Golf NFT Project Eyes Scottish Course, aims to grow beyond crypto fans – Sportico.com
Courtesy LinksDAO
In January 2022 – near the peak of the NFT frenzy – LinksDAO sold $10.4 million worth of digital tokens with the stated mission of buying a golf course. Just over a year later, in the midst of a completely different crypto climate, the project is approaching this promise.
But the milestone isn’t exactly a validation of blockchain’s unique power. The story is more complicated.
Last week, Links Golf Club (we’ll get to the reason behind the naming distinction soon) announced that it had entered into an exclusivity deal to buy Spey Bay Golf Club along Scotland’s north coast for approximately $1 million.
The club has not finished shopping. Executives are considering more than two dozen U.S. courses as they look at future purchases, hoping to amass 10 tracks by 2030.
Links also plans to expand membership for the first time since launch, notably without NFTs this time around – hence the new Links Golf Club brand.
“Not everyone is interested in Web3,” Link CEO Jim Daily said in an interview. “To really see our vision of being extremely inclusive to the end, we need to make it accessible to people who are not interested in crypto as well.”
In April, the group will begin selling celebrity annual memberships — possibly up to 100,000 of them — that come with access to private clubs, plus merchandise discounts and community connections. The price has not yet been announced. That makes Link’s GC the last effort to come up with new technology before they want to reach a wider audience without losing their original ethos.
“If you say, only if you own cryptocurrency, only if you know how to have a custodial wallet, only if you know where to go to buy NFTs, then you can be part of this club for everyone,” said Daily, “honestly. it’s just not a club for everyone.”
Of course, Links Golf Club will not be the first golf membership program. In addition to old Country Club models, companies such as Apollo-owned Invited (which was formerly known as ClubCorp, also recently underwent a name change) offer access to a network of locations. Links plans to differentiate its offering by focusing on experiences, social events, online content and so on. “What we’re building is the next generation golf community,” Daily said, “Not a local membership in a club.”
NFT holders will continue to receive additional benefits, while not officially having equity in the Links Golf Club stake. The committed supporters were critical of the Spey Bay purchase process. First, the site was sourced from the community, after it was quietly listed for sale earlier this year. When group leaders decided to move forward, the opportunity for bidding was opened to the community chat platform for 48 hours of debate, followed by a vote. Close to 90% voted “Yes”, with over 4,300 votes representing the community of approximately 9,000 NFTs.
“It is this level of inclusivity that naturally happens in Scottish golf that we soaked into our project in a very deliberate way,” Daily said. “For us to have our first golf course in the birthplace of golf that really keeps clean and perfectly aligned with our own beliefs and philosophy is perfect. So…I voted yes with my one NFT vote.”
Daily visited Spey Bay for the first time on 18 March. Links GC hopes to maintain the course’s local player base while updating the course over the next year. NFT holders will vote on some of these changes, with options including adding cameras to each hole so members can see each other and hosting fantasy tournaments on the course.
The physical course will only be a manifestation of the digital golf community Links has built. Current memberships come with the ability to play nearly 500 private clubs across the United States. A recently launched program also allows members to be guests at other locations. In addition, LinksDAO has facilitated various events, groups and competitions while also offering discounted equipment from partners in the project.
Having started with a tweet in December 2021, the company now has 18 full-time employees, plus 30 part-time contributors. It has a relationship with WME, counts Callaway as an equity investor after an undisclosed funding round, and is partnering with KemperSports to buy Spey Bay as well as future courses.
It is one of a number of NFT projects that move outside this framework, with varying degrees of success. Last week, Jordan Castro, one of the founders behind the blockchain-born brand Doodles, which started as 10,000 unique NFT images, summed up the company’s pivot most succinctly, drawing the die-hards’ zeal when he claimed: “We are no longer an ‘NFT’ the project.'” The goal now, according to Castro (aka “Poopie”), is to become “a leading media franchise.”
Others have been forced to grapple with what their society looks like without the NFTs that once brought people together. Is there more to the group bond than the shared prospect of being early adopters of a valuable technology?
On the flip side, teams and leagues are now wondering how blockchain technology can bolster existing efforts in areas ranging from ticket sales to video games, potentially without advertising any of the NFT elements there.
For them, Links GC’s ongoing rebrand may offer a model to follow. The group has evolved from a so-called Web3 project to more fully embrace an ethos that predates the Bitcoin boom.
Today’s fans – and tomorrow’s consumers – want to feel part of something, they want a say in the decisions made on their behalf, and they want places to gather, both online and in the physical world. You don’t have to speak Ethereum to offer any of that.
