Don’t know what to do this weekend? We’ve got you covered.

Our recommendations for your weekend.

This week we’ve got a fun show for the kids that may inspire some adventuring; a history lesson from the sky and an update to a beloved space sim that will keep you entertained all weekend long.

Leave your comfort zone with ‘Ivy + Bean’ If you’ve got kids, you’ll surely know Annie Barrows’ “Ivy + Bean” book series about two girls who overcome their differences and become best friends as they discover the adventurous parts of their neighborhood. (And if you have kids and don’t know the series, change that stat!) Netflix’s adaptation of the book series is pretty adorable and shows kids and grown-ups alike how much fun you can have once you leave your comfort zone. ‘Royal Britain: An Aerial History of the Monarchy’ The death of Queen Elizabeth II marks the end of an era, and depending on whether they grew up in the U.K., in one of its former colonies or somewhere else altogether, people understandably have very different feelings about this moment. I firmly fall into the third bracket and fully expect to learn more about the queen than I ever have while I’m inundated by the wall-to-wall coverage over the next couple of days. If you, like me, could use a bit of a refresher on the British monarchy, I recommend this documentary, which delivers a very different perspective: Consisting entirely of aerial shots, the film takes a look at the many castles that had once been part of the British empire and explains their role in the country’s history. The story behind Google’s Fuchsia OS Chris McKillop was one of the main people behind Fuchsia, Google’s new operating system for smart displays and other consumer electronics devices. 9to5Google’s interview with him is pretty geeky but also pretty fascinating, as it charts the path from the much-maligned Nexus Q (the cannonball-shaped home audio device that Google ended up killing before its official launch) to modern smart displays and beyond. McKillop talks about what it takes to build an operating system, why that is very different from actually shipping it to millions of consumers and why other companies may fork Fuchsia for their own devices in the future (something that Meta was planning to do for its AR efforts before deciding to stick with Android). Interkosmos is a space sim worth checking out When it first launched in 2017 for PC VR, Interkosmos was hailed as an equally clever and terrifying simulator of 1970s space travel. In that same spirit, Interkosmos 2000 lets you try your luck as an astronaut in a Y2K-era spaceship. Interkosmos 2000 is a bit like Job Simulator, but instead of flipping burgers, you’re charged with saving humanity from within a tiny spaceship that runs on floppy disks. What could possibly go wrong? Apparently a lot, judging from the fact that the training session already asks you to hit random instruments with a wrench in order to “fix” them.

If you’ve got kids, you’ll surely know Annie Barrows’ “Ivy + Bean” book series about two girls who overcome their differences and become best friends as they discover the adventurous parts of their neighborhood. (And if you have kids and don’t know the series, change that stat!) Netflix’s adaptation of the book series is pretty adorable and shows kids and grown-ups alike how much fun you can have once you leave your comfort zone.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II marks the end of an era, and depending on whether they grew up in the U.K., in one of its former colonies or somewhere else altogether, people understandably have very different feelings about this moment. I firmly fall into the third bracket and fully expect to learn more about the queen than I ever have while I’m inundated by the wall-to-wall coverage over the next couple of days. If you, like me, could use a bit of a refresher on the British monarchy, I recommend this documentary, which delivers a very different perspective: Consisting entirely of aerial shots, the film takes a look at the many castles that had once been part of the British empire and explains their role in the country’s history.

Chris McKillop was one of the main people behind Fuchsia, Google’s new operating system for smart displays and other consumer electronics devices. 9to5Google’s interview with him is pretty geeky but also pretty fascinating, as it charts the path from the much-maligned Nexus Q (the cannonball-shaped home audio device that Google ended up killing before its official launch) to modern smart displays and beyond. McKillop talks about what it takes to build an operating system, why that is very different from actually shipping it to millions of consumers and why other companies may fork Fuchsia for their own devices in the future (something that Meta was planning to do for its AR efforts before deciding to stick with Android).

