INSERT: We had some late night drama in the NCAA, as #16 seed FDU took down #1 seed Purdue. This was 3rd time in 3x years that Purdue lost to 13 seed or higher, and FDU was ranked literally last out of 363 teams in advanced KenPom ratings (Purdue was #1).

Angela Moryan @SidelineStormer

The whiteboard in #Purdue’s locker room #MarchMadness @WISH_TV #BoilerUp

Madness has been astounding. Ok, now onto the lead story…

Doodles In Crisis Mode 😱

Boy oh boy. What a mess.

This week, following months of scrutiny and pressure to deliver, Doodles co-founder Poopie finally snapped and told holders that Doodles is no longer an “NFT project”.

Reminder: Doodles is the 11th most traded NFT collection ever ($600M in volume), has raised a $50M round of funding, and recently moved to FLOW.

The Drop @thedropnft

BREAKING: @doodles IS “NO LONGER AN NFT PROJECT.” 🤔

He then told the complainers to shove it.

And many holders took the message to heart; they literally sold all their Doodles, and the floor price dropped 20%.

Soldman Gachs @DrSoldmanGachs

Ok @poopie you douchebag, I took your advice to "floor it and gtfo". What should I buy with the 10.3e I managed to get out?

poopie 🗺 @poopie

hey web3, here are my comments on the feedback "doodles isn't an NFT project" this is true. but what’s also true is i've dedicated my career to the blockchain. i'll never abandon the pursuit of delivering the promises of this tech to the world. doodles started as an NFT… https://t.co/Eq9fZN3sx4

Come on man.

I really can’t stand this attitude of “we’ll show all of you, but fuck off anyways”.

I’m sure its frustrating to answer to degens who higher floor prices and delivery on product - but this type of temperament is completely unacceptable for someone running a company that raised $50M.

To be fair, he later ~~apologized and admitted he was wrong~~ wrote a corporate-sounding follow up, where he attempted to clarify that he wants Doodles to be *bigger* than NFTs.

But the damage may be done.

tre @trebooomin

Most NFTs projects we once thought of as 'blue-chips' will continue to fade into obscurity. Common themes across them: 1) leadership disconnected to the quickly evolving space & trends 2) poor execution 3) teams prioritizing mass adoption way more than their existing holders

Anyway. Enough of that poopie.

Let’s get into the *serious business* of sports NFTs and all the action from this week.

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That’s right, we’ve got some ad space available right here in the newsletter! Reaching over 5,600 hyper-engaged and freaky sports fans every week, this publication has been a staple of the community since early 2021. Email us today!

Here is what’s on tap:

🐬 Zora FREE Open Edition | 30 seconds

Zora is one of the most respected minting platforms in the Ethereum Ecosystem (I’ve minted many projects with them). They are holding an FREE open mint to celebrate the re-launch of their platform.

👑 Open a FREE Draft Kings PGA Pack | 30 seconds

To celebrate its launch of the PGA product, Reignmakers has a free pack available right now with NFTs that can be used towards upcoming tournaments.

🥋 Karate Airdrop Registration | 60 seconds

Karate Combat is a Karate League (similar to UFC) that is now tokenizing in some way. They’ve partnered with our friends at Krause House (DAO that wants to buy an NBA team) on a new content series. They’ve promised an airdrop sometime soon, and this one is very very NFA.

🫂 Support Team Hold!

Our friends at Team Hold are raising funds to expand their content offering, and they’re turning to the community for support! Mike Zakarian is as good a content creator as they come in our community, and TH deserves every inch of support for making endless hours of FREE content every week.

🏟️ Sorare + Candy MLB Roadmaps for S2

As stated last week, I’m a firm believer that the current baseball NFT platforms are wasting a golden opportunity, as both Candy and Sorare sit below 400 weekly unique buyers with Opening Day looming (March 30).

But at last, both platforms rolled out their Series 2 plans this week. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve marked what I like and don’t like with some colours.

Candy Season 2

🟢 Candy Campaigns: Various challenges that introduce a “Campaign Score” and will carry over through the campaign. Basically: a season-long competition. Nice.
🟢 Code Breakers: “Fans will be able to use their baseball knowledge to crack the code and earn points and exclusive digital collectibles.” I’m listening.
🟢 ICONs Pass: A special “insert card” that gives you a FREE pack for EVERY drop this coming season and can only be pulled in packs. I love that!
🔴 Monthly ICON Themes: Each month’s drops will focus on a different type of player grouping, so for example May will be ROOKIE themed. Meh.
🔴 Play of the Week: Last season, they minted a DAILY play of the day, but will be expanding to a weekly drop with 10x plays of the week. Too much supply!
🔴 Historical Drops: More historical players (there are already too many) will be dropped every single month. I don’t know why every platform insists on this.

After the release, I went straight to the Discord to ask about the absolute most pressing issue which was NOT addressed anywhere: Growth & Marketing.

MegMurr, Head of Experience, responded:

I love that third point.

For a long time I’ve believed thats sports collectible NFTs need to meet fans where they are - and doing this with actual card collectors is a good start. I also love the idea of going to trade shows, which NBA Top Shot is doing at the end of this month.

