Announcing Swoops 🏀

Sports are a powerful force that bring together many emotions: The thrill of a win, the pain of a loss, and the bonds formed through competition along the way. Whether we are in the stands or viewing from our home, we show up to support our team through thick and thin.

But unfortunately, that's all we can do, watch. We can't call plays on the floor. We can't adjust the lineup on the field. We can't trade our players. Most of all, we can't capture any of the monetary value from a sport, even though most of it is generated from us.

Being a fan is a spectator sport. We're changing that.

We are Swoops, and we're building a blockchain and NFT-powered strategy basketball game. We empower fans to play the roles of Owner, General Manager, Coach, and Player, where they can own, trade, and stake players to be used in cash prize contests. We're transforming what it means to be a fan and making it possible for anyone to be a team owner, not just millionaires and billionaires.

While we’re starting with a real money game, the ultimate vision is to build a new type of sport and build the infrastructure around it like media, analytics, merchandise, gambling, televised tournaments, and sponsorships. In the same way eSports created its own ecosystem, we are going to create ours.

As CEO and co-founder, Swoops is equal parts professional and personal for me. I grew up playing basketball and am a diehard Lakers fan (don't ask me about this season). Playing at an elite level as a career wasn't ever in the cards for me, partly because I was a lanky 5'7 kid and partly because... as a son of two Indian immigrants, the culture I was brought up in didn't exactly encourage that path.

So in some ways, Swoops is my redemption path. It's my second chance at becoming elite in sports, by getting to help create the future of it. It's everything I love — fun, competition, strategy, reward — wrapped into one.

And like with any sport, you need a team. We've begun building one, starting with our investors. We raised $3.5M from some of the most respected investors across gaming, crypto, and sports, including Courtside Ventures, Alpaca VC, Slow Ventures, Gary and AJ Vaynerchuk, multiple NBA team owners, Jason Robins (Draftkings CEO), Red Beard Ventures, and strategic angels.

We’re hiring across product, engineering, and marketing. If you're interested in joining our team, check out our jobs page here. And if you don't see a job opening for you but still want to help, drop me a note at manish@playswoops.com or come say hello in our Discord.

In the meantime, back to building…