When it first launched in 2017 for PC VR, Interkosmos was hailed as an equally clever and terrifying simulator of 1970s space travel. In that same spirit, Interkosmos 2000 lets you try your luck as an astronaut in a Y2K-era spaceship. Interkosmos 2000 is a bit like Job Simulator, but instead of flipping burgers, you’re charged with saving humanity from within a tiny spaceship that runs on floppy disks. What could possibly go wrong? Apparently a lot, judging from the fact that the training session already asks you to hit random instruments with a wrench in order to “fix” them.

A version of this story will also appear in today’s Entertainment newsletter; subscribe here.

Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.

Gen Z VC founder Meagan Loyst talks about retaining and recruiting younger employees and her work with the international collective.

Meagan Loyst runs Gen Z VCs, a global collective of young investors and founders.

Sarah (Sarahroach_) writes for Source Code at Protocol. She's based in Boston and can be reached at sroach@protocol.com

Meagan Loyst wants you to know that Gen Z does not hate remote work.

“It is truly the norm for us,” said Loyst, who runs the global collective Gen Z VCs outside of her work at VC fund Lerer Hippeau. “One to two days in the office isn’t a bad thing. But you just have to understand that from the perspective of a Gen Z employee, we did not grow up in a world where you had to be in an office five days a week.”

In addition to questions about where Gen Z wants to work, Loyst gets asked about balancing face time and mentorship with flexibility, what certain TikTok trends mean and what remote work actually looks like for Gen Z employees.

Loyst said the answers to these questions, like Gen Z workers themselves, are complicated.

Distilling an entire generation into a few common trends is often misguided and fruitless. Gen Z — just as millennials, Gen X and boomers before them — is generally misunderstood. (Disclaimer: I am Gen Z.) I’ve been told we’re screen addicts, TikTok fanatics and “Schizoposters.” But for all the time we spend scrolling through social media, the data backs up the fact that this generation values in-person interactions.

Understanding how to manage and retain Gen Z will be key in the coming years, as we’ll make up about 30% of the workforce by 2030.

Companies are aware of this. Mattermost CEO Ian Tien told Protocol that the company has learned to mentor Gen Z employees such that they can more effectively draw a line between work and life in a remote environment. Gusto head of remote experiences Liberty Planck told Protocol that the company’s learned that giving younger employees as much information as possible in the onboarding process, like Gusto’s organization chart, helps them get acquainted with the company more quickly.

But it’s clear that founders are still breaking the ice with Gen Z workers. Loyst plans meetups and Clubhouse talks, organizes initiatives like a mentorship program and advises CEOs, CMOs and other business leaders on ways to reach and support the “quirky mystery” that she calls Gen Z. She’s referred to as the “queen of Gen Z VCs,” complete with a tiara and banner gifted to her to complement the title. The organization mainly keeps in touch via Slack, and has grown to over 17,000 members since its launch in late 2020.

“Gen Z is core to who I am,” she said. “I love helping companies think about workplace culture, retaining employees, hiring Gen Z employees — that all falls under this realm.”

This interview has been edited for length and brevity.

What do company leaders wonder the most about Gen Z workers?

One of the big questions is balancing face time and mentorship with flexibility. And what is remote work? I think one of the biggest things to remember about Gen Z employees is that pretty much every Gen Z employee started their work in COVID. The norm for us is not five days in the office. Because we did remote learning, we've done remote internships, we've done remote work, that is our norm, which is very different from every previous generation. And so I think it's a pretty big leap to expect a five-day workweek, for example.

Gen Z does not hate remote work; it is truly the norm for us. I think the future is hybrid, and more people believe that one to two days in the office is not a bad thing. But you just have to understand that perspective of a Gen Z employee. We did not grow up in a world where you had to be in an office five days a week.

How do founders take that advice?

