a nice card to go with your NFT.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      When will /. have its own NFTs? :P

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I was going to be a smartass and make an NFT for your post, but OpenSea requires you have an Etherium wallet, and none of the listed ones are the one I've got, so I didn't.

    • A use for a technology that has only just barely begun to penetrate into the popular consciousness, meanwhile for a lot of people it's a head scratcher in terms of value.

      Seems like the type of thing a news site that focus' on tech would report on a lot.

      I mean, with your SPAM accusation are you really trying to claim that Slashdot has some sort of vested interest in NFTs? That of all of the technology Slashdot or its owners might have a vested interest in it's this nonsense shit?

  • The NCAA can do it and pay the players $0 for useing there image.

  • The average person isn't going to want to buy a block of code telling the world they "own" a video clip that anyone else can watch at any time.

    • You don't need the average person to do it, you need a significant amount of morons to do it which may only be 0.001% of the population that's still 70,000 people. If it catches on then more people will do it because other people are making money of it. The whole thing is just stupid but I am not going predict people not being that stupid, they continue to surprise me.

  • NFTs aren't cool, they're the International Star Registry and Who's Who of $current_year.

  • NFTs will become ultimately become legal tools of oppression to silence media accounts of events. This is media rights allocation on a micro scale, at best.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Lol. You don't think the NFT purchaser is buying actual rights do you?

      • You're telling me that the person that bought Jack's Dorsey's first NFT'd tweet couldn't claim reprint/reproduction rights when it is displayed by others? I'd like to know how this type of purchase is magically different from other types of IP when it comes to distribution/reproduction rights.
        • Only if Jack Dorsey actually registered the copyright and transferred it's ownership to the person that bought the NFT. An entirely separate step that has nothing to do with the crypto side of things. Anyone buying these "Moments" has no ownership whatsoever in the underlying intellectual property. You can own a physical baseball card and still own nothing about the picture or the text that was printed on it. The most you can do is sell your one copy under the 'first sale' doctrine. With this NBA scam you m

  • So why the hell would some weird crypto version of them be? At best this will be a fad that sucks money out of a bunch of fools wallets for a bit.

  • Is this the case of jocks vs geeks/nerds (the g/n finally getting the upper hand) or just your plain conmen taking advantage of the jocks?

  • Artificial scarcity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @09:00PM (#61219156)

    All NFTs are is the introduction of artificial scarcity back into areas where digital technology has eradicated it. The only beneficiaries of artificial scarcity are investors and middlemen. Artists, sports teams and whoever else benefits from first sale get a higher per-sale price, but trade off lower volume for that, so lose overall. Fans lose too, because they can't get hold of memorabilia or if they do it has passed through a price gouging middleman first.

  • NFTs are worthless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jmc23 ( 2353706 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @09:30PM (#61219232) Journal
    You're buying a LINK to an object. It's not even the object itself, just a link. Someone takes down the link, goodbye access and your NFT is worthless.

    • Apart from this, note that you do not exclusively "own" the object. Anyone can follow the same link, if they have it, and have access to the object. The NFT is just a certificate of ownership of a file, which can be copied or accessed by everyone else in the world. What are you paying for, then?

      The only goal of NFT is speculation.

  • There's a sucker born every minute (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jensend ( 71114 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @09:33PM (#61219238)

    Throwing away money for nothing is always cool. To paraphrase a commenter [slashdot.org] from yesterday's /. NFT article:

    An NFT is a cryptographically verifiable certificate proving that you've made some poor life choices.

    The other reason for NFTs to be cool, I guess, would be money laundering.

  • They'll only become cool if someone creates a counterfeit NBA NFT, in the same way someone creates counterfeit NFTs claiming to be a deed to some artwork.

    NFTs only prove ownership of a hash, in the same way that a random costermonger is selling deeds to local bridges. You now have something fancy - and since most NFTs are links to content, doesn't account for the hosting website deciding to take something down (as usual), or an artist being fed up with bandwidth theft and switching their stuff out with an o

  • NFTs are as cool as Beanie Babies used to be.

  • Snake Oil (Score:3)

    by UID30 ( 176734 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @09:57PM (#61219294)

    These people are paying 10s of thousands of $$ to millions of $$ on a url to an image.

    P.T. Barnum would be so proud.

  • The latest pet rock (Score:3)

    by stabiesoft ( 733417 ) on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @10:03PM (#61219308) Homepage
    But at least with the rock, you had a paperweight.
  • This is the NBA's first foray into money laundering.
  • Just imagine selling billions worth of NFTs and then they kill them a few months later, its the perfect business plan and comapny.
  • Let the bidding start. If you win i promise you a thousand virgins and paradise.

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • So I buy an NFT representing a video of a highlight play of a game. WTF do I own, do I own the rights to that part of the video, no I own a unique address assigned to the clip, nothing more. Does not owing the assigned NFT prevent a non-owner from using or viewing the clip, absolutely not. If I understand it correctly the actual owner of the game content is still owned the NBA.

    So, please correct me if I am wrong. The only possible benefit anyone could realize from a purchase is finding another person who th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stdarg ( 456557 )

      Not only does the NBA still own the clip, other people can own NFTs of the same clip lol.

      "Price, ownership, and transfers will be recorded on the blockchain permanently. This is what makes each Moment unique; even if 100 Moments are made from the same play, no two will be identical."

      That's really funny.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Asgard ( 60200 )

      Does the NFT inherently describe the clip, or is it a reference to a database owned by the NBA? IE could the NBA redefine what that NFT actually 'is' ?

  • A scam is a scam is a scam.
    And NFTs are a scam too. ;)

  • "Beeple's NFT famously sold for $69 million -- but there's no real way to know if that valuation is accurate. "

    I think I'm pretty damn certain it's not very accurate.

  • they can make them uncool

  • Front side player, back side a frame of the top shot. NFC chip in it to register/transfer the associated NFT.

    They could sell a picture frame which takes a stack of cards and cycles through the top shots, maybe even offer to sell additional cards (while storing the amount of printed cards on the blockchain).

    The hype of NFT, the physicality of a card.

    Best of both worlds, the hyp

  • Why make a free copy of a digital product when you can give thousands of dollars to people that do not need it. How are NFTs not a scam.
  • ... are known for buying dumb things.

  • Can NFTs make the NBA cool?

    • Nothing can make the NBA (or NFL, MLB, etc) cool until their communists stop kneeling to disrespect my country. With any luck, they can kneel all the way to either ocean, and then drown. Totally unneeded. Rather watch grass grow.

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