NBA Unveils New Metaverse Coach

The NBA has announced a new “metaverse coach”, Coach Nat, through a message from league commissioner, Adam Silver. This was a part of the NBA’s All-Star Weekend events. The coach was first unveiled through an Instagram video posted by @nba, which sits at 1.3 million views in 17 hours.

Coach Nat and the NBA Metaverse Moves

Coach Nat was announced by the NBA’s commissioner, Adam Silver, on an Instagram video. The video started with a Zoom call that featured former President Barack Obama, NBA legend Dikembe Mutumbo and more. Then, Silver unveiled Coach Nat to display his skills. Then, Coach Nat, who was voiced by Shaquille O’Neal stated: “My role is to help coach, train and develop the next generation of NBA talent”, which was also accompanied by a video of coach showing off his skills. Later, there was even a joke included, with Coach Nat saying “I can even make a free-throw”, in reference to Shaq’s infamously poor free-throw shooting. Then, the announcement was finished by Coach Nat imitating Superman by flying way above the stage. The full video can be found here.

Although we are not fully sure what the NBA will do in the future of the metaverse and Coach Nat, we know something big could happen. Before now, we have seen many NBA players and teams involved in NFTs, crypto and the metaverse. Most recently, LeBron James featured in Coinbase’s Super Bowl Commercial.

The NBA’s Previous Innovation

The NBA has become known as an extremely innovative company. This is through early moves with online streaming and building a social media presence, to working on their own licensed NFTs with Dapper Labs, NBA TopShot. Certainly, the association is very forward-thinking. So hopefully, history is repeated with their moves in the metaverse, and we see a lot more from the league. Could you imagine playing with your favourite player as a character in the metaverse? That’s only the beginning of what could be done.