Table of Contents

• Crypto’s rebounding: Crawley Town`s indisputably d …

• Web3 promises a new relationship between brands an …

• Top Tickers

• The future of NFL ownership: Private equity on the …

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Crypto’s rebounding: Crawley Town`s indisputably deserved rise to League One

Crawley Town completed its unlikely promotion quest Sunday with a 2-0 win over Crewe Alexandra.

“Everyone told us, and everyone tells new owners—especially American owners—you have no idea what you’re getting into, and you’re like ‘Ya ya ya, whatever,’” Crawley Town F.C. owner Preston Johnson said at the mic, beige sweater sleeves pushed up. “But, like, you definitely have no clue what you’re getting into. You definitely don’t. I was humbled, for sure, instantly.”

Two years ago, he helped lead a takeover of the League Two soccer club 30 miles south of London with Web3 group WAGMI United. They minted NFTs that would give fans a say in team decisions and help fund a stronger squad. The new club directors made a promise, too: If they didn’t achieve promotion by 2024, the fans could vote them out. They estimated a move up was roughly a 50-50 proposition.

In WAGMI’s first 12 months in charge, the team went through five managers. It tallied fewer points in a season than it had since the early 1980s, finishing third-to- last and barely avoiding relegation. Crypto crashed.

Before a ball was kicked this season there was not a single team in League Two considered less likely to win promotion than Crawley Town. A little over seven months later, on a glorious afternoon at Wembley, they completed a triumphant playoff blitz by beating Crewe Alexandra 2-0 to secure a ludicrously far-fetched but indisputably deserved rise to League One.

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Web3 promises a new relationship between brands and consumers

Fewer cookies and less tracking. More participation and ownership — interesting also for elite athletes.

The promise of “Web3 marketing” is more than just a niche interest for ad execs. It could transform how all of us use the internet, how we consume media, and how we interact with our favorite movies and NBA players and coffee shops and whiskey labels.

Web3 is revolutionizing the relationship between brands and consumers, and elite athletes are poised to benefit immensely. By offering more participation and ownership, Web3 marketing presents an unprecedented opportunity for athletes to build direct, meaningful connections with their fans.

At the core of a decentralized framework that enables direct relationships between brands (and/or elite athletes) and consumers (and/or fans) is the reduction of intrusive tracking and cookies, replaced by a more transparent, tokenized approach. Consumers/fans gain control over their data, sharing only what they choose while enjoying rewards and ownership in the networks they engage with. This allows athletes to engage with their audience without intermediaries, ensuring privacy and fostering genuine interactions with a loyal customer base while providing athletes with new revenue streams.

Moreover, Web3’s promise of privacy-preserving interactions ensures that athletes’ data and fan interactions remain secure, enhancing trust and authenticity. As athletes continue to explore these digital frontiers, they can transform their personal brands, creating lasting legacies both on and off the field.

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The future of NFL ownership: Private equity on the horizon

Private equity in the NFL? How team ownership might shift

A special committee of NFL owners has spent the past nine months investigating potential changes to league rules for team ownership, an attempt to grapple with a shrinking pool of potential team buyers amid soaring team valuations.

One of the possibilities on the table: allowing institutional wealth, including private equity, to invest in NFL franchises, which the league has never permitted.

A move to allow private equity firms or institutional wealth to invest as limited partners could free up cash for owners to pursue projects such as stadium renovations and would represent a large shift in how the league has historically operated, with the majority of franchises traditionally run as family businesses with single-family ownership.

As the league continues to explore changes, what could this mean for teams? For private equity funds? If this happens, how could this all work?

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Then we have Alphabet-owned Google that will invest a further €1 billion into the expansion of its data centre campus in Finland to drive its artificial intelligence (AI) business growth in Europe, it said in a statement on Monday.

In recent years, many data centres have been located in the Nordic countries because of the region's cooler climate, tax breaks and abundant availability of renewable power.

Analysts believe data centres' power consumption is set to massively increase due to the rapid growth in AI usage, which Google, too, cited for one of the reasons behind its investment decision, alongside its Hamina data centre in Finland already operating with 97% carbon-free energy.

So it's worth keeping an eye on from an investment perspective...

Feel free to enjoy the rest of the day as much as possible!

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