NBA Metaverse Partner Terminates Relationship, Threatens Reporters Covering Deal

https://defector.com/metaverse-company-blames-unlikely-third-party-for-recent-misfortunes-following-termination-of-76ers-partnership/

by pkilgore • 5 years ago

173 62 5 years ago

defector.com

04rob• 5 years ago

Background:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682102

colpabar• 5 years ago

footage of a meeting between the NBA and the "metaverse partner"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8f-BQFo7lw

adoxyz• 5 years ago

first thing I thought of lol.

I can't believe South Park is as solid as ever when it comes to capturing the absurdity of cultural phenomena.

AlwaysRock• 5 years ago

All they give butters is a piece of paper and he uses that to break out of a mental asylum, spread chaos, and sell nfts. Incredible.

beebeepka• 5 years ago

You lure your customers in, and then you fuck them with some NFTs. You can't just sell food to people.

Thing is, people have been shelling real money for virtual items for a long time. Remember MMOs, hell even Diablo? Team Fortress 2 and the whole hats money making machine? Well, now all that is going to end up mainstream.

I don't like it one bit but status symbols have been around since before there were humans. You can see this shit in animal societies, too

fullshark• 5 years ago

Everyone knows there's SOME sort of market for NFTs, if you spend your life terminally online, it makes sense that you'd be interested in status symbols for them. Or if you play a game, you'd want items that give you a leg up or have some aesthetic appeal. I can even see a situation like some magic the gathering cards, where an NFT in a particular game could gain value over time if the game has a contingent of diehards and the NFT provides some unique ability.

But the whole thing seems so craven, just like freemium games that south park also skewered, based on taking advantage of some addicts/clout chasers who crave the rush of some digital bits attached to their avatars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2luhwy3KAE0

andrewflnr• 5 years ago

I agree the virtual goods thing is not new, hats etc. But those were always viewed as a little silly too, and I'd argue they actually provide more value than the average NFT. I really don't think it's going to go mainstream. Most of us are already tired of NFT nonsense, and other virtual goods can barely be said to have gone "mainstream" either, after all this time.

mabbo• 5 years ago

people have been shelling real money for virtual items for a long time

I think the difference is that at least to someone, those virtual MMO goods had value. You could wear the stupid hat. You could buy in-game stuff with the virtual gold. You could live in your Ultima Online castle.

NFTs really don't have any intrinsic value to anyone, at all.

psyc• 5 years ago

As a gamer, I can fully understand cosmetic items as sort of pricey micro-expansions. I still don't understand NFTs. How do you show off an NFT? I'm imagining people posting a long cryptographic signature into a group chat, and the other people replying with "ooo" and "aaah" emojis? Not really sure I want to know any more about that subculture than I already do, though.

agar• 5 years ago

That flipchart presentation reminds me of so many PowerPoints that I'm feeling a little targeted...

DamnYuppie• 5 years ago

I laughed so hard I ended up spitting all over my monitor while watching this...

mattress• 5 years ago

LOL I’m pretty sure the screenshot of “their” avatar creation is actually from Forza Horizon character customization screen

depingus• 5 years ago

It is! The author of the article is aware.

seanhunter• 5 years ago

"...this would seem a strange time for the 76ers to end their contract with Color Star, the Cayman Islands-registered, Dubai-based ready-mix concrete outfit pivoting to Web3 technology and hyping the forthcoming launch of a celeb-populated metaverse" Such a fantastic quote

pjmorris• 5 years ago

Perfect. It sounds like something Matt Levine would either mock or write.

tata71• 5 years ago

But what about Matt Finestone?

moneywoes2• 5 years ago

no redflags at all

myvoiceismypass• 5 years ago

None. Not even the Color Star CEO being a mysterious person named “Sir Lucas Capetian”...

duxup3• 5 years ago

Would love to hear the backstory on how this deal ever happened.

Granted sports organizations and can be as dysfunctional as any organization, but you would hope they would do a little vetting of who they make deals with.

awb2• 5 years ago

Back story:

https://defector.com/what-the-hell-is-this-company-the-76ers...

HN discussion of the backstory:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29682102

duxup3• 5 years ago

Doesn’t quite tell me how the deal got made with this almost non existent company.

tclancy• 5 years ago

Trust the process.

Animats• 5 years ago

Some years back, one of the major English football teams, Southhampton FC, had a partnering deal with Banc De Binary.[1] BDB was a leading company in the binary options industry, which was a total scam. The Times of Israel started a series, "The Wolves of Tel Aviv", and blew the whole thing apart.[2]

For months, the Times of Israel kept pounding on this story. It took quite a while. At peak, something like 40% of the Israeli finance industry was binary option scams. Some of the scammers were well connected politically.

Amazingly, it was legal in Israel to run financial scams against non-Israelis. That changed only when it became an international embarrassment big enough to hurt the country's image.

Some of the scammers pivoted to crypto. Others moved operations to Bulgaria. But none of them seem to have gone to jail in Israel. Some were caught in the US or the EU and did go to jail there.

[1] https://financefeeds.com/we-lobby-southampton-fc-on-why-they...

