BBW22 - Day 2 - Sports, Entertainment, Brands & Collectibles: An NFT Discussion

[Music] hi everyone it's great to be up here and be at this event today why don't we just go down the line first and have each of you discuss you know how you're in this space and the very fast what the value proposition is that you're bringing to your customer base I'm sorry with you sure so uh John Kohan I'm Chief Operating Officer of blockchain man easy also known as BZ and our uh our value prop is for not only the sports but also for the entertainment industry itself to provide the network if you will of the platform to allow athletes for example to take their name image and likeness and monetize that to a great extent now that the NCAA Has Lifted those rules they made a little bit more uh easy and autonomous for the athletes to do so we provide that ability uh in a very seamless way in that we're not married to any one particular Marketplace but we have the ability to go between marketplaces uh and provide for um the platform than to create the nfts and then trade those nfts as they like uh not only them but also their fans we provide the ability for them to have a wallet the nft is is then put into that wall and then they can do what they want they can sell they can trade Etc so very cool very cool well I want to thank cubic labs for having us here today my name is Lisa Fosdick I'm a co-founder of finno verge and we're a guide we would look at all the folks on this panel and the other brilliant panelists today as resources as we work with Brands Legacy Brands who want to enter this space with Innovative technology we would help them identify opportunities in the marketplace and build a solution and a team to serve that Marketplace so that's what finniverge does hello my name is Marlon Williams I'm with block jocks I'm the CEO and founder block jocks is an extension of an existing business that I've had for over 15 years in the Boston area called I love Boston Sports we've got three locations as well as online a majority of the really cool unique t-shirts that you might see in this area or wall art that features uh The prominent Boston teams that's done in the real creative nuanced way chances are it came came from me and my company we've been in the digital art space for about 24 years since it started in the mid to late 90s my the strength of our of our business is the network of artists that I've created from when I worked on Wall Street in New York I lived in an apartment building with 15 Marvel and DC aspiring artists above me and we became good friends and I built a network from there and we've been in the digital space for so long so that when nfts became popular it was a very easy pivot for us which is one of the reasons why when you see our product it tends to look very very different than everything else that you've seen so we have a Marketplace that's launching uh very soon we've worked on it for the better part of a year and a half but right now we're doing collaborations uh with DraftKings and uh and others while we kind of by the time to launch our own platform cool hi everyone I'm Matt sarcina I'm the CEO and co-founder for tickets true tickets is a provider of trusted access for live experiences Road B2B SAS Enterprise plug-in for secure contactless digital ticket delivery think of us as an enforcement engine for Ticket rules from point of sale to point of scan we are ticketing system in Marketplace agnostic currently we have a production plug-in for the Tessa Terra ticketing system you've never heard of testera but if you've gone to Boston Symphony you actually use the ticket that started in the tester assistant in fact if you've gone to the Boston ZIP near Tanglewood in the last year and a half you likely use the true tickets ticket and probably interacted with blockchain and had no idea you were doing it we started in 2017 uh with this idea we're going to build a b2c solution to prove the efficacy and viability of blockchain Technology we built essentially an end-to-end ticketing Solution on an app it leveraged hyper electric fabric one of the we alert a ton in 2018 one thing we learned was nobody wants another consumer-facing ticketing platform that said it credentialized us to the market it and so venue started to come up to us and say hey we really like your technology can you figure out how to plug that into our ticketing system and that's what we did we evolved in 2019 into what we are today since essentially launching our production version of the product in November of 2020 we've now delivered over 2 million tickets via our service we're live with nine venues in the U.S one in London that was just announced this week and about a third of those tickets have been enabled by blockchain again hyperledger fabric so we're not an nft ticketing company but we are exploring how to couple what we do with secure digital ticket delivery in real life with nfts to create more connected communities for our clients um and just from a Newark a lab standpoint we focus on um in the nft side of the house uh sports brands individual athletes as well as really helping tournaments and others you know realize the potential of engaging with fans you're looking at engaged fans a passionate fan a passion fans a profitable fan and really looking at the uh the sacred relationship between the fan and the brand itself and in the case of outside of sports the sacral issue between the customer and the brand and I'm curious how each of you think about that sacred relationship and what you're doing to protect it um in terms of retaining value and helping the brands push their value forward and maybe Milan we can start with you sure um our philosophy when it comes to this nft space when it comes to uh uh the final product that you're selling we believe that the art is the utility um and that's our tagline is digital art physical Joy but because there's so much noise in the space we realize that utility is a big part of it we don't eventually we eventually think that there's going to be less Reliant Reliance on the actual