For a brief period in time MLB was arguably the sports leader when it came to Crypto and Blockchain technologies. Way back in 2018 the Los Angeles Dodgers actually had a giveaway that gave away a "digital bobblehead" or what would now be called an NFT! At the time I was pretty surprised by it because well..... baseball tends to be old school and old fashion in part because of the average age of baseball fans.
Last year I began to play the MLB Crypto Baseball game MLB Champions where you could end up earning figures that you could mint into NFTs. This was before Top Shot had been released and before the season was delayed due to COVID 19 suspending sports. When the season was suspended though the team behind MLB Champions, Lucid Sight, went dark in regards to the app/game. Before this happened though issues were definitely beginning to appear as the Dodger bobblehead giveaway was no longer accessible for people who had them.
The app could still be played but without updates especially once the season resumed the game got old really fast since rookies were no part of the game. They also pulled the ability to mint NFT "briefly" during the pause however from the minute they "paused" it the ability never came back. It was really disappointing to see as the NFT that I had minted on the website is also no longer accessible to transfer it. With Top Shot taking off though I hoped I would be able to retrieve them instead, news broke that MLB had split from Lucid Sight and with that, it appears the league and company are just abandoning the whole idea and starting over.
MLB though is preparing to announce the new partner for crypto and the blockchain just in time for the beginning of the regular season. From what can be gathered it appears they might be following in the NBA's footsteps with using Dapper Labs which would probably be the best bet in the space right now. While I like the idea of Top Shot and owning the highlights I hope that there is some gameplay involved!
This also makes me wonder if there could be something in the works between MLB and Topps for blockchain-based trading cards. Topps has ventured out and done this on the WAX Blockchain with the Garbage Patch Kids or GPK cards and that would be a really interesting development that would be a huge seller with the huge growth in sports cards going on right now!
