🔊 Dapper Is Going Down 📉

Plus: Futureverse Drops AI-Game On iOS & SimWin Sports Launches New AI-Powered Virtual Football League

July 16, 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 📝

  • NBA Top Shot Creator Dapper Labs Cuts More Jobs 📉

  • SimWin Sports Launches New AI-Powered Virtual Football League 🏈

  • Futureverse Launches AI League Smart Soccer Game on iOS ⚽

  • Quick Hype 🎯

Let's Dive Into It 🤿

NBA Top Shot Creator Dapper Labs Cuts More Jobs 📉

Sports NFT collectibles company Dapper Labs is waving bye to another 51 employees.

This is the third staff cut by the company in less than a year, following a 22% downsizing in November 2022 and a 20% cut in February 2023.

The cut represents around 12% of the company’s staff, according to total employee figures from Growjo.com.

On July 13th, Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou announced the news on Twitter.

In a note to all employees, he said that the latest round of cuts includes full-time staff and C1 contractors.

The Vancouver-based company is best known for NFT Projects such as:

  • CryptoKitties, a blockchain-based “game” involving collectible “kitties,” each of which was tied to an NFT.

  • NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace where sports fans can buy, sell and trade basketball video clips.

  • NFL All Day, a digital collectible marketplace that lets football fans collect video highlights in the form of NFTs and connect with other like-minded fans from around the world.

The company raised $305 million in March 2021, with the raise reportedly bringing its post-money valuation to $2.6 billion.

The Dapper Labs CEO also claims that both the company and Flow, the blockchain network behind NBA Top Shot, are “well capitalized to pursue the mission.”

Roham goes on to say:

“Flow is also funded with a separate pool of capital, so that team also has several years of cash runway with no need to sell tokens to fund short-term operations.”

On another note, Dapper Labs is still facing a class-action lawsuit alleging the company’s NBA Top Shots collection NFTs are securities and as such should be registered with the SEC.

In February of this year, just days before the previous round of lay-offs, the judge overseeing the case denied Dapper Lab’s request to dismiss the suit.

He stated that the NFTs offered on its platform indeed appear to satisfy the requirements of a security.

Given the current state of Web3 and the macroeconomic environment, this news isn’t totally surprising though.

All of this comes amid a broader slump in NFT markets and trading so I would imagine that Dapper Labs isn’t the only Web3 company in this position or that will be in the near future.

Why does this matter?

This obviously isn’t a good look for the broader sports Web3 landscape. 

But…

I think it’s worth highlighting the potential good that might arise from this situation and others that are similar.

NFTs experienced a major hype bubble at the height of the pandemic which not only inflated the value of certain projects, it did the same for companies in the space.

Dapper Labs was one of the leaders in the industry and their growth has been astronomical.

Now that the market is resetting and returning to normal, we’re witnessing the after-effects of these projects and companies coming back to reality.

People losing their jobs is never a good thing though I believe the market realigning itself will be good for the Web3 space long-term.

It shows we have a long way to go in terms of proving that Web3 isn’t just a fad and that it has actual application and use.

We also have to remind ourselves why NFTs should matter in the first place.

At the end of the day, every brand in the space should be putting the customer’s needs at the forefront.

Value, utility, and seamless experiences are what matter more than anything else.

SimWin Sports Launches New AI-Powered Virtual Football League 🏈

Co-founded in 2019 by David J. Ortiz and Scott Beckman, SimWin Sports is a platform that bridges the gap between esports, fantasy sports, and NFTs.

This week they announced a new virtual football league that uses artificial intelligence to train and direct the actions of football teams that the company says will be on the field 24/7.

The digital teams are coached by celebrity owners and athletes including:

Users, who are called "Player Agents" by SimWin—"own" the virtual players they train.

They can then earn weekly salaries, performance bonuses, sponsorships, and a cut of the revenue generated from fantasy sports.

SimWin President and CMO Tom Goedde says:

“SimWin acts as a coaching simulator that allows the players to call plays and have the AI execute the moves using SimWin's ‘athletic performance AI.’"

Using AI and machine learning, not only enhances realism but also takes the guesswork out of running the games and removes the likelihood of physical players cheating.

Goedde says:

"Esports is a challenge for betting because it's too easy to throw a game. By having the AI execute, there's no way that you can."

SimWin is one of the few, possibly only, Web3 experiences where you don’t have to sell your digital assets to make money.

The SimWin team comes from various reputable companies in the space including:

The company has also collaborated with blockchain developer Immutable in a newly-revealed partnership.

While they’ll be working with Immutable, it isn’t known yet if the platform would utilize Immutable's blockchain, Immutable X.

SimWin says that while blockchain and NFTs are key components, what matters most is building a quality gaming experience that's not built on hype.

Investors in SimWin Sports include:

And SimWin isn’t stopping at just football.

They also have ambitious plans to expand into soccer, basketball, and cricket, signaling a new era of digital sports engagement.

Futureverse Launches AI League Smart Soccer Game on iOS ⚽

New Zealand-based Futureverse, which calls itself a technological and cultural foundation for the open metaverse, is launching its AI-powered “smart” soccer game on iOS.

This is in partnership with the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 tournament.

Futureverse previously launched a “smart soccer” game in an open beta on Android, which resulted in over 50,000 downloads in the first 3 months.

In December 2022, the company announced that it had merged 8 Web3 companies to create an open metaverse ecosystem with games and other entertainment.

These companies included:

  • Altered State Machine

  • Non-Fungible Labs

  • Sylo

  • Centrapay

  • Centrapass

  • Immersive

  • Shadows Interactive

  • Altered Phoenix

AI League, which uses the metaverse AI protocol Altered State Machine (a platform creating ownership of an AI 'agent' via an NFT), aims to take a step forward with AI-driven games, with players acting as coaches and owners of their own AI teams.

The soccer strategy game has undergone extensive testing, and it got solid feedback for its app quality, gameplay, and overall entertainment value.

How the game is played

AI League is a 4-on-4 casual soccer game.

The characters are AI-controlled, with player input in specific, “fun and tactical moments.”

Players act as the coach and owner of their AI teams, with each AI soccer player given unique AI traits that define their strengths and weaknesses.

AI League’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 season will also run alongside the main game, offering time-limited gameplay and a separate leaderboard.

In addition to the game’s original playing fields which are based on streetball locations from around the world, including Paris, Rio, Yaoundé, and Seoul — the new rebrand introduces arenas and outfit items unique to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.

The characters in the game are also collectibles, but a lot of the tech will be behind the scenes and invisible to the players for the first phase so that the company can seamlessly move them into “Web3.”

During later phases, the company will launch a marketplace where users can buy and sell their collectible characters.

The value of the collectibles might be more or less valuable depending on how much they’ve been trained by players.

Futureverse will also be launching Muhammad Ali’s The Next Legend soon which will be AI-powered as well.

Quick Hype 🎯

Greenfly Acquires AI Startup to Improve Shortform Sports Curation.

Former Buccaneers' QB Tom Brady Lost $30 Million in Cryptocurrency Crash Last Year.

Tennis Star Andy Murray NFT Features 18 Years of Stats.

An Elite Group of the Nation’s Top Youth Football Players Will Be Commemorated With Their Very Own “Rookie” NFT Trading Card.

Binance Labs Injects $15 Million Into Xterio for Advancing Web3 Gaming and AI Integration.

StatusPro Partners With Bidstack on Virtual Stadiums in NFL Pro Era.

Aktivate Raises $3.7M to Support the Digitalization of Scholastic Sports Management.

FIFA World in Roblox to expand with FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand.

Thank you for reading.

Talk to you again next Sunday.

Malcolm

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