Hopefully this is the right area to post this. Building upon the #YourWildestAssets competition that is being hosted on Twitter by the team, I had my own idea. My real-world use case is the fractionalising of a sports contract- I will use the contract of an NBA player for the purposes of this example.
Logic to implement Altair partnership in sports:
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Sports unite everyone. They capture the attention of a broad range of people- young or old, from all denominations and countries. This is a ‘sexier’ real world use case that would garner a lot of media attention. I am a basketball fan and recently tuned in to see sports journalists devoting a segment to Steph Curry’s bored ape yacht club NFT purchase. I was surprised to see both journalists go into detail on NFTs and discuss different collections. Sports and the media go hand in hand. The fractionalisation of a contract would garner a lot of media attention- imagine Centrifuge / Altair being featured on ESPN / TNT which would be inevitable as this would be a first of kind event. Free publicity, reaching a wide demographic of users would attract new investors who would be interested in investing in Tinlake pools / the Altair equivalent.
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Sportsmen, sportswomen and sports owners have already shown an interest in NFTs (as alluded to above). Some players have requested to be paid fully / partially in Bitcoin. Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks (a popular NBA franchise) has been highly outspoken on his love for NFTs. Mark is a billionaire entrepreneur and crypto investor that crosses genres, presenting tv shows such as Shark Tank. He started his own NFT platform (Lazy.com) and pushes NFT adoption on social media. He is exactly the sort of figure who might take the plunge and agree to the fractionalisation of a player’s contract. Another example of crypto crossing paths with the NBA is the multi-year jersey sponsorship the Portland Trailblazers entered into with a crypto company. In the event the fractionalisation of a contract is not interesting, the fractionalisation of a NBA sponsorship deal is also a possibility.
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In terms of potential contracts to target for real world NFTs, I believe the veterans minimum contract type could be perfect for a wild assets Altair experiment. Every March, after the closing of the NBA trade window, teams tend to buy out players. These players are then made available on waivers and are usually picked up by title contending teams on smallish contracts. This year two superstar All-NBA level players with multiple All-Star appearances were signed to veteran minimum contracts to allow them to sign with title contending teams. This is a regular yearly occurrence. Their two contracts were valued between $750k-$1.2M which are realistic sums which could be funded by Tinlake / Altair pools. The two teams they signed for are in massive markets- Los Angeles and Brooklyn. Had their contracts been available for fractionalisation by people of Los Angeles and Brooklyn it would have created an extraordinary amount of hype. The sums mentioned above are reasonable and the thought that fans could contribute this amount seems realistic. The fact that buy outs happen regularly each March would create a reasonable window for the team to work with team owners to broach this area with them and determine if it is feasible or pie in the sky.
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Teams themselves may like the idea of allowing their community to have part ownership of a contract as it would allow their fanbase to feel closer to the players. This would be a great avenue for the general public to get closer to their teams and be more involved on a one-off basis.
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Building on this idea, there are other options available that build upon this. The NBA has announced they are considering adding 2 new franchises to the league for the 2022-2023 season. Could we have the first fan owned teams….with the purchase process managed via Altair? Far fetched? Yes, but maybe not further down the line.
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Although in a different sport and smaller league, there is precedent for fans assisting their team. Darlington FC, a smaller English soccer team have their player purchases partially funded by their fans. It is also fairly common for soccer teams worldwide to be owned outright by their fans, with numerous clubs as big as Real Madrid being managed via fan votes- imagine a sports team being managed by a DAO. The ideas mooted above are not restricted to basketball, I simply used it for explanation purposes throughout. #YourWildestAssets
