Can we kick it? Yes, we can! Because this week’s Metaversal Badge is all about kicks — albeit virtual ones — from the biggest name in the game. Collect it, and you could be lacing up for a fresh adventure, cleaning up your best pair ahead of an exclusive event, or finding unexpected fits in your virtual wardrobe.

DYOR 🔬

Sportwear and sneaker giant Nike has had a rocky few weeks when it comes to its metaverse initiatives. The company’s dotSWOOSH brand had to postpone its planned drop of 106,453 “Our Force 1 (OF1)” virtual sneaker boxes due to technical challenges, then ran into issues when it did start offering them and ultimately failed to sell them all.

The boxes came in two versions — New Wave or Classic Remix — and were both priced at $19.82 (in honor of the year the original Air Force 1 was launched). Roughly a third of dotSWOOSH members were airdropped a virtual poster ahead of the sale, which they could use to buy a single box before the public sale.

Once the general sale opened, all members — including those who received the airdropped poster — could buy additional boxes. Despite not selling out, Nike did sell 97,627 virtual shoe boxes, netting over $1.9 million in the process… which is pretty impressive for magic internet sneakers and delivers an even better margin than its physical wares.

Nonetheless, it feels strange to chalk this up as an unmitigated victory for Nike.

Few brands enjoy the mindshare, market share, or loyalty Nike does. It’s also one of the most profitable businesses in human history. And when it acquired digital studio RTFKT, many assumed it would be positioned to surmount any technical challenges it might face with its Web3 initiatives.

But even with its nearly infinite resources, technical chops, cultural cache, and previous Web3 experience, Nike’s drop was the opposite of smooth. And it didn’t sell out, despite unit prices being <$20, and despite its real-world drops generally selling out in milliseconds.

Furthermore, while $1.9 million in revenue from a digital drop might sound like a lot, by Nike’s standards, it’s a rounding error. In the last quarter alone, the company recorded revenue of $13.3 billion.

It turns out selling digital wares is hard — even if you’re Nike — and that a deeply committed web 2.0 audience doesn’t necessarily translate into an instant and equally rabid Web3 one. But it’s also a reminder that the early mover advantage web3-native brands once had is dwindling by the day. The big dogs aren’t just coming, they’re here, and spending big to stake their claim.

As for Nike’s metaverse ambitions, well, it’s already teasing the next leg. It’s got something in the works with EASports which, as one astute commenter observes, potentially gives it access to “over 650 million players that already understand digital products and virtual goods.”

Nike may not have hit it out of the park with its OF1 drop but you know it will keep swinging for the fences until it hits a home run. And it’s got the appetite, resources, contact list, and war chest to create the sorts of partnerships and digital product launches fledgling Web3 businesses can only dream of.

That said, as Metabookstagram has demonstrated, merely throwing money at Web3 doesn’t guarantee dominance. Nonetheless, we’re more optimistic about Nike’s odds. It understands fashion, it understands hype, and it knows how to make deeply desirable things. It’s only a matter of time before it manages to do what it’s done in the real world in the metaverse… and it doesn’t have to bet the farm to get there.

To the moon 🌙

• Artist Fewocious has announced a forthcoming collection of 20,000 “FEWOS” that’ll launch in August. Holders of Fewocious’s “Paint” NFTs will be able to mint for free during a presale period, and holders of other Fewocious works will be able to mint at a discount:

• Apple’s expected to unveil its first mixed-reality headset on Monday, June 5, during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

• A group of Dogecoin investors is suing Elon Musk for what it describes as “transparent cryptocurrency manipulation.” This is only going to end well for one group: the lawyers.

• Mercedes-Benz has partnered with Fingerprints DAO and artist Harm van den Dorpel to create a collection of automobile-inspired generative art NFTs called “Maschine.” It drops on June 7.

• Doodles has announced a partnership with retailer CAMP and will be launching “its first-ever retail and entertainment experience this summer.” It’s yet to confirm which of CAMP’s US locations will be hosting the Doodles experience.

• Part II of Sotheby’s 3AC “Grails” auction is slated for June 15, and includes 37 works, the most notable of which is Dmetri Cherniak’s “Ringer #879 — better known to fans as “The Goose” — which is expected to fetch between $2-3 million.

• Getty Images is dropping a new collection of archive photos entitled “City Diaries: Visual Narratives From Around the World.” The collection includes images from seven iconic metropolises: New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Mexico City, Istanbul, and Mumbai​.

Thread of the Week 🧵

Connect for more 🔌

You can find Metaversal on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

Metaversal’s content director, Craig Wilson, compiled this week’s edition.

Kathryn McCawley designed this week’s dotSWOOSH-inspired Badge.

Until next time, see you in the metaverse!

Can we kick it? Yes, we can! Because this week’s Metaversal Badge is all about kicks — albeit virtual ones — from the biggest name in the game. Collect it, and you could be lacing up for a fresh adventure, cleaning up your best pair ahead of an exclusive event, or finding unexpected fits in your virtual wardrobe.