Meet The Founder Who’s Building The Next Big Web3 Fantasy Basketball Game
David Golberg is playing the long game.
The fantasy sports market was valued at $24 billion in 2021 and is estimated to reach an expected value of $78.5 billion by 2030.
With web3 technology, that value could be even bigger.
As the founder of PlaySwoops, a virtual strategy basketball game backed by blockchain, he’s positioning the platform to revolutionize the space by giving players true ownership over their assets.
In this brief interview with David, we dive into what makes PlaySwoops different from other web3 fantasy sports games, how to maintain optimism as a builder in the web3 space, and how he sees NFTs playing out long-term within sports.
To get more insights into sports and web3, join us for free: https://thehypereport.beehiiv.com/
The Hype Report
Can you break down what PlaySwoops is exactly?
David Goldberg
Sure, (Play)Swoops is a strategy basketball game. It’s a fully virtual world with the core value of being the deepest ownership experience in virtual sports so it’s backed by blockchain technology. All of the underlying assets and players are truly unique and ownable. We have one-of-one players, and users can buy, trade, sell, stake, and of course, play with their players in a variety of league formats based on a proprietary simulator that we’ve built.
The Hype Report
How the idea came about?
David Goldberg
Yeah, so it kind of came from two different angles. On one hand, from a web3 perspective, I had been looking at different types of games, specifically Zed Run as an inspiration and was looking for the next level there. On the other side, from an investor’s perspective, I’ve been following call it like sports engagement tech for a while, with everything from fantasy sports to gaming, gambling, micro betting, and this just fell at the intersection of all of these trends happening at once. I asked myself, “How does a gamer or a sports fan get a deeper experience that is traditionally a passive experience and make it more of an active one?”
The Hype Report
There are a lot of web3 fantasy sports games and platforms out there. What makes Swoops different and unique?
David Goldberg
I think there are two things. One internally, it’s the proprietary simulator that we built. So this powers our gaming engine. Instead of relying on the NBA, we can create our own, which gives all types of blank canvases in terms of what you can do. That’s been built by three individuals who hail from the NBA, CBS Sportsline, and the Golden State Warriors. So we have a very impressive team. The second thing is this deep ownership experience that I’m talking about, right? I love companies like Sorare and Top Shot. They have the advantage of partnering with NBA IP, and they also have the disadvantage of partnering with NBA IP.
What I mean by that is there are only a couple of 100 NBA players and really a couple of dozen or so that matter. If you want to onboard the masses with hundreds of 1000s of people, you’re now into fractional or shared ownership of these assets, at which point negates the most important thing about web3, which is true provenance and ownership.
The Hype Report
Can you break down the business model behind the platform?
David Goldberg
So right now, it’s a free-to-play game. We’re in what we call beta test season zero. Ultimately, when we launch season one, in about two weeks, there’ll be a couple of different formats that are all tied to the revenue stream.
So one, you’ll have daily real money contests that look like a poker room or online lobby. Then we will have tournaments, as well as league formats that go on top of it. They will be real money, we will then take our small rake on top of it. We then also layer on the NFT business model by having underlying players that age with the game.
We can control supply and demand as they age out of the game, and we can bring in new supplies that’ll create a primary revenue stream. Then there’s a very active secondary market. In just over two months, we’ve already had about 100 ETH of secondary value and we take a small percentage of that.
The Hype Report
The NFT market has been on a decline in the past year or so. Why did you feel like this was the right time to launch a platform like this?
David Goldberg
I think the best companies are built in bear markets. We needed money and time to build something really special. In the bull market, while everybody else was doing three days of work to go mint a project for 2 million bucks, we said no, let’s take nine months and build something that has lasting value.
We don’t really consider ourselves an NFT project, right? We are a basketball sports gaming company that leverages blockchain technology on the back end just for one aspect. The actual games and the data are all off-chain. The only thing that’s really on-chain is the actual individual assets themselves.
The Hype Report
How do you kind of see NFTs playing out long-term within the sports ecosystem?
David Goldberg
I don’t know where the most potential is to be honest because I think you’re gonna see this like bifurcation of what we’ve already seen, which is these like super high-end, digital collectibles or gaming assets, that are kind of lower quantity — higher value. But I also see this pull to the other end. It can be digital collectibles where when you go to a game, you can get a collectible. Now, that can’t be overtly valuable because there’s going to be a lot of them, but things like tickets can be put on the chain as well. So I think as the barrier to mint, to interact, and to transfer comes down, we’ll see a lot more of these opportunities. Finding those true use cases where there’s a business behind it is really kind of the golden grail that everybody is going to be searching for over the next couple of years.
The Hype Report
As someone who’s building in this space, you have to maintain a lot of optimism. What allows you to bullish on the space long term?
David Goldberg
I think it’s two things. One is the fundamental technology is different. It’s interesting, and it’s valuable. There are things that you can do with blockchain that you cannot do without. Now, right now, we’re at a point where there’s a sacrifice. You can do all these things on the blockchain, but you also have to deal with XYZ.
We will ultimately get to a point where you will only have the advantages, and we will hopefully strip away or mitigate what’s not there. The second thing that has me personally excited is, even in this market, some of the smartest, most talented, and most inspiring people that I know, have continued to either join this space or at least remain in this space. And to me, that’s the leading indicator of special things coming.
The Hype Report
What is the best way for someone to learn more about PlaySwoops as well as follow you?
David Goldberg
So personally, Twitter is the best way, and it's @davidrgoldberg. My DMs are open and I try to engage with anyone who meaningfully reaches out in an authentic way.
On PlaySwoops, it’s the traditional channels, Twitter, and our Discord. We have a really strong community of franchise owners there. The website is www.PlaySwoops.com.
The Hype Report
Thanks David!
To get more insights into sports and web3, join us for free: https://thehypereport.beehiiv.com/
