Investment Idea: Lebron James NFTs

I’ve always had a soft spot for Wendy’s. When Kobe was retiring, any road games he was playing was a circus. Yet, someone in the Bucks marketing department thought it was a good idea to have a buy one get one ticket sale for that game if you bought a soda from Wendy’s. Well, 22 year old me saw the opportunity and fully took advantage. Every day, I’d stop at Wendy’s on the way home, get a large soda, create a new email, buy the tickets and then resell for a huge profit. I made $5k+ arbitraging the situation. It was the easiest money I ever made.

While the risk here is significantly higher, I think buying Lebron James NFTs on NBA Top Shot might be a money making opportunity (degenerate gamble).

Why NFTs

I’ve always been curious with NFTs. For a bit I was arbitraging them between marketplaces and I’ve owned a few. Yet they all seem so temporary. I’ve been drawn towards what I think has the most staying power (CryptoPunks) but those run $50k+ each.

NBA Top Shot is one of the NFT areas I’ve been playing around with. It is extremely smooth on the front end to the point you wouldn’t even realize it runs on the blockchain. The idea is you buy highlights as “trading cards”.

Obviously on the surface, this seems incredibly stupid. Could NFTs be in the sweet spot below? As we move towards an increasingly digital world, digital scarcity makes more and more sense. People already do incredibly odd things like buying trading cards? Are those really scarce? They are just information on a piece of paper. NFTs are just information on the blockchain. Maybe this isn’t as stupid as it seems.

The Lebron Angle

I’m a self admitted Lebron hater. So much of what he does is cringe. Yet, you have to respect that he is 38 years old and still one of the best players in the league.

The reality is that Lebron will be retiring sooner than later. I doubt he plays until he can’t anymore (see Vince Carter / Udonis Haslem), so the question is essentially how fast Lebron declines. If Lebron matches any historical precedent, my guess is he plays until he is 42 at the latest (3 more seasons).

During that time, I wouldn’t expect many new Lebron NFTs to be minted (based on historical views from Top Shot). The tough part here is that the best returns will likely come from the rarest cards (legendary), but those already cost a bit. Yet, I think you can find opportunity here in lower cost brackets as well.

So you have one of the greatest of all time, retiring right at the potential tipping point of NFTs? Seems like an opportunity.

Combo Multiplier

Much like Kobe tickets went crazy, could Lebron NFTs go crazy?

The ultimate goal here is to combine Lebron retiring hype with NFT hype to get a frenzied buying craze. This is a pure degenerate gamble, it likely won’t work out. Yet I think it is a very interesting play.