Dapper Labs is taking sports NFTs up a notch with a new NFL team partnership, a Premier League football club is back under the radar from advertising regulators, and well-recognized Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban has his fair share of crypto controversy this week.

Each weekend, we review sports and crypto crossover news from the past week with The Sports Slice. Let’s take a dive into the past week of activity across all things sports.

The Sports Slice

Arsenal Faces Fan Token Advertising Warning… Again

It’s been roughly 8 months since we covered Premier League football club Arsenal’s battle with advertising regulators, who shut down the club’s promotions of fan tokens, citing the club’s actions as “taking advantage of consumers’ inexperience in cryptocurrencies.” Arsenal rebuked, stating that consumers were educated enough to make their own decisions around the token.

Fast forward to today, and over the past week, we saw trouble again for the club, who was reprimanded from Britain’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) around NFT promotions. The club’s Arsenal Fan Token (AFC) is at the center of the conversation, after launching last year via a partnership with sports fan token powerhouse Chiliz. As a result of the ASA’s conclusion, their initial ruling stands and the club cannot utilize adverts for the token moving forward.

Mavericks’ Mark Cuban Faces Heat Regarding Voyager Digital, And Shares His Thoughts On Metaverse Land

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban doesn’t shy away from calling it how he sees it, and that certainly applies to crypto. That can be a double-edged sword, however, as Cuban faces a class action lawsuit over his comments around Voyager Digital, the soon-to-be-bankrupt crypto platform that had a partnership with Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks. Voyager CEO Steve Erhlich is mentioned as well, as the lawsuit states that “Cuban’s enthusiasm over the Voyager/Mavericks partnership was shared by Steve Erhlich, CEO and co-founder of Voyager, who said the company ‘could not be more excited’ about partnering with the Mavs.”

Meanwhile, Cuban shared a sentiment last week around metaverse land – a category of NFTs that has been hit especially hard in recent months – that can be simplified by his statement that buying these NFTs is “the dumbest s*** ever.” The sentiment goes against the grain of the actions of Bored Ape Yacht Club ownership, Yuga Labs, of which Cuban holds a stake in. Cuban addressed that directly, saying that he “still believed that investing in real estate was a dumb thing.” He added, “that’s great money for them, you know, but that wasn’t based on a utility.”

League One Club Barnsley Looks To Shut Down Crypto Deal

It’s not just Arsenal with crypto troubles this past week, as third division Barnsley are aiming to end their shirt sponsorship deal with HEX.com following fan backlash. The club released a statement expressing their intent to remove the jersey sponsor, just a week after the deal was established, following fan backlash from homophobic comments that surfaced from firm representatives.

HEX.com (HEX) has it's jersey sponsorship deal with Barnsley in question this past week following reports of controversial tweets from platform representatives. | Source: HEX-USDT on TradingView.com

Dapper Labs Teams Up With The LA Rams

Dapper Labs has become a focal point in sports NFTs, creating powerhouse marketplaces like the NBA and WNBA official NFT marketplace, Top Shot, and NFL marketplace, NFL All Day. The NFL is certainly a growth market for Dapper, and the company is taking aim, partnering up last week with the reigning Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams for a season-long partnership this year.

That partnership quickly debuted with limited edition commemorative Super Bowl LVI rings last week on the All Day platform. Just over 6,000 rings swiftly sold out on the platform, ranging from $9 to $699 in price tiers. LA Rams CCO Jen Prince commented around the engagement:

“This best-in-class partnership is a great case study for how game-changing technology will allow us to reach our fans and engage new fans both here in California and across the globe.”

USC Athletics Secures An Official Crypto Platform

Collegiate sports aren’t a stranger to The Sports Slice, however NFT and athlete engagement tends to be at the forefront. That’s not the case this week, as USC Athletics announced a new deal with iTrustCapital, securing the firm as the athletic department’s official crypto platform. The deal will give iTrustCapital standard brand assets throughout the university’s athletic engagements, and will feature iTrustCapital throughout “special fan-centric events and promotional activities both before and after many events throughout the football and basketball seasons,” according to the university press release.