utility that accompanies the nft or the experience and from my perspective we would like to see that happen simply because we don't have control over what our partner is willing to do if you're an athlete so when we engage in a relationship we want to make sure that they're doing it for the right reasons they're not doing it to get rich quick they're using it as a means to engage with their fans um and that we're going to deliver a visual product that they want to show off you know a lot of these athletes they'll buy a fancy chain or they'll buy a fancy car or custom sneakers they spend a lot of money on this stuff just so they can Flex if you will and so we do the same thing with the digital Collective that we create for them we want it to be something that they're proud to share uh with their fans and they are willing to attach um experiences to it but we have a very rigorous process on the way in to make sure that they are committed to delivering what they say they're going to deliver because we make a financial investment based on what their level of Engagement is and um if it becomes very bad for everyone if they say they want to do it and then ultimately they don't deliver because we're the ones holding the bag and have to explain why um this particular athlete you know essentially rug pulled his fans so yeah that's great and at least I know that you've had experience working with brands with a very very long Legacy who are now thinking about how they're moving into the digital space how do you ensure the Integrity there um that's a great question I'm glad you asked it Finn and Verge we've launched two Legacy Brands one was for Paul Michael Glazer who is a fine artist and a celebrity he wanted to turn his artwork into pieces that could raise funds for the Elizabeth Glazer pediatric AIDS Foundation and most recently we did a project for Wendell August Ford which is a legacy company that mints uh metal commemorative pieces a hundred-year-old company and we take that so seriously we feel like they're giving us their identities and we want to treat it like gold and make sure that we maintain the Integrity of the brand and both of those Brands really wanted to give an on-ramp to folks that were fans to understand this Innovative technology and to be able to give their brands a future life in this world that we're all building together so we we took it very seriously and still maintain retain the communities and are trying to maintain the communities that were built to support those nfts it's a long-term play it's a commitment and Matt what does this mean from a ticketing standpoint yeah no from a ticketing standpoint it actually it's further further Upstream right so if you again you talked about specifically prior to True tickets they knew maybe 20 to 30 of the people coming into their doors and and this by no means is isolated to the Arts I had a conversation with a major league baseball team they draw 2 million people a year they know 500 000 people coming into the stadium that's 70 75 or you know 75 of Their audience 1.5 million people that they don't know every season right so when you talk about creating connected communities step one is just knowing who's interacting with your product who's engaging with your product right then step two is is now once you know them you've seen who's been transacting with your your product that's then when you can engage with this so when I think of what your tickets is doing we're really this infrastructure of this Gateway that allows our clients to start to enable those engagements in Creative in new ways because think about it like this like did someone buy a right to have an nft with that ticket what happens if I share that ticket with you Todd right does that right go with it does it does it get separated how do I account for that and so having data and security through identity and accountability and ticketing is critical you want to have this engagement otherwise if you only know one out of four people coming into your Venue and you've got all these these great tools to engage people you're completely missing out on that that very foundational aspect of that connection right and uh and John you're talking to a lot of young athletes right just establishing their brand right just deciding who they're going to be into their markets to their fan base how do you work with them to help ensure they do that so you know one of the biggest things is training right it's like getting the word out there getting them to understand what this really means and again when uh the NCAA lifted a lot of its pre-draconian rules about you know young athletes College athletes having the ability to monetize their name image and likeness this brings to the party that ability now that they have that freedom uh and just giving the the athlete the ability to do it in a very seamless way training them we were boots on the ground for example at UNC a few weeks ago and you know upwards of 500 600 athletes but we sat you know in the room and basically were able to inform them as to what's going on and how this works how it can work for them how it can work for their fans um there is believe it or not if you compare the college athlete to the professional there is a vast amount of fans probably almost 3x with college athletes versus professional I was surprised to hear that find that out but it's really true and they want a way to be able to connect with their fans this is a really good way for them to do that in a seamless hopefully a seamless a seamless way and the ability to not have to deal with the crypto so complications and understanding what that means we have the ability to actually purchase with a credit card with cash again making it hopefully that much easier for the athlete and for the fan and them to have something in common right um so I mean a big part of what makes the project work or doesn't or makes a project fail is the fun Factor the excitement Factor like really captures the imagination of the fan of the customer so if you think I always think about the everyday