💎 Crowded: crypto games, weddings & movies (5 December 2021)

Today, wherever we see a crowd we worry, unless we are in it! When it comes to how we invest our money or spend it, we are often influenced by how others behave. Today, we present how this ‘crowding’ is playing out.

Staples center, the basketball arena in Los Angeles — home of the teams like Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks — will wear the new name soon: Crypto.com Arena. The rights went for more than USD 700 million in one of the biggest naming deals in sports history. Cryptocurrency exchanges are pouring money into sports sponsorships in an effort to bring the digital asset class into the mainstream.

The common fans

‍As per latest research, sports fans are twice as likely as non-fans to say they are familiar with the digital asset class — 47% of sports fans said they are familiar with cryptocurrency; 27% said they currently own some.

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Possible reasons

- Sports fans are considered to exhibit high risk appetite and speculative behavior, resembling target audience for crypto firms
- Brand partnerships with popular athletes is an effective way to reach millennials and Gen Z
- Cryptocurrencies are accepted as mode of payments on a lot of these sports platforms for ticketing, digital gaming, etc.

Our take

Recently, BCCI banned IPL franchises from going ahead with sponsorship deals with crypto exchanges and asked them to wait for the regulations to evolve. However, a long term solution is for the sports league or clubs to evaluate what their core brand stands for. Sponsorships should be looked at beyond the monetary value. It’s hard to change perceptions too!

“The Chosen,” a saga about the adult life of Jesus, is financed completely by its audience. And success of the series has proven that a right crowdfunding model can sustain production - Season 3 of “The Chosen” is set to start shooting in March with a budget of USD 18 million, up from USD 12 million for season 2.

The popularity

Movies are among the most numerous projects on crowdfunding platforms. To exemplify, as of December 2020, Kickstarter, the largest crowdfunding platform, counted 28,583 successfully financed film projects.

How does crowdfunding help?

- To nurture audiences since you reach out to those people for funding who are eventually going to watch your movie
-  Acts as a trial to test the viability of the project and take feedback from a wider and diversified group on global platforms
- The filmmaker can control the level of centralized and democratic decision making with respect to cast, script, development etc.

Our take

The Indian film industry has also been warming up to the concept of crowdfunding, particularly for regional cinema. To encourage arts, and facilitate crowdfunding, regulators should come up with simplified and uniform laws. This will benefit all the stakeholders: filmmakers, distributors, platforms, and the audience.

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Weddings are roaring back after a pandemic-induced slump, leading to a fillip to the entire wedding industry and an additional jolt of spending to the economy. People have saved a lot of money during the pandemic, thanks to long months at home, a rising stock market and geographic flexibility for many young adults, and with marriages, it's time to spend.

Fat Indian wedding industry

The USD 50 billion Indian wedding industry is set to bounce back after it received a huge setback due to the Covid 19 outbreak. Estimates suggest that about 25 lakh weddings are expected to take place between November and December, which could easily translate into a Rs. 3 lakh crore business.

Broader picture for the economy

- Signifies formation of household, spurring the consumption across purchasing homes to buying daily use products
- Wedding industry adds around 3 lac jobs per wedding season, a majority of these in tier 2 and 3 cities
- The destination wedding trend these days boosts the local tourism and indigenous small scale industries

Our take

A lot of businesses revolve around the different stages and aspects of a marriage. During the pandemic, there were players who innovated — e meeting features in matrimonial apps, digital wedding planning services, creating tourist zones for wedding destinations. Similarly, the current wedding rush also brings along heaps of opportunities for the brands to monetise upon.

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In episode 5 of our podcast, I invited my co-founder Vaibhav to discuss inflation - how increasing price levels impact our lives and portfolios.
Tune in to listen to interesting anecdotes like how Vaibhav's grandma kept a tab on increasing prices, Walmart's increase in retail prices of clothing after more than a decade, how is inflation affecting long distance relationships, why Elon Musk stopped having avocado toasts, and many more insights!

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Our advice: avoid those crowds, and stay safe.

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