Liverpool Football Club's NFT Launch | Overpriced JPEGs

Transcript

hello everyone gmgm welcome to an overpriced jpegs first our first solo live stream live streamed with the bankless crew before but uh i'm here solo today with two very special guests we have drew chris the svp digital at liverpool football club and max moore the co-head of digital art sales at sotheby's i'm getting my voice fed back to me or is anybody else getting this yes i've muted myself so you shouldn't be but i have it probably open i bet that's what's going on there we go all right first live stream

got the kinks out of the way okay so we are talking about the uh lfc heroes club nft drop uh this is a first for sotheby's and that it's the first time sotheby's is partnering with a sports club and we're going to talk all about this drop i think there's both an auction component and then a sort of broader to the public component but let's start with i want to understand a little bit the goal here i think the fan experience is something that's really important to you guys at liverpool obviously in general that's what you really focus on drew is is thinking about the fan experience and the digital fan experience um maybe introduce yourself to the folks and talk about how you've approached that challenge up to this

point yeah fantastic uh look thanks for having me on as well um first and foremost it's uh it's great to great doing this so um well you introdu perfectly so i'm the senior vice president of our digital business here at liverpool football club um which is uh absolute pleasure um i know so i look up for everything across media marketing all of our digital products and and all of our digital and development and delivery um i mean look when frankly when you've got 700 800 million fans worldwide kind of fan engagement fan experience fan products is is absolutely critical and it's something that is a huge huge focus of ours and a huge focus of mine um you know and and of

course going back several years you know interactions were probably limited via press written word local and region activities and and face to face on match days and and whilst all of those are still critical you know the explosion of social media in the last uh 10 years or so and and particularly i think for us in the last sort of five to seven years has been huge and garnered obviously a a massive audience and is a is a great way of us engaging with our fans on a global basis and you know all of those social channels are essential and there's more and more added you know what feels like weekly um i suspect it's more monthly and then venturing into into this space is um you know is key because it's yet another new audience and it's yet another new

channel so you know we'll come on to that i'm sure but now we look to the future and we look at where are our fans what are they engaging in what do they want to engage in where can we engage them um so yeah that's that's really i guess a little bit about the past um i mean i can talk a little bit about you know what that focus has been i'm if you'd like me to go into that as well uh yeah i think i'm i'm really curious in some of these institutions that obviously have a prominent presence and call it web 2 or just you know have been institutions for many many years now who are now taking the leap into web three um and understanding how their business model worked previously so we can really dive into how this is changing things

and why you're excited about it and uh max will get you in here at some point too obviously very curious in the sotheby's piece of all this but but drew if you could would love to hear you go a little bit more in depth into what tactically you know digital fan engagement has looked like and what you've been how you've approached it yeah sure so um i think what i would say is in the last two or three years the the main focus for us has been about how do we build digital products to create immersive experience that give rise to fans coming to our own world so you know in in kind of the parlance that we have we have a huge social following we have a huge global following and if you like

that that's kind of the top of the funnel and our focus over the last two or three years has been how do we create digital experiences that drive those fans into our own world but in a way that is you know long term is you know gives reason for fans to come back we're giving them what they want and also we're appealing to the breadth of what fans want because you know what a group of fans want in one country frankly they don't in another and that's absolutely fine so that's and that's really been our focus and so you know we're delighted in the last two or three years we've we've done an awful lot of work in our sort of internal plumbing shall we say um and we've also launched some new products so in the last two years we've launched a map centre we've launched we've recently

launched an esports platform we've launched a new digital fan magazine we've redesigned our website um at the beginning of a pandemic we thought it'd be a good idea to launch a new econ platform that that was a lesson learned um but but all of these things are to make sure that we can drive engagement and now we look at the future and look at what's next and you know clearly web 3 and everything that web 3 brings and obviously we're all now talking about a metaverse and what does a metaverse mean in a in an institution like a football club like we're all having those conversations and so now we're absolutely delighted to be working with sotheby's having launched our nfts and and you know to understand a new audience build a new community and a new set of social channels on a new platform