fan for me being in Boston and us being in Boston as the Boston Bruins fan you know the guy's got a gear bag and a stick in the back of his truck he's going to 11 o'clock beer league game tomorrow morning he's getting up he's going to work that guy doesn't own crypto that guy doesn't really care much about nfts but he loves the Bruins he'll do anything to meet Bergeron post or not you know before they break that line up right so how do you how do you factor the fun into what you guys do how do you make sure that it's it's a blast for anyone who's interacting with it that they want to come back for more maybe I'll start with uh Lisa and then we'll go well for both of the projects we worked on that was elusive part of our midpaul Michael Glazer fan jazzed about owning an nft they didn't even know what an nft was at that time and he was wonderful at being on Zoom calls and engaging his audience through his existing fan base platform so we had a great partner with Paul Michael Glazer but we still faced headwinds major headwinds in adoption and that was almost two years ago so you can imagine that was super early days people were just super fearful so we worked hard with Paul to have him be the fun factor with Wendell August Ford much more serious fan base both projects had digital components so you got an nft but you also got a physical piece um so with the Wendell August Forge project we added a metaverse component to it where the 3D object could be viewed in the metaverse and it had other utilities along with discounts and different things for product so um two very different projects and two very different approaches I can't say we were super successful at bringing the fun factor in in the way that we had hoped so we're continuing to learn how to engage those audiences cool uh I I think that uh early on it's the utility aspect of it even though I say that eventually you want to deviate away from that and not make it so Reliant upon the utility but I think fans just want to feel included and that level of inclusion can be accessed to experiences that a typical fan won't get so like we talked about the athlete wanting to flex you know fans want to do it too oh oh I'm I'm a part of this uh event you know with you know Josh Allen he just uh collaborated with um a company metabolia who works directly with DraftKings um they were getting to a deadline for a launch party and they didn't have the artwork that they needed they didn't feel confident with so they they asked us I'm friends with one of the investors uh and so we delivered a a stellar piece of art for Josh Allen for the bills even though I'm a patriot fan uh so it hurt me to some degree but at the end of the day business is business but what what happened is that the people that received that that artwork um they were invited to a private uh party with Josh a very intimate setting and so even though they paid however much they paid for the actual nft Bumble with that was that a very exclusive experience that they went to and we were hoping that you know we were like oh wow Josh Allen you know he's having a breakout year people think he's going to be a uh you know an MVP and the bills might win the whole thing uh the secondary royalties are you know because we share that as well uh we thought we're gonna be great we were like oh man this is going to be amazing because this could be an added vertical for us but we realized that there was no hardly any secondary trading because people actually wanted to own the the nft and so we're learning a lot about um the impetus for why people buy things why they make purchases but also you know not everybody wants to buy a collectible to keep it in the box and keep it up on the Shelf some people want to just play with the damn thing so the fact that there's utility that can is actually useful in the real world I think it's huge especially early on while the nft market is seeking to establish its value proposition to the buyers at large at whole and sift through the noise but our perspective and that made us feel good once we realized that people didn't want to part ways with this art because it was so different and so unique so now what we're looking to do is we're evaluating different physical real world items that can be included so that not only can they hold it in their wallet and see it digitally but they can also get a traditional physical collectible and I've got some examples I'm happy to share share with you guys um you know offline but um we're we're really trying to having fun assessing people's buying behavior and why people are buying these things but I think at the end if you can deliver value and that value may not always be the experiences that are attached to it but it could be just the fact that the quality of the art is fairly priced and it's and it's above what else is out there people will find Value in that cool now so both of you mentioned this connection between the digital world the cyber world and the meet space world right so digital right is the the new phrase that's being thrown out a lot so John how are college athletes helping bridge that Gap into experiences and value that their fans experience I I think again it comes down to you know look a lot of the college athletes are you know they're they're of the millennial generation right so they're all they all want to be part of that that digital community that digital environment um and and by us providing the an ability for them to not only from the fans perspective to engage those athletes but the athletes doing the same um you know in the digital world right it's something that's that's not necessarily that new but relatively new in this space giving them the opportunity opportunity to do that knowing that it's fairly simple and it's something that they can you know they can do on the fly with what we're offering uh and and the fact that it's not a lot of paperwork that's going on not a lot of uh things that you've got to get bogged down on it's something you can click and go kind of thing I think is the the athlete and