Archived on 15/05/2025

Small Grants: Nouns Athletes

skateordao

Nouns Athletes empowers extreme sportspeople to visit the people, places and things that inspire them to reach their full potential – #ShredTheNouns :metal:

These artists push the boundaries of self expression and nouns form the foundations of their art form.

TL;DR

An extreme sports team:

  • Sponsored by the Nouns DAO treasury
  • Represented by Noun 189 + Gnars community
  • Facilitated in collaboration with Travala.com

Requesting 3 ETH to be funded by small grants for a proof of concept with for our first signing.

The Details

I’m proposing a pilot project with our debut athlete to validate the idea before stepping on the gas for a red bullish expansion. The grant will cover 4 to 5 months of travel expenses for visiting film spots.

Nouns Athlete #1

Joe Atkinson is the current aggressive inline skating world champion, with three FISE world series championships under his belt, who despite the crowns, is foremost a captivating performance artist.

Joe is known for his partnerships with incredibly talented filmmakers. Together they produce truly inspirational and moving skate films that stand on their own as culturally significant works.

But it’s Joe’s playful character and his endless curiosity that excites me most about empowering him to visit the people, places and things that might bring out his best work yet – he’s a ‘nounish’ kinda guy.

Sponsorship Package

Facilitating sponsorship is simple as we can deposit ETH directly to Travala accounts as USD credit, that can later be spent on flights and/or accomodation. In return, our athletes help proliferate Nouns:

  • Nouns as terrain
  • Nounish filters
  • Merchandise
  • Sticker slap

Nouns would effectively become their official travel partner.

Looking Ahead

By establishing a team who align with the Nouns ethos, across a number of extreme sports, we can join their journey to peak performance and create something truly special – freedom of expression.

Based on initial discussions, an annual budget of just $25k per athlete can fund those trips they’ve been meaning to make happen, to explore those ideas that always seem like they’re not quite in reach.

If we can land this first attempt, we’ll have “sponsor me” tapes rolling in before we know it.

joe-flip

We’re still early gnarly :metal:

davehaber.eth

Love this idea! If you need any help with branded merch, NounsTown.shop is happy to support.

joshuafisher

Gnarly! Love this and could see it being an amazing opp for Nouns.

BigshotKlim

This is an outstanding idea. When we worked with SunBum they sponsored pro Surfers and the results on the engagement were excellent This could be even bigger. Nounish merch and stickers, boards and apparel would be amazing

skateordao

Thank you and thank you, definitely keen to chat more regarding merch collabs.

skateordao

Appreciate the kind words, please let me know if there’s any feedback from any sharks, have a big vision for this, but pilot project would be a good start.

skateordao

Thanks very much Klim, glad to hear you’ve seen this type of thing work, would definitely enjoy discussing physical products with you, as there are loads of way to engage extreme athletes (and their passionate fans) with various merch items.

gabrielayuso

Love this. Good to have an initial athlete in mind to test this out but I definitely can see it become a big thing and can definitely be tied into merch. :clap:

skateordao

Thanks mate! I’ve actually got a strategy in mind for this to function like a decentralised Sports Club, where lower price point Gnars provide a base for fan engagement with the Pro Team. This works both ways also, where for example, the extreme sports brands we engage could be paired with Nouns in a similar way to Bud Light. All while fostering inclusive extreme sports industry development.

noun22

small grants is excited to announce that we will fund this trial for 3 ETH

leoclark

This is awesome! :skateboard: :muscle: :clap:

skateordao

thank you so much, absolutely stoked and already working with Joe on next steps. also pulling together some resources to put together some media assets while we are getting things off the ground.

BigshotKlim

LOVE THIS! Congratulations, can not wait to see the next steps

Mantis

This is very interesting. Why did discussion stop?

I’m also thinking esports athletes would be good for this. We could help with that directly.

davinoyesigye

This continued and grew into gnarsDAO and nouns Esports.