Hello hello - welcome back to Edition #60 of The SEG3 Report.

For anyone ticking off the days, it’s now just 21 sleeps until SEG3 London, and yesterday we shared the news that Netflix, the BBC, Manchester United, Gameloft and more will be joining the already stacked lineup on June 10-11 👇

Back to today’s edition, our spotlighted piece focuses on how the LA Chargers used Minecraft to (again) win socials for their Schedule Release day, and how they’ve made it much more than just a sporting moment.

We then take a dive into The Sidemen launching a VC fund, and why the flywheel for creators continues to broaden + Red Bull Racing’s launch of digital collectibles alongside Gate.io & Abstract, and the opportunity in knowing your super fans.

Let’s dig in…

Contents: Edition #60

• LA Chargers’ Minecraft Schedule Release

• The Sidemen Launch Upside VC

• Red Bull Racing Launch 24 Collectibles for 25/26 Season

LA Chargers’ Minecraft Schedule Release

The LA Chargers’ launched a 4+ minute Minecraft edition schedule release, building upon their now annual tradition.

They’ve also released a ‘how it was done’ post.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: The Chargers have turned a boring schedule drop into a yearly cultural moment, with this years Minecraft edition notching it up a level. It’s clever, on-brand and shows how sports teams can lean into other parts of culture to cut through. By tapping into gaming, internet culture and a bit of nostalgia, they’re now no longer just announcing fixtures, but building fans in doing so.

In full: The LA Chargers have carved out a strange but brilliant niche for themselves, not for what they do on the field, but for how they drop their season schedule. If you haven’t seen them, they are absolutely fantastic, and have become somewhat of an annual cultural moment.

It started a few years back with an anime (One Piece) release, which we covered in Edition #25, and this year, they took it even further, revealing their 2025 schedule entirely in Minecraft.

And given the current cultural significance of the game since The Minecraft Movie, the timing couldn’t have been better.

The video contains opponent stadiums rebuilt. Matchups simulated in-game. Memes and plenty of Easter eggs packed into every frame. And all of that makes it feel much less like an announcement and more of a scavenger hunt for internet culture fans.

And with the NFL schedule drop being a moment that comes around every year like clockwork, the Chargers approach means they’ve now built a tradition, with both fans and non-fans intrigued by what’s to come.

Considering the video on X is tracking over 4m views since it’s post, I think it’s fair to say they’ve met people’s expectations.

And the team deserves credit as there is a lot of intentionality in the way they’re designing the schedule videos / announcements.

Minecraft has over 140 million monthly active users and one of the broadest age demographics in gaming, so it’s the right title to give the widest surface area for the video to land well. And as we bang the drum about, the crossover with sports is much deeper than people think, with a Morning Consult report saying 44% of Gen Z’ers identify as both avid gamers and sports fans.

So by using Minecraft, the Chargers reached far beyond traditional NFL circles. They tapped into gaming communities, meme accounts and younger audiences who might never have watched a full game but are happy to share a schedule release if it makes them laugh. And that’s key, because younger fans aren’t discovering or learning about sports the same way older generations did, as we covered in Edition #37.

The Chargers are leaning into that shift. Instead of relying on on-field performance (which isn’t exactly going swimmingly) or broadcast moments to build relevance, they’re creating their own route. And while this one piece of content won’t turn someone into a diehard fan overnight, it lays the foundation. And foundations can be built on.

So I think there’s a clear takeaway here for other teams: calendar moments are underrated.

Every sports org has them - kit launches, player signings etc. But too often, they’re treated as throwaways. Not for the Chargers, who quite clearly understand they are not just marketing a team, but aiming to build a brand that feels fun, culturally relevant and has numerous avenues for people to build affinity with the team.

And they’re doing it by showing up where fans already are - in games and on socials. That’s where the attention is, so that’s also where sports brands need to be to engage the next generation of fans.

The Sidemen Launch Upside VC

The Sidemen have launched Upside VC, a £1M creator-led fund investing in early-stage startups. The fund will back 10 companies over the next year.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: The Sidemen have launched Upside VC, a £1M creator-led fund to invest in early-stage startups. It’s another move in their growing empire, and part of a broader trend of creators becoming brand incubators.