so max i'll maybe ask you this how did this partnership first come to be did how did this uh how did this happen yeah um you know i think i think sotheby's over the past year has kind of established itself as a premier destination a premier marketplace for some of these new digital assets and such a high profile project uh involving liverpool and such like a worldwide audience i think really requires that special additional attention that sotheby's and the credibility that southern bees can bring to the discussion um you know we we started conversations very top level uh they quickly evolved and spiraled into something quite

enormous which is what we've released today uh over a six month period i think sotheby's uh lends the credibility but also uh was helpful in the creative you know process uh in a way that you know where we can really show our strength understand the client understand the market from our previous experiences and then of course liverpool with the specialization in you know knowing knowing the team knowing the fans knowing the you know the the concept and breathing that life into the project it was a great synergy but i really do think that together we were able to uh kind of achieve this this incredible momentous nft collection for folks who feel like they think of

sotheby's as sort of highbrow fine art and they think of liverpool and football i was going to say soccer but i'm sure that's wrong and i'll be chastised for that right liverpool football as sports and earthy and for the people how does that match work teach your brands i i'll start and then drew you can you can chime in um you know i would say the the the direction that we've taken with nfts has definitely been able to approach a much larger uh generally a younger audience um you know and i think in a much more you know focused and specialized way we are you know known for specializing in

selling the best of the best if you will and really targeting the you know the very high-end clientele but this allows us to have very strategic partnerships with liverpool's a fantastic you know high-end clientele it's just a more uh wider audience that we're able to attract and that's really really the driving force into some of the mechanisms of the actual sale in starting the price point at 75 for a limited edition which is quite attractive compared to some of the uh other nft drops that are happening you know concurrently throughout the market so you know with all that said like i don't actually view this partnership by uh

you know i think that the target here is really to to show how we can reach a larger audience um with this new digital asset yeah let me i'll charming off the back of that i think when we looked at this and and we really thought about what are we trying to achieve as a as a result of this project and what were we looking for it was you know a partner that has got experience in this space because you know being candid and brutal we we don't and didn't but we do now um we needed you know a high-end partner that knows how to to make these uh auctions and sales really work and we need you know uh you know a

strategic partner that can help guide us through how to make uh how to make the impact and how to have the impact on a global basis and that that for us is what southerners brought as well as as well as then you know a lot of the creative skills and the creative thought behind what can we launch and and how do we feel it'll have the biggest impact to a very very broad fan base you know um with different wants needs interest et cetera um so so that really is i think probably in in short how we looked at it and then largely why we we were delighted to partner with others let's talk about the lfc drop itself so i don't know if

one of you wants to take and sort of give the overview of what's happening here drew or max either of you who wants to kind of chime in with what this is and then we'll we'll dig deeper uh yeah i mean i i can i can go first if you want um and yeah max please please chime in um so in essence there's there's two parts to our nft drop there is um what we are calling our unique one of ones and and they are the more motion graphic led superhero view of of players that are on auction and and available through through auction um and then uh and there's 24 of those and so you know very unique very very special and then there

are is what we called our superhero range which is um a significant number of nfts because it's more static imagery but with different looks different fields different uh different representations of of our players um and they're the ones that are at the the price point that max alluded to which we felt was a price point accessible to to a large large number of people around the world um but beyond just the the sort of you know number of nfts in the price point what is really really important to us is well two things number one is the community and and the community that we're looking to engage in the community that we're looking to build as a result of interest in in this type of product and offering

and the second is uh our ability to um take significant amount of what you know what is is made in selling them and donate that to our foundation and our liverpool football club charity which is fundamentally so important to us because the charity does an awful lot for um those that are less fortunate than us and both in region locally and globally and so 50 of our auction sales will all go to the foundation and 10 of everything sold from the heroes collection will go to the foundation both in terms of immediate sale and ongoing sales so um that that was a really really important criteria and and really really important element of what

