Warner Music, the MLS Players Association and Paramount: turning partnerships into $50M in a week
Partners with huge fan bases brought new players in through the music and sports they already loved. Cross-promotion across our games turned that attention into a stronger economy.
SplinterlandsSr. Director, Growth MarketingOct 2021 – Dec 20243 min read- $50M+
- Added to the economy in one week
- 3
- Subsidiary game IPs
- 7+
- Exchange listings negotiated
Context
Splinterlands had proven it could grow a player base. The next step was reaching people who would never search for a crypto card game, but who were devoted fans of a musician, a sports league or a beloved TV series.
I helped source and negotiate the Warner Music Group and MLS Players Association deals personally. Because the company had been so successful, we secured full rights to build games and sell digital products around their artists and athletes, on margins that were extremely favourable to us. We also signed a deal with Paramount for the rights to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
The thesisThe cheapest player to acquire is one who already loves something you can bring into the game.
The partner ecosystem
Each partnership gave us the rights to build games and products around the partner’s artists, athletes or titles, and each one connected back to the core Splinterlands economy. That is what made the network worth more than the sum of its deals: a soccer fan or a music fan who arrived through one game could discover the others.
Cross-pollination
The flywheel works by passing fans between games. A partner’s audience arrives through a game they care about, rewards and promotions introduce them to the rest of the ecosystem, and each new product gives existing players a reason to spend again.
Results
Cross-promoting marketing, rewards and offers across our games added more than $50M to the economy within a single week.
Alongside the partnerships, I negotiated exchange listings for SPS, the game’s governance token, on Binance, Coinbase, Huobi, Kraken, MEXC, Uniswap and other exchanges and liquidity providers.
The exchange listings were negotiated as business development rather than marketed. Legally, marketing could promote the game but not the token, so that line was held throughout.