Produced | Tiger Sniff Technology Group
The author | Zhou Zhou
The header image | Opensea
Li Ning is getting more and more able to play Web3.
On the evening of April 24, 2022, China Li Ning sent a Weibo message announcing the establishment of the "Boring Ape Club China Li Ning Branch" and preparing to launch the series of clothing.
Coincidentally, on the same day (April 24), the market value of Boring Ape BAYC just exceeded $4 billion, becoming the hottest NFT (non-homogeneous token) at present. According to the latest data from Opensea, the price of boring ape flooring is 138.5 ETH, which means that it takes at least $400,000 to buy a boring ape.
China Li Ning Weibo
This isn't the first time Li Ning and his peers have tried to explore Web3.
In 2021, Li Ning designed the NFT sneakers and sold them at the auction house for 1,127,000 yuan in September 2021. This is the first NFT sneaker designed by the domestic sports brand giant itself and auctioned off.
At the same time, domestic sports brands such as ANTA and Xtep have also followed the international trend and actively embraced NFT and Web3.
Global sports label "rolled into" Web3
Behind Anta, Li Ning, and The Special Entry Bureau Web3, global sports labels are setting off a vigorous NFT brand marketing campaign. According to the incomplete statistics of Tiger Sniff, Nike, Adi, Under Armour, ASICS, NewBalance and other well-known sports brands in foreign countries have laid out NFTs.
Not only that, but the NFT is also expanding its presence in the broader sports industry. Take the NBA, for example, which has earned nearly $1 billion by providing basketball fans with a limited number of NBA NFT star cards.
The NBA provides a good model for leagues and organizations in various industries of sports, and leagues in a series of sports segments such as football, rugby, racing, boxing, cricket and so on have begun to provide a one-stop NFT service platform for their own companies, players and fans.
Last month (March 2022), Major League Soccer partnered with soccer game NFT platform Sorare to launch NFTs for all MLS clubs and players. Sorare is currently valued at $4.3 billion and has licensed players from more than 100 international teams in different leagues around the world. In just three years, its valuation has risen more than 20 times from $270 million.
A few days ago (April 21), the cricket NFT platform Rario also reported the completion of a $120 million financing. Football, basketball, cricket, tennis... It can be said that NFTs have infiltrated various tracks in the mass sports industry.
The popularity of sports + NFT, so hot, has also directly affected the three major domestic sports brands: Anta, Li Ning and Xtep.
ANTA NFT Digital Collection Museum
Take ANTA, for example, which has teamed up with Tmall to release the Winter Olympics-themed NFT digital collection. The same is true of Xtep, which last month (March 21, 2022) released an NFT digital collection called "160X-Metaverse".
In just half a year, three domestic sports giants have successively laid out NFT and Web3.
China is big, there is no "national tide NFT"
Although a business model change is taking place in the foreign sports industry, these changes seem to have nothing to do with domestic companies. Li Ning was surprised to find that they were the first companies in the Chinese sports industry to enter Web3.
When ANTA, Li Ning and Xtep also entered the NFT, they quickly found that although they had slowed down Nike, Adi, NBA and other steps internationally, they were the first in the combination of China's entire sports industry and Web3.
At present, the development of sports NFT projects or tracks in the domestic market is almost zero.
It's not that no one does it, or isn't interested. Tiger sniff found that in byteDance and other Internet manufacturers, domestic sports brand giants such as Anta and even designers in other industries have appeared a group of entrepreneurs are trying to do sports + NFT market segments.
An industry insider told Tiger Sniff: "There are too many people who want to do NFT projects, and the general environment is actually there, only a big platform is left to bring everyone together." ”
Nike acquired NFT sneaker startup RTFKT worth $200 million. However, behind this needs a good ecological environment, such as it needs Opensea, a platform with unified trading indicators and a large liquidity. The domestic NFT platform is still very blocked in terms of transaction liquidity, which makes the entire industry fail to develop normally.
"In the current situation, it is still difficult to effectively commercially transform products." The industry insider said.
Li Ning, who has always pushed the national tide, may also find such a problem, all the well-known NFT styles in the world are either European and American styles such as BAYC boring apes, or Japanese styles such as Azuki. Although there are some NFTs like PhantaBear that have made a big splash in the transaction volume, they will soon not be too loud.
This is not a beneficial thing for companies such as Li Ning that focus on the national tide brand. From the perspective of the blockchain industry, if there is no good national tide NFT project, it will be difficult for us to deeply participate in more industry combinations.
The value of a national IP
Does China really need to have a "national tide NFT"? In today's society, which advocates the transformation of the virtual into the real, what value can a virtual thing bring to people?
This may also start from why Li Ning wants to cooperate with boring apes.
What kind of changes can a good IP bring to China's economy? Taking Disney as an example, when Mickey Mouse becomes an international IP, this IP can not only create countless animation and film and television works, but also cooperate with Uniqlo to sell thousands of clothes printed with Mickey Mouse to the public, but also form a whole entertainment industry chain on this basis, forming a powerful entertainment empire.
And boring ape BAYC has initially shown its potential to be the next Disney. Although it is only an ape image, it not only cooperates with sports brands such as Adidas and Li Ning, but also enters the film and television shooting of big movies, and the next step may be to build a playground with its own theme and become a company that replaces Disney.
Technology and culture often have similarities. When a country masters the most cutting-edge technology or culture, it often gets the largest part of the profit pie, while other participants can only passively participate and pay a lot and gain very little.
A good IP can exist for a hundred years, raising thousands of people in the industrial chain such as comics, film and television, amusement parks, and clothing. The NFT is the best representative of the combination of technology and culture, it is difficult to promote the NFT project farther without mastering the blockchain technology, and there is no good culture, and it is doomed not to give birth to a lasting good IP.
Li Ning has taken the first step in the sports industry's exploration of Web3, but in this track, the main national tide of enterprises may need a Chinese version of the boring ape IP.