we were launching and why you're you're on mute i keep i keep muting um do you want to speak for a minute just on on specifically where the liverpool foundation's work is centered all right can you all hear me yeah so so the liverpool um the liverpool foundation works centered i mean in in the liverpool region i would say you know in terms of doing that we do a lot in the in the local regions and for those areas that are not as fortunate and as and as not as wealthy and with huge amount matt parish and his team matt parish who is the uh the ceo of our foundation and his team do a huge amount for local communities um and then but we also do a lot you

know globally as well both through our foundation but also through our uh over 300 official liverpool supporters clubs around the world that do an awful lot for their own communities and charities so and there's a connection between those and the foundation um so yeah so it's i would say that i mean i wouldn't like to put a percentage of it on it because i'm i'm i'm no expert but and matt matt clearly could but uh you know there's a large amount of work done in the region i would say and and then you know probably less globally but looking to increase that is there a focus area where they particularly work is it like working with young folks on soccer or football or i guess that's the the question is sort of where's right well you know really really broad

i mean yeah yes there are some um you know football academy type things that we do particularly for young children particularly in holidays particularly kind of those sort of football training academies that they love but also we do a lot in terms of education we do a lot in terms of skill development we do a lot with um things like communication skills um and then there are charity raising events for local hospitals local hospices um so it's pretty broad actually in terms of what the t what the team cover okay so you you talked about community would love to talk about some of the benefits for the community for folks who who take part in this auction and and this drop do you want to drew again max we'll get you back in here in a minute but drew do

you want to talk talk a little bit about the benefits to holders and what that you know as people like to say utility piece to this drop is yeah yeah sure um so i would say the first thing i'd say on this is that the benefits will always evolve because i don't think there's a single set of benefits that will only ever provide and and actually we also need to learn so some benefits will work and some benefits won't work and you know that's going to change as we progress but but in terms of the immediacy of benefits there is obviously the element of you are part of a community a community that will exist in in discord and a community that will have access to you know uh events q a experiences um virtual hangouts guest appearances you know and

things like that there will be benefits from things like lfc retail discounts where where we can offer those um and there'll be there'll be things that we can do in terms of some unique experiences from a match day perspective so you know it we are going to try and cover a breadth of experiences where it makes sense and where where we can indeed offer them um but i think for me i think it's the uh the connection in the discord channel of like-minded people with access as i say to you know potentially things like competitions guest appearances um unique experiences discounts offers promotions how did you decide that now was the time

to dive into nfcs you mentioned discord i'm like how many people in the world how many liverpool fans are familiar with discord well good question i'll tell you in a couple of days i guess no i i mean look i i'm not sure when there's something as nascent as this you know it's always questionable as to you know what's a good time what's a bad time like how much are we a fast follower versus how much do we kind of want to lead the way and and there's always a balance and you know will we get it right i genuinely don't don't know we hope we do clearly you know with work with southerners we all hope we do um i think that how did we determine this was the rise as well i think you know with nfts having been around a little while and we could see what others are

doing and we could see where the market was shifting we did feel it was something that we wanted to try and we wanted to test the market with and we wanted to test our fan base with we did a whole bunch of research we we did some research from uh our own fan panels and and and targeting our fan panels to understand what they thought of when we when we discussed nfts and their propensity to to engage in those and that fan panel was a you know thousands of people across the across the globe so a good representation of you know uk market and international markets um we also did some social research as well so rather than just look at you know anybody that might be part of an nft community actually let's look across social audiences for people that you

know happen to like sports happen to like liverpool football club but also like financial institutions and have an interest in nfts because actually you know you can tell from that audience that you know there's a there's a propensity for them to engage i can tell you that that social research we did you found different sorts of cohorts of fans but in the millions globally and so actually that kind of gave us a positive sense that lots of people would be you know engaged and um uh and welcoming of this then further research we when we looked in and did a bit more digging in terms of the type of fans i think you know we we found that um of the fans we surveyed 23 of the kind of 18 to 34 year old range

