Maccabi and Sighteer use sports history NFTs to build community across the Metaverse

On a recent morning, Eran Reshef was touring an archive that will be on display at the soon-to-open Maccabi Museum on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. As he moved through hundreds of medals, trophies, badges, flags, photos, films and memoirs from more than a century of sports competitions, the Israeli entrepreneur kept thinking about how to move the past and present into the future. Inspired by his observation of the artifacts and the desire to find ways for technology to create connections between younger generations of people on social networks and in the metaverse, “Project Max” was born.

Project Max is an initiative that uses non-fungible tokens as a way to reach audiences. The NFTs are officially licensed digital memorabilia generated from Maccabi’s physical archives. But they do more than serve as the latest attempt by an established organization to tap into the recent popularity of NFTs among collectors, investors and speculators. Instead, they aim to bring people closer together through meaningful messages about sport and society.

The project is a global awareness effort focused on promoting inspiring stories that connect with people through social media and the metaverse. It uses Maccabi’s trove of sports memorabilia as the basis for NFTs that elevate the message.

Maccabi is recognizable to many sports fans by its association with major professional league teams in Israel that compete on international stages. Teams bearing the name regularly play in men’s UEFA Champions League competitions, and men’s basketball teams have won EuroLeague championships. And for the past ninety years, the name has been known to male and female athletes who have participated in the quadrennial Maccabiah Games; the twenty-first edition of the games took place in the last monthwith around 10,000 athletes from more than 60 nations competing in 3,000 events across 42 sports in venues in 18 cities around Israel.

Maccabi organizations have been played an important role in their communities around the world since the late 19th century^th Century. The movement has its roots in a conversation from the Hungarian-French doctor and author Max Nordau for athletic, physical and spiritual discipline that could revive a nation of the Jewish people. Today, the network with 450,000 members across 450 clubs in 80 countries is organized under the Maccabi World Union. Over the past few years, however, there has been a realization among management that younger people are increasingly disconnecting and distancing themselves from their heritage and identity. At the same time, anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred and intolerance are rampant, especially online.

Increasing levels of disengagement among people in a community and increasing levels of hate speech online are often treated as separate challenges. But Reshef, the serial founder, sees them as interconnected. So does Maccabi World Union boss Amir Gissin. Discussing that point after Reshef’s visit to the Maccabi Museum gave them a sense of tackling things from a new perspective. This sensibility, along with inspiration from Nordau’s name and vision, led to the development of Project Max and its NFTs.

For example, one of the NFTs draws on a photo of athletes traveling to the first Maccabiah Games in 1932 as an opening to tell the story of a trip that ended up saving many of their lives because of what it got them to escape. the Nazi threat growing across Europe. A trophy from Maccabi clubs such as HaKoach Vienna, a winner of Austria’s national football championship in the 1920s, is a way into sharing stories ranging from pre-war football and coffeehouse culture to the club’s wrestling team serving as security guards for teams in other sports to players who emigrate and form large teams outside Europe until the club’s liquidation by the Nazis and the death of many members during the Holocaust. A lapel pin or a medal from clubs such as Bar Kochva Berlin, HaGibbor Praha, Maccabi Warsaw, Maccabi Bulgaria or Maccabi Syria & Lebanon gives access to stories of growth and change in these communities over time.

Still, the NFTs might lean more toward novelty than utility if it weren’t for the technology that Reshef had in mind while touring the Maccabi archives.

Reshef, along with veteran startup founders Roni Reshef and Asher Polani, co-founded Israel-based startup Sightseer. The company, a pioneer in social marketing, has developed an artificial intelligence platform that can reach specific audiences with relatable messages at scale. As Reshef realized, Sighteer technology could be used to build the bridges that get Maccabi stories to the right audiences on social media and in the metaverse.

Sighteer AI does not get involved in PR, media releases or marketing. What it does, as Polani explains, is discover the identities and relationships that shape a community and then help increase that community’s global impact. With Sighteer AI, an NFT is much more than a token that can be exchanged – it is a key to how to run an effective and efficient community in the Web 3.0 world.

This is why Project Max, by design, weaves together three pillars that reflect and refract the power of sport in society. One is the values ​​inherent in sport – winning and losing, competition, determination, perseverance, individual work and teamwork, and so on. Another is the role that sport and its values ​​play as drivers of social movements. A third is the community of people from across generations and places around the world who come together around sports.

In that way, Project Max is an example of something more than minting and selling digital versions of historical objects placed in museum displays. And it’s about more than the latest example of an organization using NFTs as a way to engage the public. Rather, it shows a new way of thinking about using the power of sport to attract people to identify more closely with their communities.