the fan is um it's a big it's a big plus for them so there's less physical World stuff going on there and much more pure digital yeah I'm that generation you know exactly I mean that generation you know that I saw like an old guy saying that right but the generation uh that follows is very much they're on their phone they're digital everything is you know it's it's very little paper very little print very little physical it's more of the uh the digital app the digital asset in the world and how does that how does that help how does that continue to perpetuate itself and I think really both the athlete and the fans are really into that now and they want to continue that I think it's going to grow okay um so we have like five minutes left so I have a broader question I'd like to pose to this group um we have um you know there's a lot of egg on the face in the nft markets there's been a lot of people who have been scammed there's been a lot of bad press the recent change in ethereum to be low energy burn is massive I think in terms of changing people's perceptions um but the total number of people by most accounting that I've ever owned an nft is like less than 5 million it's a crazy low number we're at the very beginning of this but what do we do now as you know people who are progressing projects and progressing businesses into this space what do we need to do to make sure that we're being responsible actors and what are some practical steps we can take to ensure the legitimacy and that we we don't um you know Miss and squander this incredible opportunity to transform a whole ton of Industries so Matt I want to start with you yeah not look I I think one is have your clients focus on what is the outcome you're trying to affect right so it's one thing to have this great unique digital emerging technology but what are you trying to do what what what's the end result you're trying to get and given that I would say I would encourage and we encourage our clients to explore what's what's fascinating about the conversations we're having with our clients right in in the Arts and the entertainment space is they're actually very cautious they're already very cautious but I've been in multiple meetings where they're thinking about all right how do we engage with nft how do we maintain uniqueness and scarcity of our digital content right so if you're the Schubert organization and uh you know you've got Like Music Man with Hugh Jackman and there's digital content that Travis Knight 10 million person concert you know in in the metaverse that destroys your business model what you want to have is you want to have that uniqueness and scarcity so maybe Hugh Jackman comes back for a show and whoever was there there's digital content that you have the ability to to to to give to people or give to people or sell to people and so what I'm seeing in our space is because they're already very conservative we're just continuing to explore so the the outside ramifications of what's happening in the market has had no impact on what our clients are doing because they're just focused on all right how do we it's about engagement it's about new technology it's about you know maintaining uniqueness and scarcity around the content we have and then connecting it from kind of that instead of that linear like point of sale to end it's like creating a cycle right so I get that buyer they buy the ticket they interact with the ticket they come through the gate then there's the post show I actually want to make it a cycle I want them to come back so how do I create this engagement cycle so in our space they are conservative we're just encouraging them to explore and just explore the right way and focus on the outcome you want to achieve that should be your North Star Malin pointed out like hey there's people trying to get rich quick that's not what you should be focused on that end result and if that technology fits with that end result then you're on the right path yeah Marlin uh they say price is only an issue in the absence of value um and that was something that we talked about uh when I was in the you know working in financial services and I think that when you're looking at the overall nft Marketplace and you see all the noise that's out there the first thing you need to do is try to find a way in which you can Captivate uh the person the audience that you're trying to attract but when you have projects that that all look the same um even though that there's a list of utility that might come with this one versus that one you can't always Bank on the fact that those companies are going to deliver uh those experience that they say they're going to deliver so that's one of the reasons why we want to make sure ours looks great because at the very least even if you get nothing with it you know there's value in that and our job is to try to establish that that is indeed valuable I think I'd like to get people who are used to buying our product in the physical world already I think that getting them to adopt it digitally um is going to be a fairly easy transition but I think that ultimately you have to be different if everyone is on one side of the boat the easiest way to stand out is to be on the exact opposite side of the boat so that people can see you versus everything that's out there and I think that's what we've how we've run our business you know from way back when and I don't foresee what we do at block jocks to be any different Lisa um for acid finish it's being real setting expectations um really addressing the marketplace both of our recent projects our demographic was women over 40. um so there was a really uh big commitment to building trust and one of the things that was unique with the Wendell August Forge nft was you got a serial number actually etched into a gold plate in the piece of artwork so your nft had your serial number built right into it so we were trying to bridge that trust Gap to help a traditional collector who likes the physical adopt a digital piece so I think it's being real setting expectations and building