by Lydia Ludmila 
It was a relatively quiet week in the sports and crypto crossover of content that we aim to cover each weekend, but there’s still action nonetheless. While the NBA Finals are underway, that didn’t stop basketball from being a focal point of conversation this week – in both the NBA and elsewhere – when it came to crypto conversations.
Let’s review a new NBA insights report, a sports league’s fresh take on ownership, and a new non-traditional NFT release that has arrived.
The Sports Slice
Crypto Partners Surge Into NBA’s Top Tier Of Sponsor Categories
As the NBA Playoffs enter the Finals, and the end of the season approaches, a new report from SBJ details that cryptocurrency sponsors have surged in the league’s sponsorship categories, skyrocketing from 43rd to 2nd in terms of sponsorship spend from last season to this season. Consulting firm IEG estimates a sponsorship spend league-wide that totals between $100M and $150M this season, second to only technology companies – who shelled out a cool $170M this season.
Those are both a small slice of the $1.6B spent in total sponsorship revenue, and the crypto spend has been largely saturated by major players that include Coinbase, Crypto.com, Webull, Socios, and FTX. Banks, telecom, and sports apparel and footwear are all categories in the same echelon, also spending in that $100M to $150M range.
The Sports Business Journal team details some other growth insights as well, noting that crypto firms signed on to nine new NBA jersey patch deals, a new league-wide sponsor in Coinbase, and new arena naming rights deals for FTX and Crypto.com.
On The Cusp Of A New Season, The BIG3 League Opens Up More Ownership Opportunities Via NFTs
The BIG3 basketball league has seen a few features in our weekly Sports Slice, and will see another highlight this week as the league gears up for a new NFT release that is coming down the pipeline. The new ‘Forever Experience Action Tokens,’ or FEATs, will list for $4,500 on the league’s official NFT site. 375 FEATs will be made available for sale, with an additional 100-200 being available should demand permit, with a hard cap of 975. Check out just a few of the benefits that the FEATs plan on bringing to the BIG3 ecosystem:
- Allow users to specifically select which team to purchase a stake in
- Highlights and more available to FEAT owners, license-free
- FEAT owners have a chance to receive a championship ring if their team wins the title
It’s the latest development in the increasingly interesting case study that is BIG3 crypto exploration. Last month, Solana-based project ‘DeGods’ utilized their DAO to approve an ownership spend that amounted to roughly $625,000 to purchase BIG3 team ‘Killer 3s.’
The BIG3 season is just a couple weeks ago and has a slate of games that includes distribution on the likes of CBS and Paramount+.
WWE Gears Up For Latest NFT Drop
It’s not professional boxing, the UFC, or another MMA-adjacent league, but the WWE is certainly respected and still watched by many after decades of success. The WWE plays right into the hand of ‘more entertainment than sports’ by tapping into NFTs to connect with their audience. The WWE’s NFT debut site, Moonsault, has launched with an initial collection, titled ‘Hell In A Cell.’ In late May, WWE fans received an initial NFT airdrop following the initial platform announced just two months prior.
Things move quickly in this space, and today 10,000 ‘Hell In A Cell’ NFTs have swiftly sold out, priced at $30 per ‘case’ (each case consists of 3 NFTs). At time of publishing, the WWE official NFT marketplace is seeing the floor of those cases at around $55. The NFTs are operated on the Eluvio blockchain, a name not often mentioned here at The Sports Slice. Eluvio has a large focus on streaming and ticketing of content and events through blockchain technnology, and boasts itself as an environmentally-friendly L2. Eluvio partners include production-first firms like Paramax Films and others.
