You should really use the internet to do good things more. Checking in here for the down-low on DAOs is pretty great as far as time-wasters go. But if you are really productive, you’d use the internet to build a DAO that is buying a basketball team. Just sayin’.
KrauseHouse DAO is doing just that. And basketball!
You can participate as a Giver or a Contributor. Get up to speed via their newsletter to see what they are up to. Even if you aren’t super-savvy on crypto or even how to spell DAO, KrauseHouse is most welcoming of your help. There is a lot of work to do. Their site warns, “we have an endless need for design work, community management and facilitation.” This is stuff that gets averaged out by the giant machine that is pro sports, but doing it all on a shoestring and on-spec. They have Seasons instead of Agile Sprints. Contributors can perform bounties and get paid in $KRAUSE tokens(more about this later).
This reveals what an economic dynamo a sports team represents. Players and coaches might by 20 people, but the marketeers, promoters, support staff, merchandising, public relations, management and leadership functions makes up a hundred people or more for the average ball team. Even the guy that runs the jumbotron has his career path tied to the whims of a team owner. And how many teams are well-loved for their players and fans, but hated because the owner is a jerk?
KrauseHause is shooting for a factional share of a big-time NBA team as a proof of concept of the DAO governance paradigm. This is an audacious goal. No one knows the best way to do DAOs. The book on DAOs hasn’t been written (but this guy complied some best practices). Krause is open to owning a non-basketball team if the opportunity arises, but why waste all of their fanaticism?
Structured as a kind of holocracy with a basketball vibe, teams are run by General Managers, who coordinate with the Team Leaders. Each Team Leader has their squad of specialists (point guard, etc) as required to accomplish the task at hand. A broad swath of expertise is required to get this thing started, so just about everyone is welcome to contribute. There is a major bias for quality. “All we ask is that you don't overcommit and under deliver. We're all about quality over quantity. It's exciting to get involved and easier to get carried away about what you can manage. The best way to build a reputation is to be reliable.” DAOs are all about reputation and most DAO software has a way to quantify reputation (usually as a non-tradable, tokenized metric).
What of their native token? Good question. Their $KRAUSE tokenomics are not yet solidified. This is a good thing. Sometimes projects utilize the Underwear Gnomes tokenomics model (1. Tokens! 2. ?? 3. Profit!) and this approach can go badly when whale investors with bad intentions get involved.
Drake (I assume he is famous) is also considering buying a ball team. Instead of starting an epic rap battle, the Krause folks are encouraging him to join the DAO.
The level of cooperation across the board on this project has groundbreaking implications for the future of sports teams. Single-owner teams can be very popular, especially with a popular owner. I’d wager that grassroots teams like the Green Bay Packers that are mostly community funded have the most dedicated fans. Calling them “stakeholders” is reductionist and bland. They are fanatics; crowd-funding a massive stadium in a smallish, isolated Wisconsin town.
What if the crowdfunding model applied to everything surrounding pro sports?
Instead of selling ‘licensed league apparel’ at a major markup for example, a DAO sub-element (circle) focused on branded apparel could churn out jerseys for a fraction of the cost. The outlaw vendors in the stadium parking lots do the same thing, I know, but a DAO would remove the veneer of skeezieness.
DAOs could remove the most onerous aspects of pro sports by mixing the powerful forces of capitalism with experimental, trustless democracy of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
The KrauseHauseDAO believes in the inevitability of pro sports teams being fan-owned. This makes governance discussions fun because the stakes are high. C-Suite executives of top companies have been drawn to the Krause Hause meetings on Discord (as plebs like us) and podcasts. Audience interaction for these meetings are via sli.do which makes pleb banter a little more civil. The idea of this DAO does a lot to level the playing field because everyone comes in as a “fan”. Money and skillsets are optional, but good work is required.