The Gen Z ethos is all about disrupting the status quo, being entrepreneurial, being creative, and some of those things do not gel with the traditional ethos of the workforce. And so it's very much a push and pull where you don't want to come across as bratty. So for founders and employers, you need to pick and choose your battles on what is absolutely crucial for this person getting their work done, [to] be able to succeed and feel supported, while not crushing their creativity or their entrepreneurial spirit because it doesn't fit the mold.

What are best practices for recruiting and retaining Gen Z talent?

It's providing a realistic expectation of the actual day-to-day work and the extent to which you can minimize the expectation and reality upfront. I also think recognizing that you need to give Gen Zers a little bit of rope to be independent and to be creative in their job. So many Gen Zers want to be creators in some way, shape or form. Maybe that's writing content, maybe that's filming videos on TikTok. That might not fall under their specific job description, but it might be really important for their personal development. It’s good to think about ways to support Gen Z employees in those creative endeavors, especially if those skills are helping the company at large.

Gen Z also fundamentally rejects the notion of the corporate ladder. There's plenty of examples of this. Estée Lauder has a reverse mentorship program where their Gen Z employees and their interns are reverse mentoring the CEOs of the different divisions. Those types of initiatives are a great recruiting tactic, because when they join the organization, they don’t feel like a cog in the wheel. They have an actual place and a voice where they can influence company decisions.

Gen Zers may also have a side hustle of some sort. It may be related to their specific line of business, it may not be. Gen Z VCs is my side hustle. It is a very important part of my identity and my happiness. Having the support to pursue those things is important. And this is the case for a lot of Gen Z people who are maybe selling clothes on Depop or have an ecommerce shop or write a newsletter.

What are the main reasons that you've heard from Gen Z workers who are leaving their jobs?

The biggest one is a lack of feeling seen and heard. They want to be seen as a valued employee, but because they're in some rigid structure or whatever, they don't feel that way … I think the other thing too, depending on your industry, is they’re always going to be underestimated. I think the more that you can stray away from sizing people up simply because of their age and experience, the better off you'll be.

How do you view burnout and manage it from a Gen Z perspective?

I'm really big on self reflection and really taking the time to evaluate my goals in life, the things that are important to me, how I'm spending my day. I recognize that I work all the time. But the way that I rationalize that for myself is that I'm 25 years old, I have no real responsibilities. I just have to pay my rent and make sure I don't kill all my plants. This is the time to be pouring myself into these professional pursuits, which create opportunities for me and bring me happiness and fulfillment. And so I will continue doing that.

That might not be the case for everyone. For managers, I think it's about having candid conversations about what’s missing from your Gen Z employee’s life right now. Gen Z is notoriously the loneliest generation; we really struggle with mental health. I think it’s important to have a really honest back and forth where managers can allow for young employees to open up without repercussions.

Is there anything you're particularly excited about related to your work with Gen Z VCs?

I'm really focusing more on in-person gatherings. I'm going to be in London in a couple of weeks. I do a lot of Gen Z speaking engagements. And so next week I'm flying to Switzerland to do Gen Z work. So I'm really focused on those regional connections for people who are just looking for an excuse to get together. We had an event a couple of weeks ago in New York that was our first big New York happy hour. We had about 1,200 RSVPs. And I only had space for about 300 people. It was crazy. There was a line out the door.

It just goes to show that there's a massive need for young people to collaborate. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about places and ways that we can make that magic happen all over the world. We did something in New York this summer, London in September and some other fun ones coming up too, which I can't share too much on yet.

Sarah (Sarahroach_) writes for Source Code at Protocol. She's based in Boston and can be reached at sroach@protocol.com

If you thought the rise of remote work, independent contractors and contingent workers rose sharply during the pandemic, just wait until the next few months when you see a higher uptick in the on-demand talent economy.