In full: Early-stage investing is brutally competitive. Capital is somewhat readily available for innovative start-ups, but attention certainly isn’t. And that’s what makes this so intriguing.

We’ve all seen Shark Tank or Dragons Den. Whilst the money, advice and network is extremely important to a start-up, there’s real value in just being on the show because of the eyeballs that it brings to the business.

This feels like that, but on steroids. The Sidemen have one of the biggest followings globally - 20M+ YouTube subscribers & 43M TikTok followers and counting - with a wealth of content being churned out each week to the their doting fanbase. So for a start-up, the distribution that they can bring is largely unrivalled.

And that’s why the fund feels like such a good fit in their world-building strategy.

They have built their content empire, then launched Prime and Sides using their expertise and audience.

Now they can build, or rather invest in, as many complementary products or businesses as possible that are a good fit with their audience, and then use their content and influence to throw petrol on them.

It takes the onus off them to be the ones to drive it, and you’d imagine will see them strategically integrate their portfolio companies into their content and ecosystem to help grow it without having to be the face of the business.

And that is a trend we’re seeing more and more. Content isn’t the end goal for creators anymore, it’s the starting point.

It’s now used to grow the top of the funnel, with the end goal of leveraging the attention to build businesses, not just building audiences.

It's the traditional franchise model, just refreshed for the creator era. And with Upside VC, they may just be about to hit the accelerator on building a deeper and more expansive universe.

Red Bull Racing Launch 24 Collectibles for 2025 Season

Red Bull Racing & sponsor, Gate.io, have partnered with Abstract to release free digital collectibles tied to 24 races this season. Fans can claim the collectibles each race to unlock rewards and the opportunity of access to money-can’t-buy experiences.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: Like similar, successful launches from ATP Tour and McLaren, the goal isn’t really the collectibles themselves, but the fan data and new digital inventory they generate, helping Red Bull to understand their fanbase on a deeper level and deliver more tailored fan experiences - all whilst creating new activation opportunities for partners like Gate.io.

In full: Red Bull Racing have been active in web3 for a while. Their 2022 partnership with Bybit was one of the earliest F1 crypto integrations. Now, they’re looking to push their strategy one step further, partnering with Gate, and leveraging Abstract blockchain, to launch 24 free-to-claim collectibles for fans across the season.

Each drop celebrates a moment, but more importantly creates a breadcrumb trail of fan interest. What they find interesting. What gets them out of bed in the morning. Their consumption habits etc.

You know the score as we have seen this playbook before.

The ATP Tour launched “Momentum” earlier this year with Trace. McLaren Racing have talked in great depth at previous SEG3 London shows about their collectibles strategy and how it plugs into their wider loyalty plans.

So although this launch is not a new playbook as such, it’s not meant to be. The goal here isn’t the collectibles, but what they can enable.

More data, and sponsorable assets.

So when a fan interacts with content, attends an event or collects an entire set, they’re sending a signal and insight into how they want to interact with your brand. This allows Red Bull (and their partners) to tailor content, offers and experiences far more effectively for their fans, which should benefit everyone across the sports value chain.

In other news this week…

• Roblox expands immersive commerce capabilities: read here.

• Mongraal joins OpenSea as Gaming Ambassador: read here.

• Real Madrid to launch Innovation District: read here.

• Pudgy Penguins launches Lil Pudgys TV show on YouTube: read here.

• Gamesquare to develop games for Spongebob Squarepants: read here.

• Infinite Reality to rebrand as Napster Corporation: read here.

• Skybound Entertainment acquires Nine Four Entertainment: read here.

• Jaguar Land Rover enters Roblox game, Greenville: read here.

• Netflix & WWE team up in NextWorld Roblox experience for Raw: read here.

• ESPN’s new D2C Streaming Service called…ESPN: read here.

• Buffalo Bills announced Verizon as Official 5G partner for new stadium: read here.

• SailGP add waterside music show for Portsmouth race: read here.

• Formula 1 & AWS launch real-time race track experience: read here.

• CAA to acquire Portas Consulting: read here.

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now folks - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report and if you found it of interest, do consider sharing with a friend!