This Week in NFTs 🏆
Featuring the WNBA Roadmap, Sorare "Sandlot", physical NFTs, and a new Tom Brady football team.
What’s up everyone, and happy weekend.
It’s actually a long one here in Canada (“Victoria Day”), and I’m actually quite happy with the state of NFTs.
No really, I mean that.
It’s slow. And I like it.
That stretch from November 2020 to November 2022 was so intense - sleepless nights, missed alpha, highs and lows, scandals galore - that I quite enjoy these long peaceful breaks. Especially with covid basically over.
Of course, I believe there will be a day when NFTs rise again, either in speculative market form or just as the backend of the internet we all expect them to become.
But it’s not right now.
And its especially not right now in the sports NFT world, despite the fact that companies are still being funded, and supply is still being grossly released.
In today’s Edition
The WNBA Top Shot Roadmap
Sorare MLB introduces “The Sandlot”
Assassin’s Creed to Release Physical NFTs
Tom Brady & Autograph joins Sim Win
Karate Combat Raises $18 million for web3
Looking for FREE and easy things to do in NFTs this week?
We got you covered:
📚 Free Zerion NFT | 30 seconds
Zerion is one of my fave portfolio tracking platforms, and it works quite well for both tokens AND nfts. No, it doesn’t include flow (none of them do).
🥅 Sign up for NHL Breakaway Beta Access | 60 seconds
The NHL is coming to NFTs, via a licensee named Sweet. No packs yet, but more news is coming this week. Apply here for Beta Access!
⛳ Open a FREE Draft Kings PGA Pack | 60 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.
🏀 WNBA Roadmap Released on Top Shot
There are currently over 1.4 million WNBA Moments on Top Shot.
Let that sink in.
Needless to say - I’m not wild about there being more supply here.
Yes, the league has some stars and legends, but at this point in time, any new supply feels forced - especially for a league with a far smaller following.
The Details for the 2023 Season:
New mint counts: Legendaries /27, Rares /199, Common /2500.
No drops until the All-Star game.
Only four sets being minted.
They should just skip the season. Or just mint /25 of each of the starting 5 from the All-WNBA team.
🧢 Sorare MLB introduces “The Sandlot”
It’s not what you think lol.
Sorare is launching a new “Sandlot” competition, where players can enter cards of ALL rarities - a clear advantage to the big money whales on the platform.
The competitions will follow a paid-reward structure, which would be awesome if the winner got more than $50 measly dollars
Friendly reminder that Sorare MLB pulled a 94% rake last year. For comparison, Draft Kings Reignmakers had a rake of 38%.
🧊 Assassin’s Creed to Release Physical NFTs
You read that right.
Assassin’s Creed announced physical 3D renderings of NFTs, which will be available for claim following an in-platform customization. This is a big step for the gaming world!
And man, they look slick.
You can read more about it in this thread, and follow the digital collectibles Twitter account here.
You think EA would ever let us physically print our custom-made players from NBA 2K?
🕹️ Tom Brady & Autograph joins Sim Win
Credit to Tom - he has actually fulfilled his promise of coming back to his controversial NFT startup, Autograph, and making something happen with it.
This week, they announced that Autograph would be launching its own team in SimWin, a virtual football league that counts Magic Johnson and Jerry Rice among franchise owners.
You know who else owns a franchise in SimWin?
Our friends at Own The Moment.
🥋 Karate Combat Raises $18 million for web3
Karate Combat is…a fighting league? A real one? I think its a UFC competitor.
Whoever they are, they just raised $18 million in funding from some big names (Delphi Digital, Packy McCormick, among others).
The funding will be used to “support the launch of the Karate Combat App and $KARATE token on May 10th.”
It’s a strange time of year.
We’ve reached the Conference Finals in the NBA and NHL, which is exciting, but there are far fewer games than a month ago. Boring!
Especially when a hockey game goes to FOUR OVERTIMES.
And dare I say, is that LBJ looking his age?
This man is a freak of nature, and its OK if he missed sometimes.
Last one is actually a highlight from last year’s ECF, which is the same as this year (Heat vs Celtics).
For all the “underdog” talk directed towards Jimmy Butler and the Heat, I think many forget just how close they came to third 2nd finals appearance in 3 years last spring.
Watch this clip - the last 3 minutes of last year’s game 7. The Heat are down by 14, and then go on a massive run and almost take the lead on a Jimmy 3-pointer with 17 seconds left on the clock.
**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
A web3 sports community. Collectibles, NFTs, and Metaverse.
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Skip the season? What’s the point of collecting then? Let’s never mint another wnba moment and we’ll go back to collecting cardboard images. Give me a break