would be likely or very likely to participate and you know if you extrapolate that out to the social kind of research we did well with that is absolutely in the millions so i think all of those things coupled with you know a level of maturity in the market really and and some of the things that that we see in in other markets kind of said well now now's a good time to try have you received any pushback up to this point i know you just launched so i don't know that that people have digested it enough but are older fans like this is a scam or or has it been mostly very positive up to this point i i think i think what i'd say to that is there will i mean when you've got 700 million globally over 120 million

following you across your social if you sneeze there'll be backlash yeah exactly i mean can you please everyone all the time i mean you know i defy anyone to please everyone all the time in their jobs let alone when you're dealing with that breadth of global audience so of course of course it's going to be a very varied opinion um and i think you know we have seen a very varied opinion from those that really don't like it and are very skeptical to those that absolutely love it and can't wait to get involved and and then there's you know a large swathe of people that are somewhere in between that and and are either you know there are neither negative towards it or indeed really really positive so that's fine too and and my job our job as a club is to as i said

earlier try and find a breadth of product and proposition to appeal to as many of our fans as we possibly can and like i say will we get it right all of the time no but will we create something that you know a huge number of our fans will will love yeah i'd like to think so i would just jump in there because that sentiment that you know drew's mentioning that we noticed that that we've experienced is not something new to the nft world in general because it is such a polarizing topic in any sort of field that you start venturing into but what i really do think uh is different about this is kind of the the commitment level that liverpool has shown in this and the effort uh that

has been put into this i've seen a lot of other projects where they take a big brand and they just want to stick a toe in the water and see how it all everything works out you know this has been six months planning i think we're probably the most critical of ourselves after six months um checking rechecking making sure that everything is you know aligned with mark with the market and at some point we just said okay like this is the finished product and this is you know some people are gonna like it some aren't um but but for the most part we are gonna identify the people that do like it and start growing the community from there and that's really what's also been true of sotheby's over the past year and a half it's been very polarizing for our traditional clients as well but we have i would love to hear

that the sotheby's decision to dive into this market in some ways it's a natural fit because it's art but i'm sure plenty in the traditional art world would not say nfts are art or would be you know horrified by that what uh what led you all to say we're diving in and we're diving in all in we've built the sotheby's metaverse like you have really made a big bet here you're in this in the sandbox or decentraland i know um would love to hear that decision-making process for sotheby's as well yeah um you know it's i guess we also started a little bit uh toe in the water type mentality um it was in i guess our first sale was april of 2020 when we did the pack sale uh you know since then i think we've really focused

most exclusively on what i would like to classify as fine art or digital collectibles that are kind of integrated into a digital medium and so you know discussing about the history of contemporary art there has been digital artwork that we created in the 70s and 80s that are part of the discussion it's just this new technology and the new parameters are allowing for you know further integration and understanding and adoption from a collecting community so we are recognizing that there is like huge potential because from an artistic perspective you know great art captures the sentiment of that living artist and i think we are ever increasingly moving towards a digital era and so you know it

only would make sense that people are starting to interact more and more digital interfaces and start collecting digital art this partnership i would say is is probably the most ambitious we've done today or it definitely is the most ambitious we've done to date and and it is different in that it's based you know you know foundation wise on the artwork we recruited a great artist um after a very selective process you know we've been through many iterations uh that we've we've you know we've taken different inspirations from different projects but also created our own you know unique you know unique appearance and style for this sale but

you know this is a real community driven approach and we're attracting new clients that have probably never bought an nft before you know again that's why we kind of structured the sale as we did the one of ones already removed from the group and offered an auction style format we're leveraging our own kind of marketplace we we run auctions that's our bread and butter but that also allows us to capture the maximum um you know percentage at the very at the primary sale and donate that the majority of it to to charity so we're able to capture and set it up that way to to kind of further our primary goals of the sale but then in the limited edition again