Rising workload and pace, the stress of commuting and a taste of the flexible work-from-anywhere lifestyle have all contributed to what many are calling the Great Resignation, which is only just the beginning of the headwinds organizations are facing, says Tim Sanders, vice president of client strategy at Upwork, a marketplace that connects businesses with independent professionals and agencies around the globe.

“It began with front-line workers, but it’s not going to end there,” Sanders notes, “Recent data suggests that the biggest industries for quits are now software and professional services and on top of that, I predict that we’ll see more leaders and managers continuing to quit their jobs.”

As the economy leans toward a recession, and layoffs across dozens of tech firms make headlines, Sanders predicts companies will increasingly turn to on-demand talent. “These highly skilled independent contractors and professionals offer the speed, flexibility and agility companies are seeking right now. Leaders are becoming more empowered to fully embrace a hybrid workforce and shift away from rigid models.”

Leaning into headwinds: Driving growth amid uncertainty

A recent report from Upwork, The Adaptive Enterprise, underscores the importance of flexible on-demand talent during uncertain times. Sanders notes: “A growing number of organizations, including Upwork and customers like Microsoft, Airbnb and Nasdaq understand that on-demand talent enables companies to reduce risk, drive cost savings, and at the same time, protect their people from burnout. Flexible workforce models also allow businesses to respond to and recover faster from crises than more traditional models.”

Some crises come in the form of economic slowdowns, while others can take the shape of geopolitical conflicts that disrupt life and work as we know it. Mitigating risk — such as a pandemic wave striking a certain region housing the majority of a company’s staff — is one reason businesses turn to on-demand talent, but it’s certainly not the only one.

CEOs surveyed by Deloitte in 2022 see talent shortages as the biggest threat to their growth plans. The survey goes on to report that CEOs believe that talent is the top disruptor to their supply chain and there is more to be gained within their workforce by providing greater flexibility (83% in agreement) as opposed to merely offering more financial-related incentives. What is top of mind for many business leaders is needing to fill talent and skills gaps, so they can deliver new products and enhanced services. In other words, companies are struggling to find the specific skill sets needed to advance their business objectives and innovation agendas.

The biggest benefit of leveraging on-demand talent is often tapping into the talent and skills that businesses can’t find elsewhere. Upwork’s recent report highlights that 53% of on-demand talent provide skills that are in short supply for many companies, including IT, marketing, computer programming and business consulting.

By harnessing a global talent pool from digital marketplaces like Upwork, businesses have wider access to skilled talent who can accelerate what those companies offer to customers at a fraction of the cost. “Skillsourcing” on-demand talent helps companies maintain a more compact population of full-time employees to concentrate on work that only they can do as well as maximize their strengths while bringing in independent professionals to handle the rest.

Behind the growth: Speed, flexibility and agility

Speed, flexibility and agility are three critical benefits offered by on-demand talent to businesses seeking competitive advantages in their sector. While on-demand talent solutions give companies speed-to-market advantages, Sanders sees that they also give organizations a strategic form of flexibility.

“An agile organization is able to make bold and quick moves without breaking everything,” Sanders says, “and look at a number of our Fortune 100 customers that have a workforce made up of almost half on-demand talent, and how they can pivot on a dime. It's a case of structure enabling strategy.”

As for speed and efficiency doing the actual work, Sanders says clients report that when hiring managers have been given access to on-demand talent, they engage the needed talent within days instead of months, and when they bring them onto projects, the work is completed up to 50% faster than through traditional avenues.

Sanders says, “Businesses have realized that remote work experiences are best led and judged by outcomes, not just time in the office, and more leaders are comfortable and confident opting for a hybrid workforce that can deliver based on those outcomes.”

Upwork’s Labor Market Trends and Insights page shows that organizations are indeed ramping up their hybrid workforces: 60% of businesses surveyed said they plan to use more on-demand talent in the next two years.

“The old way of acquiring talent isn’t efficient,” Sanders says. “Staffing firms aren’t the silver-bullet solution they once were, and more businesses need to rethink and redesign their workforce with on-demand talent as the economy and work rapidly evolve. The conversation is no longer about the future of work, but the future of winning.”

