How a Pro Basketball League Owned by Bored Ape Yacht Club and other NFT Projects Can Not Only Rebound NFTs but Also Accelerate Adoption into the NFT Market and Web 3

6 min readJun 16, 2022

Even if you don’t care about basketball, read this… it’s cool and interesting.

I recently read a blog post by DOOMbot (here) about the Big3 basketball league. They play faster, more engaging 3-on-3 basketball on a smaller court.

Several NFT projects own teams, which is very cool.

Big3 basketball

I read DOOMbot’s blog with the backdrop of the recent market changes.

I thought, “what an incredible opportunity to expand web3 / NFTs to a new, larger community of people who don’t yet fit the profile of an NFT buyer.”

In other words, it is a perfect venue to bring new people into the NFT market with a new kind of NFT (and new utility).

A rising tide raises all boats

I’m far from a professional trader and fit more on the entrepreneur side.

Good or bad, I like to keep things simple.

In my simple view, in the last few weeks, we’ve seen:

People buy/sell things for less
People exit the community (anecdotal)

A sophisticated trader can likely make that statement look foolish, but in simple terms, that’s what happened.

Most people who are still on their boats are building or waiting. Those are probably intelligent things to do.

What if we did something different?

What if we intentionally brought the tide back and raised all the boats?

If I had no conflict, there would be no interest

Full disclosure, the proposed solution includes our project.

That’s why we see a solution that most don’t see. We know an option that isn’t visible because others haven’t seen it.

As my rich uncle once mused, “Of course, I have a conflict of interest. If I had no conflict, I would have no interest.”

Anyone else out there with a project on the rise, in process, now is not the time to be bashful.

Helping the community is an active process right now. Be willing to get your ideas out there, step on some toes, and fail.

(Conservative with fiscal matters, aggressive with building and promoting)

The puzzle pieces

Here are the puzzle pieces:

A basketball league aiming at increased fan engagement
Multiple teams owned by NFT projects who understand marketing and web3 (and have a future vision to grow)
A wearable to tie the two together and add to the NFT market

The first two don’t need an explanation.

Number three is the conflict of interest.

We have a motion capture wearable, which:

is mobile and doesn’t need cages or cameras
only takes a couple of minutes to put on
calibrates in less than a second
is publishable. Creators can create content in a few minutes without engineering assistance.
is made for consumers, not professionals

In short, it is user friendly and it works.

It’s fast, can record any movement accurately and is easily used by anyone who can use a computer.

A game

The initial wearable experience is a game.

Here’s the basic scenario:

Pro player puts on the wearable, records a shot or trick play, and creates a game (easy).
Fans do their best to copy the pro player’s shot.
The fan gets a score, which is representative of the quality of their shot compared to the model.
That score gets ranked compared to all other players.
Fans are rewarded for ranking, getting better, and practicing a lot.

Best of all (beyond the fan engagement), the fan learns how to play better in the real world, not just in the game.

I’ll say it differently, playing the game makes them play better in the real world.

They get rewarded in the virtual world and the real world.

How great is that?

Living the community

Let’s use the team owned by BAYC as an example.

Bored Ape Yacht Club Team — the Enemies

The pro player can be a Bored Ape and do the shot as their Bored Ape.

The fan player can also be a Bored Ape.

You get to BE A BORED APE and play basketball! Are you kidding me???

It all adds value and interest to the BYAC brand… and all NFTs.

A different kind of NFT

3D Data

The pro players’ avatars and 3-D data of their shots have the option to sell as NFTs.

That data can be used in a variety of ways (virtual coaching, gaming, etc).

Now a new crowd of engaged fans is interested in a BAYC NFT.

And… Wow, when they go to the market to purchase, they like the new VeeFriends or Okay Bears.

VeeFriends — another Big3 team owner

Land Ho

We can convert the player data inside the NFTs to work in Decentraland or Sandbox (or other) formats.

Decentraland & Sandbox

I’m no Decentraland / Sandbox expert (I want to be), but I would imagine that creates an opportunity to accelerate quality gaming and experiences on those platforms.

The Virtual World projects win, too.

More…

There are many more things, but we will stop there.

We can’t tell you everything all at once.

If you’re in one of the NFT Communities that own a team and think this is a cool idea, get your community involved and send us a DM on twitter (@pinagamenft)