With Jordan Launching his NFT Platform, What Impact will Web 3.0 have in Reconstructing the Fan Economy?

【TL; DR】

1. On December 16, Michael Jordan and his son founded a Web 3.0 start-up, Heir Inc.
2. Heir Inc. will launch a blockchain social platform with the same name built on Solana in 2022. They will mint and issue HEIR tokens and a limited number of unique NFT assets on the platform.
3. Similar platforms to Heir that allow the issuance of personal tokens include Rally and Roll.
4. Some clubs and other institutions will also issue native tokens, which are called "Fan tokens", of which the most well-known is Chiliz.
5. A number of clubs, including Football Club Internazionale Milano S.p.A. ($INTER), Foot-ball Club Barcelona ($BAR and Paris Saint-Germain Football Club ($PSG), have cooperated with Chiliz to launch exclusive fan tokens for each of their clubs.

On December 16, former NBA legend Michael Jordan and his son Jeffrey Jordan jointly established a Web 3.0 start-up, Heir Inc. The company's target customers are mainly generation Z and millennial generation fans. The company plans to launch a "cultural consumption brand rooted in technology and entertainment" and intends to "create an era of digital culture." The idea is to help professional athletes interact more closely with their fans.

Next year, Heir Inc. will launch a blockchain social platform with the same name built on Solana. They will mint and issue HEIR tokens and a limited number of unique NFT assets known as SEAT on the platform. It is reported that SEAT NFTs will sell athletes certified by the platform to fans. Fans who have SEAT will have membership before they can join the community (huddle) created by athletes on the Heir platform and receive exclusive fan rewards.

It is reported that the company has obtained $10.6 million in seed round financing led by Thrive Capital, Solana Ventures, Lonzo Ball (point guard of Chicago Bulls) and Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder) also participated in the financing.

Michael Jordan retired in 2003 and is recognized as the greatest basketball player in history. He led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships in his career. His son Jeffrey Jordan is also a retired NBA player. Previously, in March, Jordan participated in the $305 million financing project of Dapper Labs, the developer of NBA Top Shot. He also participated in the $150 million round C financing of Mythical Games (a manufacturer of cryptographic game infrastructure) in November. This time, they announced their direct entry into the field of Web 3.0. This aroused a heated discussion within the encryption community.


Heir Platform Operation Mode

The first batch of players to cooperate after the Heir platform has launched has not yet been announced. It is expected that the main cooperation groups will be basketball stars of the NBA, WNBA and NCAA. However, it is unknown whether Jordan himself will interact with fans on the Heir platform.

In the future, when athletes sell SEAT NFTs to fans on the platform, Heir will retain 20% of the revenue from the platform as profit, and athletes will take in the remaining 80%. In addition, the number of SEAT NFTs will be strictly limited. It is reported that the number of NFTs that can be issued by each athlete will be determined by its number of social media sub_script_ions, which is thought to be approximately 0.5% ~ 1% of the number of sub_script_ions. Once the first release of SEAT NFTs is completed, new users who want to join the athlete community must purchase SEAT from other NFT holders on the secondary market.

Heir is not the first fan interaction platform utilizing Web 3.0. Existing and similar platforms include Rally and Roll. On these platforms, anyone, including artists, actors and athletes can issue personal tokens and assign them to their fans to build their own fan economy. Take the Roll platform as an example, the content creators on the platform can apply to mint their own personal tokens. The supply of each token is 10 million. 2 million are distributed to content creators, 1.2 million belong to the Roll platform, and the remaining 6.8 million will be unlocked month by month within 3 years.


For details about Roll and other SocialFi platforms, please refer to this Gate.io blog post: Is SocialFi Going To Be The Next Big Thing in the Web3.0 Era?

New Mode of Fan Interaction Under Web 3.0

In August 2020, the CryptoKitties development team, jointly with the NBA, released the NBA Top Shot. It was a series of NBA digital collections built on the Flow blockchain. It received a strong response and officially initiated the road of integration between the blockchain and the fan economy. These digital collections of NBA stars' iconic actions included text, pictures, GIFs, short videos and other forms, which not only consist of memories and feelings, but also have collection value.

In addition to traditional NFTs which are linked to IP issuance and Socialfi platforms to help individuals issue tokens, some clubs and other institutions will also issue their own tokens, which are called "Fan tokens". Chiliz (socioscom) is a leader in this regard and a blockchain technology provider serving sports giants. The platform has cooperated with a number of clubs including Football Club Internazionale Milano S.p.A. ($INTER), Foot-ball Club Barcelona ($BAR and Paris Saint-Germain Football Club ($PSG), to launch exclusive fan tokens for each club.

On August 10, football superstar Lionel Messi officially reached a two-year agreement with Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, one of which is to pay part of the salary with its official fan tokens, PSGs. For the club, issuing fan tokens has become one of the new directions of brand development and a new source of revenue. For fans, having fan tokens gives them the right to participate in the day-to-day operations of the club. Fans can vote on issues such as pre-game dressing room display quotations, season goals, team rewards and so on. At present, according to Coinmarketcap, the market value of PSG has reached US $47 million.


Conclusion

In 2021, the Web 3.0 industry represented through NFTs grew significantly and expanded to the sports and entertainment industry, attracting a large number of celebrities. From celebrities holding cryptopunks and bored ape avatars, to stars snapping up metaverse land and holding concerts in metaverse, and then to Jordan and others investing in their own Web3.0 platform. The Web3.0 sector has shown great growth potential.

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Author: Ashley. H, Gate.io Researcher
*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment advice.
*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all other cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.

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