A Surprising Sell Out 💸
Featuring the WNBA Game Recognize Game Drop, a Trove of Top Shot Tweets, A Sarver Suspension & More
Good Morning, B&B Squad! Hope you all had an excellent weekend, and that your week is off to a great start!
A look around the NBA water cooler for what’s happening on the hardwood:
Phoenix Suns / Mercury owner Robert Sarver was suspended one year and fined $10M after an investigation by the league into alleged racism, misogyny and being a generally terrible human over his 17 year reign. Unless he is unable to profit, a year suspension seems like a slap on the wrist — and $10M is a drop in the bucket for someone with an estimated net worth of $800M. Like former owner Donald Sterling, Sarver has no place in the league.
Some big exits from EuroBasket, with Nikola Jokic’s Serbia and Giannis Antetokoumnpo’s Greece getting eliminated this week. Take a look at the type of defense Giannis was up against in the loss to Germany! Speaking of Germany — Orlando Magic forward Franz Wagner is absolutely tearing up the tournament.
Nikola Jokic pulls off an off-the-shot-clock (!) layup that is a game-winner in the H-O-R-S-E streets.
Let’s get into all the action from the last few days:
A Surprising Sell-Out 💰
The controversial WNBA Sue Bird Game Recognize Game drop went down this week, and still sold out — despite an outpour of anger on Twitter and Discord regarding the timing of the release.
If a sell-out happens and nobody was there to see it, did it make a sound?
Maybe social media is just an echo-chamber, and there are a lot of collectors who aren’t on it? Because seeing polls like this (obviously a smaller sample size, but jarring nonetheless) and FUD across Discord channels had me struggling to see the potential buyers:
But despite what seemed to be an unenthusiastic crowd, 2,500 packs at $74 sold out. With 5 moments in each pack, the GRG rare moments are holding at prices (low ask between $62 - $78) that make it a pretty low risk, low reward drop — so maybe WNBA fans are just collecting what they love.
In other WNBA news, @Jenford130 and @ndjrs were the two Captains selected to lead community efforts — an initiative that has been a huge positive on the NBA side:
A Trove of Tweets 🐦
With the NBA season a little over a month away, it’s been relatively quiet in the Top Shot content streets — but we’ve had several tweets from employees that hint something exciting is on the horizon:
There is plenty of smoke that the next drop will be a Run It Back historical set, which we know will be from the 1986-87 set. We’ve also got a S4 Roadmap imminent, a snapshot for leaderboards, and (maybe) a truckload of FLOW coming soon.
But the NFT world is an impatient and fickle beast. And often in Top Shot, that results in a messy Twitter experience for the most vocal employees on the app.
Top Shot GM Jayne Peressini’s visibility on Twitter has been a double-edged sword — a welcome powerful voice to connect with the community, but also a target for angry users to take their frustrations out on.
And while I think the people tagging Top Shot employees about their portfolios being down are absolute clowns, I don’t know if engaging them in a public forum is the best vibe:
I appreciate the honesty and insight behind business decisions — I do. I think that Jayne wants what’s best for the platform, and her responses often show how much she cares. But it’s a losing battle — low upside (changing opinions will happen with actions not words) and high risk (only amplifying the negativity).
Jayne might already see the problem, as she is taking a break from Twitter for the time being. Twitter is an endless cesspool, so I hope the break is refreshing and helpful (as a Twitter addict, I wish I could stop myself from checking the bird app every minute).
I also hope that the team understands the pitfalls of overpromising — and that hopium-filled tweets are a risky proposition for a temperamental audience.
Embrace the quiet (unless you are the Doodles Twitter account).
Around The First Mint 🗣
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It's here. The most practical use of sports NFTs has arrived on NFL ALL DAY, and the man behind it all joins us for an in-depth dive into the platform, its future, and his background in sports marketing. Welcome Dave Feldman to the show, the GM of one of the most important products in the space.
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🎧 The King of NFT Twitter (Feat. ThreadGuy)
Thanks for reading! — Zach @ The First Mint
Follow Zach on Twitter at @GhostOfGregOden.
**This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter, podcast, or publication should be considered financial or trading advice of any kind. Please do your own thorough research and make your own trading decisions. This is not advice.”
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