that that lower price point that larger edition size the fact that you can buy with your credit card um we are really trying to onboard and make it as user-friendly as possible for you know for a new clientele and i think that's really what's quite interesting this will be a very big statement of of adoption and that that's really kind of fundamentally uh what's exciting because liverpool didn't shy away from anything and really was you know came forward and said this is the project and the scope that we want to do what was the education process like here was there thought about how do we make sure our fans understand this and and how did you

distribute that education no yeah i mean i'm not sure the education never stops by the way um i think it's one of those things that will just always be um but yeah we did i mean we did a lot of work with um different of our supporters groups and and had varying different conversations with those supporters groups to talk to them about what we're doing why we're doing it what's going to look like what does it mean what does this market really really look like um and indeed therefore went out to the media and the press as well to to to sort of tell our side if you like and tell our story so um i think we tried to do that on a global basis through a good and fair

representation of our fan base and and we certainly did it through you know all of the different media outlets that we talked to to to explain the the why and the what and the how so um do i think we'll need to carry on doing it and do you i think we'll need to do more yes absolutely as i said i don't think that um i think it's it's such a big topic it's such a you know relatively speaking even though it's been around for a number nfts have been around for a number of years it is still a nascent market particularly in some areas of the world more than others um and i think the education is is something that we will we're not going to stop doing it we're not going to suddenly say right you know we're done now in the next two days we

don't need to do any more not at all um and as i said before we place a replace a really really big importance on the longevity of our products and our fan engagement and why we want them to engage in what we're creating and you know therefore we have to continue with that education and the communication why is this program why are nfts uh better or an enhancement or a good compliment i think i'll say better for than like a traditional style fan membership club for folks who are like you could do the same thing with email technology like explain to folks why this is obviously better and max would love for you to chime in at the end of this if you also have some thoughts on this okay i i think

my initial answer to that is i i don't think it's a case of better i think it's a case of as well as um it's you know we have membership programs we have subscription products we have tv channels we have um we have our econ platform we have we have other we have max center all of these other things which present benefit right and and some fans love that this is you know a different set of fans this is potentially a different audience in a different set of channels that happen to really really like nft so for me why is it important or you know i think the question is why is it better but why is it important what does it offer it offers a route for a global community to engage on

something that is a common theme amongst you know people that want to exist in in web 3 and want to exist in nfts and want to communicate through social channels and the likes of discord so it's it's a great audience it's a great mechanism to build another community and it's a great way to bring that community closer to the club and help and try and build a connection between what liverpool football club is as a global brand as one of the best football clubs in the world and a global audience um and it's it's another product that helps us do that i would argue there's a greater efficiency there as well when you look at if you want to reward fans having somebody's eth address being able to airdrop them

something that can serve as a ticket that can you know serve as another collectible like there's an efficiency to this that you just don't get with older style membership clubs so i'll make my plug for better then not to say we get rid of the other styles i'm just it can be an and but yeah and i think i guess that's my point it's it's it's an and and yeah is there efficiency yeah of course there is and is does it present a different way of connecting does it present a more efficient way of of providing benefits yeah absolutely but i guess all i'm saying is we're not looking at this is a well now we're going to do this instead of the other because as i said earlier breadth of fanbase that love totally different things so this is a very much

a big additive very big and you know yeah audiobooks didn't kill the book industry as people projected people still read books there's a there's absolutely different styles will appeal different people or max would love to hear you give your thoughts on this speaking either as fan membership clubs why what you think about um this or what you would say on this topic or even for art collectors if you want to make it more uh sort of personal ideas i think it's i think it's tied in my answer and and that kind of comes down to ownership in a way that you can't really get the same kind of quality in a kind of web to fan you know community engagement um in the end of

the day you are owning this nft digital asset and it is unique and it is representative you you know should you choose to identify and put it as your profile picture or you know or you know engage at it as your avatar so i think that there's again i i completely agree it's it's an and situation it's not for everyone but for those who are starting to become very interested in their kind of digital persona you know the fact that you're a liverpool fan you're connected to 700 million people around the world now you're an nft fan and you have this little liverpool you know we'll see what the addition size is at the at the end of the day or at the end of friday but you will be in a smaller subset of you know niche kind of

