Description
This is a MADN3SS INSERT with limited Utility during the Grotto Madn3ss Brack3t 3v3nt.
This token represents: ORANGE Brack3t, Midwest, 15 Seed
In addition to all Standard Insert Utilities, this is also a ORANGE Insert.
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What is more American than building a mega-enterprise on free labor?
For decades, American colleges and universities have funded major percentages of their operating budgets with revenues from their football and mens basketball teams. The huge majority of the young boys whose athletic receive little to no compensation, while the championship tournaments in which they play generate billions in revenue for their schools.
To celebrate that quintessentially American sporting ritual, the Mens Collegiate Basketball Championship, thr33som3s continues a tradition with the 2023 Grotto Madn33ss Tournament. tipped off on March 12th, 2023 with S3l3ction Sunday in The Grotto thr33som3s drops a collection of 5 unique Brack3ts of 64 entries each. Brack3t participants from The Grotto navigate three weeks of mens college basketball games to determine five Brack3t winners and an eventual 3v3nt Champion.
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In 2022, the NFT space saw a wave of wildly successful projects and artists waive their claims to commercial rights under CC0, the Creative Commons Licensing project. Having profited hundreds of millions of dollars with primary market sales under their reserved rights licenses, these projects and artists then decided to release all further claims to their license for their images. At the same time, they loudly encouraged ALL artists working in the digital and NFT space to do the same. They posited a world where small, independent artists should freely release their work where it might find real reach via distribution by the mega-corps. Artists who believed their work was their own and only they should decide how it was used and by whom were shunned and shamed into complying with the model employed by the giants.
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In comes 2023 Grotto Madness. At the center of the 3v3nt, thr33som3s minted 320 unique tokens to represent the 64 seeds in each of the 5 Brack3ts: Pink, White, Black, Orange, and Purple. He uses the backdrop of a CC0 piece, overlaying his unique, hand painted, lettering and numbers in colors he conceived and mixed. Though minted on a separate Madn3ss wallet, these tokens are official thr33som3s and, as such, will have Future Utility.
******* digital capture of original paintings, gouache on vintage baseball card, overlaid against digital image, 2023. ******* NFT IMAGE is presented under a Creative Commons 0 (CC0) license. Concept and Utility belong entirely to thr33som3s and no release of rights is given to its use in any form. This includes specific lettering, specific numbering, color scheme, conceptual interaction with other artworks in the thr33som3s collection, mechanical interplay via smart contract, utility or functionality as a stand alone concept or in concert with this or any future projects by thr33som3s. Twitter @thr33som3s and IG @thr33somes to see upcoming cards and new series. ************