Today, the 76ers announced a partnership with Color Star Technology.

Here’s how CNN Business describes their company:

Color Star Technology Co., Ltd. is an entertainment and education company, which engages in the provision of online and offline music education. It offers professional artist training platform that features exclusive content and live interaction. Its courses are focused on music; sports; animation; painting and calligraphy; film and television; and life skills. The company was founded on September 1, 2005 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

CNN Business

What does this have to do with the 76ers? Or even basketball?

Well unless you are a certified business genius like me, you probably still have no idea what this has to do with basketball. According to the press release from the Sixers regarding the partnership, the company is “an entertainment technology company with a global network that focuses on the application of tech and artificial intelligence (AI) in the entertainment industry.”

It may seem bizarre that the Sixers have announced a partnership with a random tech company. If you’re like me, you read the word artificial intelligence, and began daydreaming about replacing Ben Simmons’ brain with a computer that isn’t afraid to shoot.

This would be amazing but is really just speculation on my part.

Time to be a real journalist, and do some research.

A quick glance at their twitter shows as of today at noon, their most recent post was from Halloween. Scrolling down a bit there is an ad for a concert that appears to be either poorly translated from another language using old software or their graphic artist was drunk.

Returning to the press release for more context on what this company does:

“We are thrilled to partner with the Philadelphia 76ers, a top-level NBA team. The NBA is the most global American sports league in terms of impact. The 76ers have a huge fan base around the world,” said Lucas Capetian, Chief Executive Officer of Color Star Technology.”

Oh no. Who lied to this guy? At first I was worried the Sixers were getting scammed. Now it appears someone tricked him into thinking they are a “top-level NBA team.” That’s an unfortunate mischaracterization of the organization.

“We hope that this cooperation can enrich the content of our metaverse platform ‘Color World’, and hope that through NBA games and events, global audiences would have access to and learn more about our metaverse platform. We are sure this will be a win-win partnership. We believe a more in-depth strategic partnership with the Philadelphia 76ers will come along in the future. Through the partnership with the Philadelphia 76ers, we would attract more users and attention to engage the Color World platform.”

Well I guess that rules out us replacing Ben Simmons brain. The best we can probably hope for there is some kind of Lawnmower Man situation involving virtual reality. This all still feels like a vague word salad to me. I’d just like to comment that “The Color World platform” sounds like a stage you’d have to beat in Super Mario 64.

“The 76ers and Color Star will also collaborate on content featuring exclusive interviews with 76ers representatives, including executives and former players. During these interviews, 76ers representatives will elaborate on their respective roles within the organization as well as give an inside look into the business of basketball.”

Now it’s making sense. Have you ever wanted to watch an interview of Michael Rubin where you can feel like you’re right there in the room with him? No? Well how about putting on a VR headset to watch Doc Rivers do a crossword puzzle? Don’t want to see that either? Too bad. Because that’s apparently where we’re headed.

The Matrix really oversold how cool the robot takeover would be.