Beta Technologies’ charging network offers a way to power up both electric planes and vehicles, and a new app will help improve access.

Beta's ALIA-250 electric plane uses “electric vertical takeoff and landing” technology and has a range of up to nearly 290 miles.

Lisa Martine Jenkins is a senior reporter at Protocol covering climate. Lisa previously wrote for Morning Consult, Chemical Watch and the Associated Press. Lisa is currently based in Brooklyn, and is originally from the Bay Area. Find her on Twitter ( @l_m_j_) or reach out via email (ljenkins@protocol.com).

Electric aerospace company Beta Technologies is working to build a network of chargers that could power its forthcoming small electric planes as well as ground-based electric vehicles.

The network is still in early stages, with just 10 on the ground and an additional few dozen in the permitting or construction stage.

Beta is also launching an app in an effort to get pilots and drivers to its chargers, the company shared with Protocol. The current version of the app is quite simple, providing just enough information for users to find a charger and start a session. But Chip Palombini, who heads product for the company, said the goal is to eventually build it out in response to customer need; while Beta’s planes are not yet in the hands of customers, a growing number of chargers are ready and waiting for both cars and eventually planes as well.

The Burlington, Vermont-headquartered company has two prototype planes that are still in the testing stage, and it plans to seek Federal Aviation Administration certification by 2024. The planes use “electric vertical takeoff and landing,” or eVTOL, technology, which removes the need for seeking out a landing strip, and have a range of up to nearly 290 miles. The company says its planes will be able to carry 1,400 pounds of cargo or six passengers depending on the configuration. UPS, the Air Force and United Therapeutics all have purchased agreements or established partnerships with Beta.

The process of actually getting electric planes to customers is an uncharted one, though, given that no electric aviation company has received FAA certification for commercial use. Heavy batteries take up valuable payload and limit the range of electric planes as well. A recent report from the International Council on Clean Transportation found that improvements in battery storage technology are still needed to make using electric planes “feasible,” especially given the requirement that commercial planes have reserve fuel.

In addition to building out its charging network, Beta is launching an app in an effort to get pilots and drivers to the chargers. Image: Beta

Nathan Ward, who leads Beta’s work on its charging network, said the company hopes its chargers will spread out so that they can allow electric planes to go anywhere they need. In the short term, however, the focus is on building out a network along the East Coast in locations where organizations that have made purchase agreements operate.

For most of those customers, the aircraft is a small part of their process of getting cargo or people from point A to point B. Beta’s ALIA-250 prototype is designed to replace the short-haul trucks that run on fossil fuels and currently dominate the cargo landscape. The company is based in Burlington, Vermont, and sees connecting it and smaller cities like it as a way to ease supply chain issues. Its charging network could be a key piece of making that vision a reality.

The ALIA-250, which was unveiled two years ago, has primarily taken short flights, though the company recently completed a 1,403-mile journey from its testing site in Plattsburgh, New York, to Bentonville, Arkansas, and back, relying primarily on its own 10-charger network. While the trip dealt with weather-related delays, it took 704 minutes of flying time to complete, over the course of a week.

In its all-electric-delivery vision of the future, Beta is betting that its plane-EV combo charger will appeal to customers who will have on-the-ground transportation waiting on the tarmac when planes arrive; as delivery vehicles are increasingly electric as well, the company assumes customers will want to simplify the charging process as much as possible. When UPS announced its purchase agreement for 10 of Beta’s planes last year, the logistics company added a reservation for charging stations as well.

Beta raised $375 million in series B funding earlier this year, adding to the $368 million series A round it announced last year. The funds come from heavy hitters, including Amazon. While there are still numerous hurdles for electric aviation to go mainstream, major shipping companies are clearly betting on a future where the technology plays at least some role in transporting goods.

Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated the Air Force has a purchase agreement with Beta rather than a partnership. This story was updated to reflect this difference on Sept. 8, 2022.

Lisa Martine Jenkins is a senior reporter at Protocol covering climate. Lisa previously wrote for Morning Consult, Chemical Watch and the Associated Press. Lisa is currently based in Brooklyn, and is originally from the Bay Area. Find her on Twitter ( @l_m_j_) or reach out via email (ljenkins@protocol.com).

After long ignoring streaming services, political campaigns are finally acknowledging that media consumption habits have changed.

Will political ads come to Netflix this midterm?

Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.

The week after Labor Day traditionally marks the beginning of the fall election season, with campaigns rushing to get their message on the airwaves before the November midterms. And this time around, cord cutters won’t be spared from the ad onslaught.

Campaigns from both sides of the aisle are expected to spend $1.2 billion on streaming ads this midterm season, according to recent estimates from analytics company Kantar. “Connected TV is really the big story in political advertising this year,” said Grace Briscoe, SVP of client development at Basis Technologies, a Los Angeles-based ad and marketing software company. “Every campaign we're working with, up and down the ballot, even small state legislative races [and] mayoral races, they're all looking to explore connected TV.”

That’s a welcome reprieve for the streaming industry, which has seen spending on ads slow down due to supply chain shortages, late-pandemic uncertainties and inflation woes. The surge in political ad spend is also giving political campaigns a chance to target audiences that have long eluded them, and it’s setting up these operations for a quickly approaching post-cable future.

“Anywhere from one in three millennials to as many as half of Gen Z adults report they no longer have linear television services,” said Samba TV SVP Dallas Lawrence, who used to work in Washington, including at the White House, before joining the ad tech and streaming industry. “These voters are 100% unreachable by traditional TV campaigns, and they are turning out to vote in ever-greater numbers.”

Not too long ago, political advertisers all but ignored streaming. “Political campaigns are traditionally pretty risk-averse,” Briscoe said. “They're usually slow to adopt new things.” That’s largely due to the cyclical nature of a business that measures every new campaign against prior ones. “If you're a political consultant, you do what you did last time, and the time before that, and the time before that,” she said. “You don't mess with a formula that works.”

Until it doesn’t, that is. Ad spending is increasingly out of touch with how people actually watch TV, which became obvious during the 2020 election. “In the critical final month of one of the most expensive Senate races in the country, 90% of all political TV ads reached the same 55% of voters,” Lawrence said. By focusing solely on cable and broadcast TV, campaigns effectively ignored nearly half of the electorate. “For younger voters, [streaming] is really the only way to reach them,” Lawrence said.

Some campaigns have finally woken up to this new reality, with Basis Technologies seeing a 15x increase in the money spent on streaming ads during the first six months of this year, compared to the same time span in 2020. “We're seeing this dramatic shift of connected TV spending this year,” she said.

Basis isn’t the only company noticing campaigns moving toward streaming in a big way. “This year, we're seeing a very large swath of advertisers relying on [streaming],” said Mark Jablonowski, the CTO and managing partner of ad network DSPolitical. The company, which primarily works with Democratic and progressive campaigns, has seen connected TV ad budgets swell to 20% compared to mid-single-digit spending just two years ago. “It's becoming a very big thing,” Jablonowski said.

One reason for this trend is the growth of ad-supported streaming. Back in 2018, Hulu and YouTube were the only two major players in the streaming space that sold ads, and Hulu long restricted political advertising.

Since then, Viacom has acquired Pluto TV, Fox has bought Tubi and NBC Universal has both bought Xumo and launched Peacock with an ad-supported tier. HBO Max launched its ad-supported tier a year ago.

Advertisers have been missing the cord cutter market.Image: Christopher T. Fong/Protocol

All the activity has led to a lot more inventory being available to political advertisers, which allows them to more precisely talk to constituents in individual markets. “This is the first year where we're able to offer connected television individually targeted at scale,” Jablonowski said. “It's a big switch in the industry.”