fan base fan community like-minded individuals and that i think you know that's you know that's that's really the potential that's kind of why board apes have grown so significantly it's because of that community engagement um and the information that is shared between members and the camaraderie that shares between members so i do think that it's going to take on a combative but just a new feeling um and a new sense of engagement and entitlement and ownership so for me i think that's kind of what makes it quite you know untraditional uh as uh you know from web web too but again i i people still read books and i'm not here to

preach to completely remove uh you know the the traditional because that the traditional is still very effective yeah yeah how do you see and i'll i'll start with you drew and then again i think this is another one max that that would apply to sotheby's as well uh how do you see this nft vertical from a business perspective obviously you work on the digital team where is it now is it sort of like merchandise is it like social media uh how does it live within your business structure and maybe where do you see it evolving to um so uh again i'll tell you that in a week's time depending how it goes no i know um so it absolutely sits within the digital business because ultimately you know it's a digital product so from a from a

fan engagement uh fan product and commercial perspective yeah it sits within my business in the same way that our tv subscription does in the same way that our traditional memberships does um so from a commercial standpoint that that won't change i think in terms of where it sits where it goes next i i sort of have a of a passion that it becomes you know an integral part of our overall fan rewards program and our fan uh memberships programs because it's it's another form of of um benefit it's another form of engagement and then ultimately it's about how do we make sure that we are providing benefit to all of our fans around the world frankly for their

fandom um without expecting them to pay money to be a fan in in a way that other other activations might do um so so yeah it sits commercially within our digital business which all fits within our commercial arm of the football club and it's ultimately about a fan fan product that we will continue to integrate across all of our platforms and provide benefit to as many hundreds of millions of fans as we possibly can max anything you want to add on the sotheby's front or or uh sort of ditto yeah um i would say well today actually we just got recognized in the times you

know 100 uh most uh not influential but impactful uh companies uh from our nft you know uh developments last year so i do think that it it it's a quite exciting topic for southern views to get involved in we've done about uh 15 sales uh and generated over 100 million in uh usd uh so i and and that's quite a small team right now and i think we can scale up as we do partnerships like this with liverpool as we start to think kind of outside of that fine art digital collectible and more into kind of bringing bringing large large brands large ip

into the web 3 space to re-engage with their audience in a new and unique way or a complementary way and that's really how we're positioning sotheby's and creating celebi's metaverse one of course is still trying to capture the very high end of the nft market but also to be able to kind of shepherd um and and help on board you know from both from a product and but from a creative end some of these uh you know larger partnerships and collaborations i i want to get to where this maybe close with where you see this evolving to what we can expect in the future between both of you as a partnership and and and liverpool when it comes to

nfts but maybe just for for a moment we didn't really get the the full origin story here through do you remember the moment that somebody within liverpool football club was like hey we should start looking into nfts in the metaverse um you know what six months is clearly a long six months isn't it i'm not sure well and in an nft time that's like two and a half years so yeah yeah it's like it's a bit like dog years isn't it i think that um yeah i can ask when you first thought of it do you remember when you first learned about nfts and what the click moment was for you i think um i think i probably learned about nfts about 12 or 18 months ago and and it was through the likes of um

top shots that uh basketball that that was the that was the click moment for me seeing that actually a unique way of owning you know a digital asset and a digital piece of artwork was something that was really taking off particularly in the u.s market and i suppose as a as a sports entity and as a football club that was the moment that said this is becoming a very big business what what what does that mean for us and then that that spiraled i would say multiple conversations internally and multiple conversations with other other parties that were involved in that to try and get a sense of what's the lay of

the land here what what's good bad and different and if we were to do something what would we do and so that's when i think probably 12 months ago nine months ago was when we then kicked off the project if you like and uh colleague of mine omar mohammed has done an amazing job on this project um was really kind of sort of took the ball by the horns and and and shepard has shepherded us through this and and you know that's when we when sort of went to market if you like and said right who are the right partners for us and and where does that synergy lie and how do you know where do our values align and you know all those good things and hence here we are now so yeah probably about 12 months ago was the first moment nine months ago was the

