🔊 Another DAO Makes A Major Move

Plus: NHL Gets Its Own VR Platform & Renowned NFT Artist Drops Digital Baseball Game

August 13, 2023

Welcome to The Hype Report where we break down the latest news, stories & insights at the intersection of sports, artificial intelligence & web3.

Here's What You Need To Know This Week đź“ť

  • RugbyDAO & Oval3 Are Joining Forces 🏉

  • The NHL Is Getting Its Own VR Hockey Platform 🏒

  • Artist Mitchell F. Chan Is Dropping A Digital Art Baseball Game âšľ

  • Quick Hype 🎯

Let's Dive Into It 🤿

RugbyDAO & Oval3 Are Joining Forces 🏉

Could DAOs be having a moment?

Karate Combat, LinksDAO & SailGP are well-known DAOs that have all made significant moves recently.

This week RugbyDAO, the leading DAO for rugby did as well by establishing a partnership with Oval3, an immersive Web3 fantasy rugby game.

The partnership is primarily focused on further enabling the collective mission to build the first true Sports DAO in top-tier sports.

Their combined goal is to foster a global community that empowers individuals and enables a new era of rugby and digital innovation, participation, and ownership according to the release.

"We are excited to deploy our collective might to bring Web3 rugby to over 850m fans around the world. This partnership represents a significant step forward in our mission to build the first true Sports DAO and revolutionize fan experiences. Together with Oval3, we will drive innovation, empower fans, and support the future of rugby alongside those who have already made progress in growing the game."

Nick Riggall, Co-founder of The RugbyDAO

By bringing together their expertise, and communities, their able to unlock new dimensions of fan engagement with Web3 technology.

They also aim to create a more dynamic and immersive experience for fans to join, engage with and explore.

More details will come down the pipeline as the partnership formulates.

The NHL Is Getting Its Own VR Hockey Platform 🏒 

Sense Arena is launching a VR game for ice hockey training in partnership with the NHL.

The game is coming this fall on Meta Quest 2, along with a multi-year agreement signed with the NHL for the title.

Sense Arena has been out in the market since 2018, but this is the first experience that carries the NHL brand name.

In May 2022, they announced a $3 million investment round led by J&T Ventures and have raised a total of $5.5 million.

The Gaming Experience

With the game, you can strap on sensors including an Oculus Quest hand controller to a hockey stick.

While wearing VR goggles that immerse you in a hockey rink, you can swing at virtual pucks with the real stick and the game will translate your movements into the game.

This platform will allow hockey fans and players to refine their skills, compete, and experience what it’s like to be a part of their favorite NHL franchise within a VR hockey environment.

The game will feature the uniforms and logos of all 32 NHL teams.

The unique VR solution also allows users to play in confined spaces and non-traditional environments such as basements, garages, and hotel rooms.

“The NHL has some of the most passionate fans in all of sports, and we are thrilled to bring them onto the ice to experience what it feels like to train like an NHL player or goalie. This new partnership will allow hockey lovers of all ages to compete against each other in exciting drills while representing their favorite NHL teams.”

Sense Arena CEO Bob Tetiva

As the Official VR Training Tool of USA Hockey, Sense Arena has already gained notable recognition within the hockey community.

Its currently utilized by five individual NHL teams and 14 Men’s and Women’s NCAA DI hockey programs.

All current users will receive the new NHL platform update for free upon its release.

In November 2022, Sense launched its VR tennis training platform, which provides tennis players with enhanced visualization tools geared towards improving the mental aspects of their game such as focus, reaction, and anticipation.

It’s used by dozens of ATP and WTA pros including:

Talking about the benefits of the platform, tennis legend Martina Navratilova said:

“I played one hour a week when I was growing up because I had to go to Prague to play: one hour a week for four months, five months, whatever. And then I played two hours a week when I was 13, 14 because, again, a trip to Prague and I didn’t have a car. For people that live in the colder climates where you can’t play or it’s too expensive to get the indoor court, etc., or you can’t even get to the courts to play — growing up, this would have been fantastic.”