[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels...

duxup3• 5 years ago

That’s terrible, I gotta think even a high level vetting would set off alarm bells with something like that.

vernie• 5 years ago

It's always nice when an older generation of shyster tries to get into the latest tech fad.

dylan604• 5 years ago

Let's go boomers! What's sad is when the younger gen can't get into the older scams.

PragmaticPulp• 5 years ago

This company feels like a combination of every shady business person and wantrepreneur I’ve ever crossed paths with. Bombastic CEO who thinks he can skip the “make it” part of “fake it till you make it” and then strongarm his way past any obstacles with legal threats.

The way the CEO misspells NY (New York) as “MY” in his own e-mail signature is a fitting touch.

mtalantikite2• 5 years ago

Also what is with that address, A108 Adam Street with a Manhattan zip code that doesn’t exist? Google seems to place it at City Hall Park in lower Manhattan, which definitely isn’t a place that receives mail. There’s also a long list of scammy looking companies using that address.

Edit: also looks like Google maps places it at the park down by Dumbo. Very weird.

nkurz• 5 years ago

Yes, searching for that does produce a bunch of odd results, many of which use "info@example.com" as their email address and literal "Lorem ipsum" as description : https://www.google.com/search?q=%22A108+Adam+Street%22

Some of the results also include the odd term "Bootstrap Template". Perhaps there is some web building tool that uses this address as the filler text on a template page?

toomanyrichies3• 5 years ago

He literally lives in a van down by the river.

Abrownn• 5 years ago

I see a lot of fake companies/websites list their address as 405 E 42nd St, New York, NY 10017 -- which is the UN's NY HQ. There's a few mailing centers with P.O. Boxes in the area that a lot of fake companies are registered to as well. They must think having Manhattan in their address lends them some credibility.

toomanyrichies3• 5 years ago

I mean, "he" can't even spell his own name:

https://twitter.com/dhm/status/1480306092622024706

Expecting him to know the correct abbreviation for New York may be asking a lot lol.

stdgy• 5 years ago

This might be my favorite story of the year. So many weird twists and turns. It has to be some kind of money laundering operation, right?

moate• 5 years ago

Feels to me like "con-man capitalist took the con too far and people started pay attention to how much of a con this sounds like".

TigeriusKirk• 5 years ago

This is one of the very few times I agree with an online assertion that money laundering is a plausible explanation.

mdoms2• 5 years ago

Can someone translate the first sentence of the article for me? I have literally no idea what any of this means.

Eagle-eyed viewers of Friday night’s Celtics-76ers tilt in Philadelphia will have noticed a sudden absence of the ubiquitous Color Star banners recently seen splashed on every available flat surface inside the home team’s arena

ryandamm• 5 years ago

In case you're not being facetious: It just means that Color Star's advertisements are no longer visible in the 76ers' arena (because the partnership was terminated).

Infinitesimus• 5 years ago

Celtics vs 76ers game last Friday. NBA games tend to have a lot of banner ads and anyone paying attention could have noticed that there were no Color Star banners to be seen during the game.

chrisoverzero2• 5 years ago

Last night, the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers played a basketball game in an arena in Philadelphia. If you were looking carefully (I write sarcastically), you may have noticed that the interior of the arena looks different from how it has recently – the advertisements for Color Star, which had been everywhere (I write hyperbolically), were now missing.

mdoms2• 5 years ago

Thank you. The article assumes I know a lot of background: what Celtics-76ers is (apparently two basketball teams), what a "Celtics-76ers tilt" is (a match between them?), what Color Star is, that their banners (advertisements?) are ubiquitous...

pessimizer• 5 years ago

Descriptions of the alleged product in the article confirm that the metaverse is a cheap knockoff of Habbo Hotel.

reaperducer2• 5 years ago

Reminds me of Rabbitjack's Casino on QuantumLink in 1986.

moneywoes2• 5 years ago

How can a person like this fool a billion + organization?

notyourday2• 5 years ago

Because people who run the a billion+ organizations are imbeciles that who don't know how to wipe their own ass without a team of twenty people providing support. So it is just the question of being introduced to the people who tell those that run the organizations what to do. It is not that difficult is those that that tell those who runs the organizations are properly incentivised.

faangiq• 5 years ago

Amazing article.

gzer0• 5 years ago

Is there any reason why the press release thumbnail is a picture of a Fortnite lobby?

This has gotten to the point where it transcends even the most bat-shit insane people; this has to be an elaborate troll or they are delusional.

penjelly• 5 years ago

metaverse is a word im already sick of

toomanyrichies3• 5 years ago

The following is pretty far down on the list of facets of this story which are straight-up bonkers, but...

I would think that any threat of legal action on Color Star's part is an empty one, since that would mean "Lucas Capetian" would have to appear (either in-person or via video) for the purposes of a legal deposition. That seems unlikely, given "his" reticence to appear in public or reveal anything at all about his true identity.

Those with legal expertise, feel free to weigh in here.

pkilgore• 4 years ago

His company would have to appear, sure. But not him. And by "appear" I mean, hire a lawyer and designate a 30(b)(6) witness.

I'd definitely subpoena him. But it can take a lot of money to get to that point...

NBA Metaverse Partner Terminates Relationship, Threatens Reporters Covering Deal

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