Despite Firing 50+ Employees, NBA’s $465 Million Worth Partner Stands Tall in the Ongoing NFL Season

The world is evolving at such a rate that for most of us cannot even comprehend what new creations like metaverse, blockchains, and NFTs are. It’s a different ball game altogether and it might take time for regular folks to understand the changing environment. The NBA has also decided to dip its toes into this new digital ecosystem and partnered with Dapper Labs to create a product that the NBA fans have never experienced before.

The NBA has decided to stand by its partners, even after the company fired more than fifty employees recently.

NBA’s Partnership with Dapper Labs

The NBA partnered with Dapper Labs in 2021 to create NBA Top Shot. NBA Top Shot is a groundbreaking platform that combines blockchain technology and NFTs to create a unique digital collectibles experience for basketball fans. Top Shot allows users to buy, sell, and trade officially licensed NBA highlight clips as NFTs. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital tokens that cannot be replaced by another copy. Each Top Shot “moment” represents a specific basketball play or highlight, such as a slam dunk, three-pointer, or a game-winning shot. These moments are minted as NFTs, giving them scarcity and authenticity. The platform has gained immense popularity, attracting collectors, investors, and fans who seek to own and trade these digital basketball collectibles.

But recently Dapper Labs are in hot water because of firing more than 50 employees after suffering financial losses this year. The financial difficulty stems from the recession in the USA and the recent bankruptcy of former Warriors partner, FTX. FTX was one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange portals. These two events led many of their customers away from the business due to a lack of funds and a lack of trust in the volatile cryptocurrency market.

Dapper Labs has also signed a partnership with the NFL. All Day launched last year, offering NFTs featuring recent and historic NFL content. CryptoSlam! reported that the platform had an average of more than $12 million in secondary sales during August, September, and October 2022. data. Sales in the marketplace haven’t exceeded $4 million in a month since. Dapper Labs (Flow) has a market valuation of $467 million dollars.

NBA Top Shot: A New Way to Play

NBA Top Shot provides fans of the NBA with a new way to consume the sport of basketball. The fans can collect rare moments like a game-winning shot or a highlight dunk as an NFT. And later trade with other collectors at the marketplace. It’s just like the card collection hobby many kids and teenagers had back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but digital.

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But there are many people who look at this trend with a skeptical viewpoint. As you see, card collecting as a hobby was mainstream back in the 1990s and early 2000s because cards were physical entities and some cards were more rare than others and hence some were more costly. NFTs are limited and scarce, but you could find a similar game-winning shot or a highlight dunk that was supposed to be scarce digitally on YouTube. What do you think of NBA Top Shot? Is it a Fad or is it here to stay?

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