Bill Murray Walks Into a Members-Only NFT Party: I Thought It Was the 'National Federation of Tennis’
The actor first's NFT event was "far more fun" than a family picnic, he told Decrypt—and holders appeared to agree.
Bill Murray is the face of one of the most prominent celebrity NFT collections, but like many who aren’t plugged into the Web3 world, he didn’t really grasp the concept at first.
“I thought it was a sort of a sports league,” Murray told Decrypt of the NFT acronym. “I didn't know if it was the National Federation of Tennis or Tumbleweeds, or what. I didn't know what it was exactly. Then when I found out what it was, I was truly confused—even more confused [than] when I thought it was a pro sports league.”
But as his son Jackson described to Decrypt last year, the 72-year-old comedic legend of “Ghostbusters” and “Lost in Translation” fame grew hip to the idea of a tokenized project that was part fanclub and part autobiography, but also an access pass to events where holders can party with the comedy legend himself.
Last weekend, Murray and his partners at Web3 startup Project Venkman and comedy website The Chive delivered on the biggest promise tied to The Bill Murray 1,000 NFT project: a members-only bash at an Oceanside, California golf course, where the star cracked jokes, led putting and pie-eating contests, and chatted with fans for hours.
In the process, Murray—who’s known for wacky encounters with fans, but also being inaccessible to even family and collaborators—gave his die-hard fans their own “Bill Murray stories” while proving out the model for an NFT celebrity project with exclusive utility.
But as Project Venkman eyes an even larger online collective of Murray fanatics along with future live events, can it scale the project without diluting its appeal? And can this model translate to celebs that don’t have the enigmatic allure of Bill Murray?