let's do this and let's and let's make it real and you know six months ago we kicked it all off and here we are here we are today max did you have a an aha moment at sotheby's or a time it was first raised to you and you were like oh wow this is a a new thing um well i i are you talking about nfts in general or i get like for the liverpool thing i would say i really wanted to explore um football like i just saw that there's this huge possibility for kind of re-creating and reintroducing um fan engagement and community kind of building a community of you know a younger focused community um in terms of

nfts i was actually like it was because of the pandemic my contemporary art sales uh were missing their targets and i had to find another revenue stream at first and so i started looking at these digital assets and and slowly um slowly but surely they started to increase that necessity is the mother of invention that's fantastic you kind of you you brought me some time to think bit more about that answer as well actually so i i think the other realization for for me and for us as a club was wow that's an explosion in the us based on predominantly u.s focused sports if we're honest and and

when we then translated that to hang on a second football is a very global sport we've got a massive global audience what would that mean for us that was a there was a sort of a penny drop moment then and then i think the other thing that really jumped out from what we saw in the market was that connection between people that just loved this that like suddenly there was these with i'm not without being prompted by anyone right didn't didn't take a sotheby's he didn't take a top shot like suddenly there's a community in a channel kind of almost creating their own market without any big business you know kind of pushing it that community element had a huge appeal for us and certainly from my perspective

because how do you garner a global audience and and bring them together and you know about something that's so passionate for them and and this was and this was the one of those routes that we wanted to explore so where does this go from here you've got your first drop you'll have your first genesis holders where do you think this program evolves both in the short term and you know would love if you could give me the the five year vision or or uh speculate as to where you think you might be just i just gonna dig out that crystal ball you're like i can't remember six months ago and you're asking me about five years from now yeah exactly exactly i was struggling i mean as you said i was struggling to remember six months ago and then let alone think about five years from now um

and look i mean bit like the last answers as well i tell you in three days depending on how the sale goes no i think it goes back to what i mentioned before where does this go i think it you know ultimately i want it to to become an integral part of all of the products and services that we can offer to our fan base and it becomes an integral part of our rewards program because as part of fans engaging with the club it's part of fans coming to our platforms as part of fans watching our content as part of fans you know enjoying the matches be it locally or or globally and on and streaming them we want to be able to reward fans we

want to be able to thank them we want to be able to give them access to you know unique experiences in the channels of their choice so so the notion of nfts and digital artwork as it relates to liverpool football club becoming part of that that rewards program and that mechanism through which we can give something back to fans that's where i want it to be and and therefore it becomes an integral part of that product now five years from now generally who knows right i mean depending on what happens with the metaverse as a concept well who knows what that can offer from an nft perspective in the same way who knows what it's going to offer from virtual shopping virtual concerts you know

everything else that we know is kind of there but not quite there if you get my point so um and again i think the nft world will be will be a substantial part of that um but exactly what it's going to look like we're all on a test and learn path i uh i'm going to put you on the spot you can decline to answer this question you mentioned an esports platform i think that you had built out for liverpool as sort of past digital engagement do you have a take on where nfts may live in future esports gaming you know uh liverpool games again i know it's a fraught topic and i didn't prepare you for this one so uh you're you're welcome to abstain well i it's always good to get a a curveball

i mean i i don't um genuinely don't don't know will nfts feature as a mechanism of what people can buy within game done in an ethical way done in a controlled way done in a standardized way yeah potentially um do i think nfts could become part of esports yeah again potentially i mean like all of the component parts are there from a from a technological point of view probably the components parts are there from an engagement point of view is there a value exchange yet for somebody to say yeah there's a reason for me to go into this esports game and then actually engage in nfts i i'm not sure i'm not sure that value exchange is known right so

