# the mecca. By [thelobthejam](https://paragraph.com/@thelobthejam) · 2022-01-29 --- the problem ----------- In the current web2 landscape, basketball fans and creators are continuously churning out content in the form of blogs, videos, tweets, memes, tiktok/ig posts, reddit posts, etc., and are never fairly compensated. NBA Twitter has become a staple of culture, yet the community members who produce all the content don’t get paid. No matter how viral their content becomes. Services like Patreon allow for creators to get paid for their content, but they are forced to ask fans to pay monthly fees in exchange for content. This presents a large hurdle for many sports media communities to scale, which ultimately plays into the hands of free, centralized platforms. Sports advertising is a multi billion dollar a year business, with sports gambling alone projected to reach a billion dollars in ad spend within the next 3 years. Why should centralized platforms like Twitter, Reddit, or Bleacher Report receive all of this revenue that has only been materialized due to fans creating content? They shouldn’t. the solution ------------ The Mecca is a gated web3 community that can only be accessed by holding a membership based NFT. The Mecca DAO is a web3 community allowing fans and creators to collaborate on, produce, and grow hoops content together. As a permissionless media brand that will distribute the content projects that are crafted and voted on by its members, The Mecca will become a sought after place for brands to advertise. The revenue from advertisements will all be evenly distributed to DAO members based on the amount of tokens they hold. The more high quality projects that are created by community members, the more revenue the community makes.‍ The Mecca is a web3 based community of basketball fans who share the same goal: **to create the first of its kind, decentralized sports media economy. Made possible with web3.** how it works ------------ When you join The Mecca community, you can choose to enter specific project pods based on your areas of expertise: Content Creators can form or join pods based on a content piece (ie: a Lakers specific newsletter, a community trick shot challenge, or a new docuseries on Lance Stephenson). **The possibilities are endless.** Developers and Designers can form or join pods focused on creating web3 tools for fans to discover and interact with The Mecca content, as well as new ways for advertisers to pay to promote to our ecosystem. Marketers can form or joins pods that focus on growing the reach of the overall network. For example, they can create a campaign targeting freelance content creators outside of The Mecca (ie: contacting and onboarding a current web2 hoops podcast to The Mecca platform). Business Developers can form or join pods that focus on creating partnerships with brands like the NBA, who are looking to reach their targeted audience in new ways. Community managers can form or joins pods that focus on moderating comments, increasing engagement, and the process of onboarding new members. These pods will be the foundation for an entirely new micro economy. The Mecca will create new jobs for fans to work and grow in basketball media, while retaining ownership of their work. the DAO structure ----------------- A DAO incentivizes open-source, collaborative creations through social tokens that represent ownership. As a permisionless brand, members of the DAO will vote\* on specific facets of The Mecca. For example: * collaborative NFT's * content pieces * content series’ * content discovery tools * branding and marketing campaigns * business development plans * etc. \*the more you contribute to a specific pod, the more voting power you will have for that area of the organization. With a DAO structure, The Mecca will continuously grow in the direction best fit for its actual users, and continue to provide innovations that facilitate the growth of its community. These innovations will continuously drive new streams of revenue. **Thus, facilitating a Network Economy.** Simply put, the more people who join The Mecca, the stronger its economy will grow. ‍ ### why basketball? * The basketball news cycle is 24/7, 365. * The NBA is a massive driver of community produced content on multiple, centralized platforms. * Large corporations are making money by repurposing, and distributing fan-generated NBA content. * Sports advertising is a multi billion dollar business, with sports gambling projected to reach billions of dollars in ad spend alone within the next 3 years. Most importantly though, **because we love it.** community driven. The Mecca will is a fluid web3 community. Instead of latching on to any specific archetype, it will focus on building and maintaining a strong community that can adapt as needed. web3 will enable future generations to work in new economies based in what they love. The Mecca will allow its members to work and own a basketball media brand designed to disrupt sports media entirely. it will allow us to creatively explore different facets of our fandom, while being fairly compensated for the brand's overall growth. Currently, nothing like this exists. let’s build it. --- *Originally published on [thelobthejam](https://paragraph.com/@thelobthejam/the-mecca)*