Despite recent positive news and raving athlete reviews - it seems the game could still use some tweaking and development as it only has a 3.2 rating in the app store and several complaints.

Hopefully, they can build on it from here.

Artist Mitchell F. Chan Is Dropping A Digital Art Baseball Game âšľ

NFT artist Mitchell F. Chan is combining data and America’s pastime to bring collectors and gamers a whole new experience.

On August 16th along with Wild.xyz, Mitchell is dropping The Boys of Summer, a baseball-themed game that explores the impact of statistical overload well beyond the diamond.

The game is built around an NFT art collection of 999 unique player characters.

After purchasing one of the NFTs from the platform, owners can edit their character's attributes such as:

  • Jersey number

  • Hitting

  • Running

  • Fielding

All of this is done as a high school player in the game.

As the game’s story arc continues, users attribute points beyond baseball to other aspects of the character such as their:

  • Social lives

  • Time spent studying in school

  • Sleep

  • Oral care

  • Exercise

  • Sex life

In other words, it’s a real-life portrayal of a high school player’s overall athletic and career development.

“The Boys of Summer is inspired by the idea that statistics and numbers are the tools we use to tell very complicated stories. They're very simple tools and very blunt instruments, and yet more and more they are the only tools that we use to tell stories. Baseball is where we first get this idea that a person can be represented fairly accurately as a selection of statistics.”

Mitchell Chan on what inspired him to create the project

Just like in the real world, some players will get drafted and go to the league while others get regular jobs and struggle with various aspects of life.

All of this is displayed and visualized on-screen as data points in the game.

Ultimately, your decisions and the outcomes are saved as metadata to the tokens, which can also be bought and sold via NFT marketplaces.

“This is the performance. Everyone plays the game, makes themselves into data, and becomes searchable on the market. We've ended up talking about this really complicated participatory performance art piece about the nature of data in society and capitalism. But I take you there by presenting you with some cute PFPs and a little baseball game.”

Mitchell Chan on the gameplay

If you’re interested, you can check out the project in further detail here:

The Boys of Summer - Wildxyz

Where the future of art is built. Residency for genre-bending artists, marketplace for collecting original creations, & destination for immersive experiences.

wild.xyz/mitchell-f-chan/the-boys-of-summer

Quick Hype 🎯 

Horizon Worlds and Xtadium Bring the UFC to Meta Quest.

SIDEARM Sports and Athlete Network Launch Automated Content Integration.

FansXR Partners with Mexico's TV Azteca for Extended Reality Integration.

Canadian Football League Partners with WSC Sports to Deliver AI Highlights Directly to CFL Fantasy.

Vote Here 🗳️

Here’s the deal…

If you haven’t heard of SXSW before, it’s one of the premier events and festivals for tech, culture, film, media, and music that takes place every March in Austin, Texas.

Along with Candy Digital, I’m submitting a fireside chat session hosted by me along with CEO Scott Lawin around the future of the fan experience as it relates to blockchain.

With that being said - we need your vote to make this happen.

If you could take a few seconds to click the link below and drop an “up” vote for us - I’d truly appreciate it (The community vote is 30% weight factored into the final decision).

So let’s run this thing up and take over Austin next year!

Shoutout to Qimei Luo for getting this going.

When Sports Meet Crypto, Fans are the Final Winners

In 2023, world premium sports IPs are getting closer to the crypto and web3. During this session, Scott Lawin, the CEO of Candy Digital, the official digital collectible partner of MLB, NASCAR, and WWE, will chat with the Sports Journalist and founder of The Hype Report, Malcolm Lemmons, about the future of sports fan experience with the innovation from blockchain technology and how the biggest US Sports IPs think about NFTs, Metaverse, and Crypto.

panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/143649

Thanks for reading today!

Talk to you again next week.

Malcolm

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