It’s a shift that isn’t lost on the major media companies. Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish specifically called out Pluto as one of the services benefiting from this year’s midterm spending on his company’s Q2 earnings call; NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell also acknowledged that streaming will play a growing role in bringing in those political ad dollars. “We expect some pretty strong results from Peacock in the coming fall,” Shell recently told investors.

Roku CEO Anthony Wood echoed those remarks. “We expect political [advertising] to continue to grow, continue to be an important vertical for us," Wood recently told investors. At the same time, Wood acknowledged that his company can’t fully benefit from the height of the campaign season just yet. “Political advertising tends to be in certain, very high-demand, localized markets,” he explained. “And so, even though we have a lot of scale in a particular market, we'll reach caps fairly quickly.”

In other words: Roku and others simply don’t have enough ad spots to sell yet.

That could change in a matter of months: Toward the end of this year, Netflix plans to launch ad-supported plans for its respective streaming services. A Netflix spokesperson declined to comment on whether the company would allow political ads. Disney+, which also plans to launch an ad-supported tier later this year, will not accept political ads “at launch,” according to a Disney spokesperson.

Disney has been justifying its resistance to political advertising with the goal of keeping Disney+ family-friendly. However, the service has been evolving from its family-focused roots in recent months, including with the addition of R-rated fare. Disney also recently changed its policies around political ads on Hulu, and there’s nothing that would stop the company from instituting similar changes for Disney+.

“Should Netflix and Disney+ allow campaign spending, it will kick off a land grab unlike anything we have seen in more than a generation of political TV advertising,” said Lawrence. “The ability to combine targeting and measurement insights with the storytelling power of franchises like ‘Marvel’ and ‘Star Wars’ will be a game-changer for political campaigns.”

Until then, limited inventory is likely to drive up prices for streaming ads, which could have ripple effects on non-political advertisers. “I expect that we are going to see some surges in really competitive bidding in connected TV, particularly in states with competitive, high-profile races,” Briscoe said. “If you're a retailer in Texas, it's going to be tough.”

Briscoe expects that some companies will respond to this by temporarily pulling back on ads in certain markets, or just wait out campaign season altogether — unless they are forced to compete, no matter the price. “If you're doing a movie release, you've got no choice … you're going to pay more,” Briscoe said. Until everything returns to normal in a few weeks, that is.

“October is going to be very competitive,” Briscoe said. “But come Nov. 8, all those advertisers are done.”

Janko Roettgers (@jank0) is a senior reporter at Protocol, reporting on the shifting power dynamics between tech, media, and entertainment, including the impact of new technologies. Previously, Janko was Variety's first-ever technology writer in San Francisco, where he covered big tech and emerging technologies. He has reported for Gigaom, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, and ORF, among others. He has written three books on consumer cord-cutting and online music and co-edited an anthology on internet subcultures. He lives with his family in Oakland.

It’s not just collectibles. Fantasy sports and fan service are fueling growth in NFTs.

Sorare, which started with a fantasy NFT soccer game and added Major League Baseball this summer, announced an expansion into NFT gaming with the NBA Wednesday.

Tomio Geron ( @tomiogeron) is a San Francisco-based reporter covering fintech. He was previously a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, covering venture capital and startups. Before that, he worked as a staff writer at Forbes, covering social media and venture capital, and also edited the Midas List of top tech investors. He has also worked at newspapers covering crime, courts, health and other topics. He can be reached at tgeron@protocol.com or tgeron@protonmail.com.

The crypto market has been rocky in recent months and some NFTs have seen their prices crater, but digital tokens for sports are still scoring points with fans and investors.