trust to be that bridge and frictionless you've mentioned this a number of times making it frictionless and easy for a new person to adopt the technology by paying with a credit card being able to take possession of the nft custodian it themselves and have access to it so I think those are the factors that are top of mind for us at finniverge okay and so we have a stay of execution here five more minutes so let me asked a question this way so given the weather we have today um you know calls to mind an old saying that there's no such thing as bad weather just poor clothing decisions so we think about the projects that are out there today what we're looking at doing and the various different timing on situations um what do you think about the marketplace today and what does how is this guiding your decisions maybe while on you can start yeah um and I'm gonna go back to something else that I learned um you know when I was at Fidelity um the role that I was in on the trading side um we had a lot of our high net worth clients that were used to being comforted at every step of the way and the way that the company would comfort the comfortable is simply by just giving away things and making them feel uh privileged if you will and I think that and that that relates to some of these nft projects because when you're continuously giving away things to get people to buy your product you're conditioning that customer the wrong way that's not what you want to establish that type of uh conditioning because eventually once you stop giving away the farm they're gonna feel like you know that you're not uh that you're treating them bad so we want to set to Lisa's Point set the expectation up front uh that there's value in the art itself but also making sure that you have the right customer and I think this recent downturn in the crypto Market is great because just like the stock market you have to it has to whipsaw in order for you to shake the people out that shouldn't be in it in the first place you know people that were buying it thinking that they were gonna you know make a million dollars you know because they made poor decisions in their life and this was an opportunity to make some lost ground by getting rich quick you know eventually everything reverts back to the mean and nfts are not new they're just a new application of age-old uh dilemmas that have happened in the financial services industry stocks and housing and everything else so um that's that's my hopefully I answered the question that's good all over all right um John and then uh Matt so yes so it you know again I I kind of look back to my experience when I was in college you know I went to Syracuse and I sort of look at this you know the athletes are on a pedestal right I don't I don't I'm not going to get across that Chasm kind of thing and I think you know we really really want to sort of focus on the fact that you know an athlete now can can actually realize that he does have value more value than just being out on the field or being part of that team you actually can interact with his with his fan base and use a lot of the talent that He has and realize that he has that talent in order to bring it forth and monetize it you know where and before you never you never were able to do that so I think you know we're building hopefully you talk about the fun part of things we're building the fun into it by allowing that Community if you will between the the fan uh and and the uh and the athlete but also the marketplace I mean look it's changing it's brand new we're trying to keep it simple right we're not trying to over complicate it with what's an nft and how does it work and the blockchain and all the science behind that it's sort of trying to break it down to be able to say look you have the ability as an athlete to take what you're doing and share it with others and oh by the way you might be able to make some money off of that um fans the same thing you can see what's happening but guess what you may be able to get something from that athlete where you can go and trade and you actually make money so it becomes a kind of a Perpetual uh lucrative yet fun event for everybody great Matt what kind of fast if you can and yeah um look in tough times your value proposition is really going to be found out right and and what nfts have done for digital content is amazing right the nfts took this thing digital content which before you couldn't prove ownership you couldn't add value to you couldn't make scarce they did that right nft essentially created value out of nothing and so when I think about you know true tickets or if I'm advising anyone else who's thinking about their their efforts during a downturn or a tough environment your value proposition has to be sound and so for us it's about trust and ticketing and trust and ticketing is not ethereal trust and ticketing is identity who has this ticket who should have a ticket and accountability what can they do with it right yeah and we solve that through providing data and security via the ticketing process that value proposition permeates any market right so if you have a strong value proposition it resonates regardless if it's a frothy Market or a downturn you're going to be successful it may be a little bit harder but I agree with Malin in that those those downturns are what kind of shake away and you go from contenders to Pretenders and you break those out cool all right well thanks everyone I'll just leave with one one one thought you know this this this technology has only been owned by five million people in the entire world the opportunity exists if we treat it properly and we treat everyone with respect to go from 5 million to 50 million to 500 million to 5 billion and that's what gets probably all of us excited about participating in at this point and trying to make the right decisions that are going to really help Drive the future fan the future customer experience in the way that we all interact with with each other and with the brands that we love so thank you all thanks thanks [Music]