therefore until there's a market created with a very clear reason for somebody to do that in the middle of an e-game i i don't know why you would but you know that's not so they won't be i'm sure they will be in due course but what that looks like i don't know and sotheby's max where do you see uh the partnership going from here you already have sotheby's metaverse you've leaned heavily into metaverse as a concept what more can we expect from the partnership yeah um you know this is this is by far the biggest partnership that we've kind of ventured into it's quite new for sotheby's sorry that in terms of nfts this is quite new for sotheby's you know to think that we

would be partnering with liverpool in any capacity before uh you know it's quite a revolutionary concept so definitely have have have long-term plans to continue the collaboration in terms of supporting this community growing it um doing the best we can to help support a secondary market you know in a healthy way um you know and and sharing different creative ways in which we can engage that community those who have who have drank the kool-aid if you will and and bought into bought into the concept which i think you know will be rewarded and that that's really what's great in terms of sotheby's you know this is kind of the first step of moving outside of the digital artwork umbrella and kind of

going into different verticals of sports gaming music entertainment you know there's a lot of different segments out there that we can approach similar to our kind of physical traditional model where we're doing fine art but also watches jewelry design cars real estate so you know again as drew said like it's very difficult to determine how it gets shaped but i think we can you know we can have a very influential uh discussion and kind of way and shaping that shaping the discussion sorry that's it i think this question is an obvious yes oh go ahead drew just again you brought me time to think

a bit more was you know i don't think anybody knows where it will go um but what i would say is if you're not in it then you won't play a part in shaping where it goes and shaping what it can do for your business so i think you know what i'd also say because i know there's differences of opinion about nfts and the rest of it is at the end of the day if we're not in it we won't learn from it we won't know whether it's the right thing to do the wrong thing to do whether it evolves into something else or so you know there's kind of no point in but to my to from my perspective that there's a good reason therefore to be in this world and actually to therefore be a part of what shaping it could be and and that that's a very important

aspect of where it goes and what's next i was going to ask a very specific question that i think it's an easy yes but i just want to be clear i know i mentioned at the top sort of historic because sotheby's has never partnered with a sports club before so sotheby's has never done any sales of like sports cards right they've never gotten into that side of collectibles before is that true um no we probably have okay there is you know we've definitely done like game warden uh jerseys memorabilia uh those are generally like dedicated single owner collections that we kind of

build out as a narrative around but this is definitely you know the biggest kind of strategic partnership especially in the nft space that we've done but i would say one of the biggest partnerships that we've we've done in general so very exciting yes well congratulations to both of you and the sale do you want to give folks uh so just some some calls to action in terms of where they can find the sale and and where folks should head to learn more absolutely so it's uh everything is on metaverse.sothebees.com and perhaps we can share some links that you can share that chair links will post something um but um but yeah the the sale ends at 9 00 a.m on friday april 1st and what uh what

time zone is that 9 00am est that's a 9 a.m correct time zone excellent love it appreciate it i'm matching hong kong right now so yeah so it's not even your life it's my time zone you're doing it for me so 1400 uh bst in it yeah metaverse.com lfc and that's where that's where our nfts are going down fantastic well thank you both perfect yeah the open edition and the auctions and the auctions will close subsequently uh one lot consecutively after another so make sure to get your bids in early and often and uh yeah thank you both so much for joining we'll have to follow up in you've been saying

three days but maybe we'll give you a few months to really build it out and then we can uh we can ask some of these same questions again and and see where you're at thank you both see if we've got the same amount of hair thank you very much for having us it's really a great pleasure and for anyone who's watching if you enjoyed this we're doing this on the bank list channel but overpriced jpegs now has our own youtube channel and in the future live streams like this can be found there so if you want to have more of this kind of content head over to the overpriced jpegs youtube channel we'll put that link below as well subscribe there so you can have more awesome content from folks like drew and from max thanks both for joining we paused david david first live stream

i'm probably still alive do we just leave david i'm going to say we can go ahead and leave david's left he's already gone david yeah david's rugged us he's out the chat we're probably just still live on youtube too okay well i am going to hang up then because i think that's probably the next best step bye y'all all right see you later thanks a lot great job thank you