by Lydia Ludmila 
Sports and crypto continue to see major crossover, and while some deals come to an impending close, other doors have opened this past week as well. Bear markets will shake out unstable or unsustainable players, and push effective and efficient players to their brink.
CeFi platforms have been falling, and with that comes question marks over sports deals, but that hasn’t stopped interest from young athletes to build products, and it hasn’t stopped exchanges from finding new deals, too.
Let’s review all of the sports and crypto action from the past week.
The Sports Slice
NIL’s Latest: UVA Linebacker’s New NFT Venture
Builders are valued in crypto regardless of specialty. UVA defensive end Jack Camper has partnered with three long-time friends and fellow student athletes to launch ‘College Cards NFTs,’ a new platform to aims to provide name, image and likeness (NIL) resources to student-athletes across the U.S. Camper told local outlet Richmond.com:
“We don’t really see anybody doing what we’re doing.. The athlete owns, sells and receives 87½% of the sale. We gave them the ability to create their own NFTs so it creates a unique experience for the person that’s actually buying it. It’s more player-run. There’s more of a relationship within the sale, so it’s more personalized.”
On Voyager’s Bankruptcy, Sports Sponsorships Come Into Question
Voyager holds one of the NWSL’s largest sponsorship deals in the league’s history, and has filed for bankruptcy this past week as another one of the crumbling institutional dominos in crypto. The deal leaves questions marks over the future of the centralized exchange and the emerging and high-flying women’s soccer league.
The NWSL isn’t the only one dealing with question marks over relationships, as Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks also have an established partnership with Voyager, which will also be up for speculation. A New York Post hit piece already details fans ‘lashing out’ at Cuban for doing the deal. Lastly, Voyager also holds individual partnership deals, including the NFL’s Rob Gronkowski and NASCAR driver Landon Cassill.
There’s little case studies to reflect on here, though interestingly, the Washington Nationals are still displaying Terra Luna brand assets behind home plate despite the ugly mass crash of the LUNA token (following the UST depeg drama) earlier in the year.
OKX Signs On With Manchester City For Training Kit Sponsorship
While some sponsorships have been put into question, it seems that others have sprouted new life (see: Cristiano Ronaldo and Binance recently) or bolstered existing relationships. One example this past week was exchange OKX, who signed on with powerhouse football club Manchester City earlier in the year. The exchange has expanded the partnership with the club to now include rights to be the club’s official training kit partner for the 2022-23 season.
While financials around the details of the partnership expansion haven’t been released, a Forbes report cited a source stated that “the expanded agreement will net the reigning Premier League champions more than $20 million this season.”
Despite the bolstering of this deal, it comes at a time when a hot market in crypto sponsorships has turned to a lukewarm temperature; sports industry veteran Joe Favorito told Forbes that “the market has definitely slowed… You haven’t seen a patch come off an umpire’s uniform or the name removed from an arena. But the ancillary spending has definitely been cut back, whether that’s major ads and things like the NBA Finals.”
Manchester City, one of the premier football clubs across the globe, released a fan token courtesy of a partnership with Socios, and has signed on OKX as an official cryptocurrency partner.
How NFTs Could Power The Next Wave Of Sports Memorabilia
A new report from Market Decipher expects the sports memorabilia market to hit nearly $230B by 2032, a hefty forecasted growth rate over the next ten years. The firm estimates the market’s current size at around $26B from 2021 numbers, with NFTs currently estimated at $1.4 billion and are forecasted to reach $92 billion by 2032. That forecast estimates NFTs totaling roughly 40% of all collectibles in 10 years.
Sports collectibles are arguably the root of crypto engagement in sports with the growth of NBA Top Shot often cited as a reflection of broader sports engagement across the NFT landscape.