Several companies are working to bring mainstream sports into the world of NFTs, with the support of major blockchain protocols that are eager to show broader utility. Sports NFTs are now mostly used for collecting or playing fantasy sports, but many expect NFTs to also serve as ways for fans to connect with their favorite teams or players. The NFT sports collectible market alone could be worth $92 billion in a decade’s time, by one analysis.

Sales of Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot NFTs, which feature collectible video “moments” that can be bought, sold and traded, have continued to grow and the company has expanded to UFC and NFL collectibles. Most recently Ticketmaster announced a deal to use the Flow blockchain, which Dapper Labs created, to attach NFTs to tickets.

Meanwhile, Sorare, which started with a fantasy NFT soccer game and added Major League Baseball this summer, announced an expansion into NFT gaming with the NBA Wednesday. The basketball game, which is expected to launch early in the NBA season this year, will feature tournaments using NFT-based player cards like its other games, but with features specific to the NBA. It will also have a marketplace, like its other games, where people can buy and sell cards.

Since Sorare announced its MLB product in May it has seen 250,000 new signups and $5 million in MLB trading volume so far.

Sorare’s basketball fantasy NFT game enters a market that already has a popular NFT collectibles product in NBA Top Shot as well as traditional fantasy basketball games on sites like ESPN and Yahoo. There’s also betting through sites like FanDuel.

Michael Meltzer, Sorare’s head of business development, sees an evolving landscape where NFTs can be used for a variety of purposes from ticketing to games and doesn’t see direct competition from other NFT sports providers.

Over time, he said, the industry will view Sorare’s games as “completely a different category than what some other companies are doing,” Meltzer said.

Fans benefit when there are many different ways to interact with teams and leagues, said Jorge Urrutia del Pozo, vice president of football at Dapper Labs. (That’s football as in soccer.)

Dapper is preparing to roll out a bilingual NFT collectibles product with the Spanish soccer league LaLiga, which has large fan bases in Spain, South America, Indonesia and the Middle East. The product will have access to 15 years of archives for its products, including stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

But for sports leagues, having more touch points with fans, from TV to game tickets to merchandise to fantasy games to NFTs, makes things more complicated. Above all, they’re trying to understand their fans.

Sorare has a multiyear deal to be the official NFT fantasy sports provider for the NBA.Image: Sorare

“Managing that and getting what they call the single view of the fan — Tomio likes going to Warriors games and bought a jersey for Steph Curry so I'm going to infer that this is his favorite player … managing that is a tremendous challenge,” said Urrutia del Pozo.

Partners need to feed data to them and they need technology to make sense of it all to figure out what to market to fans and what to sell to them. This is important if NFTs can be used as proof of attendance or to provide rewards, he added.

Meanwhile, the protocol Algorand is working with FIFA, which is creating its FIFA+ Collect NFT marketplace. It will have digital moments from FIFA World Cup games and other art and images.

Sean Ford, interim CEO at Algorand, sees sports as well as games and music as key drivers of growth for blockchains like Algorand. It’s also a way for leagues to engage and connect more with fans, he said.

“The reason I say sports, music and gaming as well is that underlying all three are very passionate and deeply connected user bases. If you look at that emotional connection of the fans, and consumers of that type of creative content, it is definitely at a level that is well beyond, say, what you'd see for your favorite video conferencing service,” Ford said.

But the opportunities for NFTs in sports go far beyond just collectibles or fantasy games, said Ford.

Sports teams or leagues can use NFTs to sell fractional shares of teams, to sell seat licenses, to grant fans access to special areas in the stadium or special merchandise or to allow them to get unique digital moments of a game they attended. It’s a way to increase engagement, which is, after all, the goal.

Tomio Geron ( @tomiogeron) is a San Francisco-based reporter covering fintech. He was previously a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, covering venture capital and startups. Before that, he worked as a staff writer at Forbes, covering social media and venture capital, and also edited the Midas List of top tech investors. He has also worked at newspapers covering crime, courts, health and other topics. He can be reached at tgeron@protocol.com or tgeron@protonmail.com.

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