Sorare MLB Season 2

🔴 Same Rarity as last year: Nothing will change. Yawn!
🔴 New Competitions: They will be league-based, so one for the AL and one for the NL. Not the wildest announcement.
🔴 Scoring Change: They will add points for Relief Appearances by pitchers, and reduce points for players caught stealing. The tournaments need bigger rosters.
🟢 Cap on Common Cards: These cards are not tradable and the limit will be 15 (as opposed to infinite in the NBA). I like this part.

And then the rest was cosmetic changes, like a new homepage (lol).

The lone bright spot came from the Reddit AMA with the head of engineering, who hinted at ETH Rewards coming soon.

One can only hope!

📦 Top Shot Sells Out Latest Drop

Man, Top Shot is wild sometimes.

Despite all the FUD, all the oversupply, and everything thats happened - they still find a way to regularly sell out their packs, and still make them a positive value for buyers.

NBA Top Shot @NBATopShot

Happy Pack Drop Day! 🏀 10 Moments. $25. Guaranteed Rare or Rookie. ⏰ Noon ET: Waiting Room Open ⏰ 1pm ET: Drop Begins 🏀 Join: hoo.ps/xl-drop Which NBA stars will you add to your collection?

This past week, the team sold 22,500 Hot Packs XL for $25 each, with the packs containing 10x Moments each from various stars and sets (including Rares).

The drop was relatively well received, with many collectors stoked to pull Rares and good players. With the end of the season approaching, all eyes are on the team for a potential playoff push into new users.

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🧢 Rug Radio Signs With Sorare

NFT Media company Rug Radio has signed what appears to be a long term media deal with Sorare, which includes the launch of a “sports vertical”.

Rug Radio 🎙 @RugRadio

Love sports & NFTs? 👀👇 🏈 Rug Radio is partnering with @Sorare @Sorarenba and launching a new sports vertical led by @BusterScher 🏀 Sorare is a popular, free-to-play fantasy sports game that leverages officially licensed NFTs from the Premier League, NBA, and MLB More 👇

Basically, Rug is gonna do a show about sports, led by Buster Scher (the guy who started Hoops Nation), and that is fully sponsored by Sorare. It will focus largely on Sorare’s NBA and Soccer platforms.

This represents yet another example of Sorare’s ability to spend their marketing money on influencers, as their list now includes:

Will the strategy pay off though?

Rug Radio’s audience is largely the “front page of OpenSea” types, and have likely already been heavily exposed to Sorare.

More content could be helpful for them, but without the chance to make gobs of money (like you can flipping jpegs), its hard to see a world where much of RR’s audience comes over to the french platform.

A reminder on current weekly Sorare buyers:

TheFirstMint @TheFirstMint

🛍️ Sports NFTs | Weekly Unique Buyers 🛍️ Some large dips on the Dapper side as the prior week featured various pack drops📦 Candy numbers were omitted as their Getty Images totals could not be separated from Baseball product⚾

🐳 Dingaling Banks 1600 ETH on BAYC

We’ve covered Dookey Dash in this newsletter a few times - the Bored Apes video game where you swim through a sewer to capture a key out of a monkey’s butthole.

And now, the next chapter is being written, as users were able to trade in their Sewer Passes for “Power Sources” this past week.

Bored Ape Yacht Club @BoredApeYC

We’ve Dookey’d and we’ve dashed. Now the holder of the Key can begin to fulfill Gary the Dog Prophet’s prophecy by releasing the power from within the Box. The Summoning begins in one hour…

Our old friend Dingaling, who is a super collector whale in the space, paid pro gamers thousands of dollars to play Dookey Dash on his behalf - and is now reaping the profits.

dingaling 丁丁 @dingalingts

Originally thought I overpaid the pro gamers playing my passes for 300 ETH but ended up with: 9 x Holos 101 x Reavers 31 x Celestials 74 x Knights (and 85 companions) = ~ 1900 ETH Nice cook. Thanks again Yuga 🙇‍♂️

The next phase of the story, Mechs, takes place this week.

Like many others, I picked Furman (a school I’d never heard of until last week) to win their first round matchup over Virginia.

And boy did they ever make it interesting. Down 50-38, they clawed back only to trail by four points with 19 seconds left, and then won on this epic 3p.

NCAA March Madness @MarchMadnessMBB

ARE YOU SERIOUS?! 😨 FURMAN WITH THE STEAL AND 3 TO TAKE THE LEAD WITH 2.2 SECONDS REMAINING #MarchMadness

The WBC was on this week, and there were some great feel good stories that came out of it; mainly obscure players impressing their major league counterparts.

MLB @MLB

Yesterday, 21-year-old Nicaragua pitcher Duque Hebbert struck out the heart of the Dominican Republic's lineup. After the game, he signed a minor league deal with the @tigers. 👏

ESPN @espn

Bigger than baseball 💯 (📸 @OndrejSatoria, h/t @BaseballBrit, @BaseballCzech)

Re: Purdue.

Overtime @overtime

Virginia and Purdue next weekend

This was from before Purdue lost. But still relevant!

Pardon My Take @PardonMyTake

The bracket is set

Meanwhile in NFTs.

Cozy ⓣhe Caller 🔥💃🏻 @cozypront

GM to all of my 5 active followers 🟨

And following last weekend’s massive dip in the crypto market, and with BTC approaching $28k.

Sheldon The Sniper @Sheldon_Sniper

Cozy ⓣhe Caller 🔥💃🏻 @cozypront

Why would crypto do this?

**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.”

About The First Mint

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