Initially, it was an experiment by brothers Boris and Richard Vagner, which has now evolved into one of the most interesting and popular projects in on-chain gaming. Their Web3-native fantasy sports platform, Spoiled Banana Society (SBS), has now launched Season 3, Banana Best Ball, which is an on-chain best football game that integrates familiar gameplay with crypto-native mechanisms.
This season's total prize pool is 27 ETH, with a champion prize of 8 ETH, plus approximately 6,900 NFTs donated by partner community alliances like Good Vibes Club and Bearish. The entry fee is only 0.01 ETH, and thanks to the new integration with Third Web, it's now easier to participate: players can now register using an email or X account, draft with a debit card, and join web3 without needing a wallet.
Banana Best Ball III is not just a fantasy league; it is part of a broader effort to reimagine how games, communities, and digital assets can converge on-chain, layering culture, incentives, and competition in a native internet way.
We sat down with Boris and Richard to discuss fantasy football, their early experiences in the music industry, and why they believe sports may be the key to attracting the next wave of Web3 users.
OpenSea: I want to start from the beginning - what attracted you to join Web3? Was there a particular moment or project that made you think, 'This is a truly viable and interesting space'?
Boris Vagner: Oh my god, life has had so many layers and changing moments. It's truly a journey. In 2021, I joined Clubhouse and started hearing people talk about NFTs, imitating ape sounds, and exploring this whole new Web3 world. Of course, I had heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum before but never really got into it, I almost pushed them aside. Then, people started introducing what Bored Ape Yacht Club was and how amazing this community is.
I remember thinking at the time, 'Damn, this makes so much sense.' I took all my savings - $1,300 - and went for it. My wife didn’t believe I was serious; she asked, 'What are you doing?' But I really believed it. My brother is a Grammy-winning musician, and we had experienced a world where artists struggle to understand royalties and truly gain freedom. I thought the art and story of BAYC were so cool, and I wanted to be part of that community. We went all in, and it changed our lives forever. A few months later, I found a job at Yuga, and it really changed everything.
Before I joined Yuga, we had actually started a company. We were both die-hard Fantasy Football fans and had always wanted to play Fantasy Football on the blockchain. We looked around and found that no one was really doing it. In 2021, we began creating the league - primarily collaborating with Bored Apes - and then said, 'Let’s really put this feature on-chain.'
Everything is going well, and sales have reached millions of dollars. We believe one important reason for this is that when you draft a team, you can trade it throughout the entire season. We made a $100,000 secondary sale, and that opened our eyes. Blockchain is making Fantasy Sports better.
Richard Vagner: We initially created it just for ourselves to play, but then we realized that this might not be the best way for founders to participate in the game. However, we saw some crossover groups - both fantasy football enthusiasts and cryptocurrency fans. Combining these two groups makes a lot of sense.
In traditional fantasy sports, if you enter the finals and lose, you can’t sell your team, and you are stuck. But if you can sell your team or buy back tickets to the game - that changes the entire game. Moreover, if the prize pool is in cryptocurrency, you bet on both yourself and ETH rising, doubling your returns.
OpenSea: Very interesting. How is the learning curve for entering this field from music and other industries? What is the process of getting up to speed like?
Boris Vagner: Good question. What really attracted us to join Web3 was the atmosphere - the people here, the communities. I was managing Richard at the time, and he entered this space through PFP. The community was very supportive of him. We had never experienced anything like this before. Of course, he had fans on Instagram, but this was different - there was more camaraderie, more connections. We felt, 'This is a community we want to be part of.' We believe in decentralization and that creators should be empowered.
There are some things we don't understand - certain aspects of technology and crypto - but we are fascinated.
Richard Vagner: The biggest challenge is royalties. You can give up music or art, and receive compensation with every resale - this means a lot for creators. The longevity and sustainability of works will change the game.
Boris Vagner: The NFT community in 2021 was incredibly special and unmatched. When you first enter, you think, 'This is life now forever.' You don’t anticipate the cycles - the ups and downs.
OpenSea: You mentioned earlier why you chose Fantasy Football - you’re clearly a devoted fan. Can you tell us when you suddenly realized that combining Fantasy Football with blockchain was feasible?
Richard Vagner: Yes, you have a cool idea, but you don’t know if it will succeed until it actually comes to fruition. The first year was crazy. Sometimes we look back at the announcements we posted on Discord - it was absolutely insane. There are other products out there, but no one was really doing it the way we envisioned. It may sound a bit bold, but it's true. No product had scaled properly.
Boris Vagner: It was crazy; we launched the product just three weeks before the end of the football season - way too late. But we didn’t want anyone to beat us to it. In just three weeks, we gave away $2 million in prizes, with the first prize being a Bored Ape worth $500,000, and the secondary market was buzzing. We knew there was a huge market demand.
Richard Vagner: We considered other companies because we just wanted to play, but no one developed the game we wanted, so we did it. It's not because we are geniuses, but because as fantasy football fans, we know what real fun is.
OpenSea: That makes sense. I’m glad you found a market gap because you just wanted to join a project, not start from scratch. That sounds like the most genuine founder story.
Richard Vagner: Exactly, many models in the market are pay-to-win. You open a card pack, randomly get players, and the person with the most money can buy the strongest team. We don’t want that to happen. In our game, you will receive an NFT that represents your entire team - completely random, and you cannot exploit the system.
Boris Vagner: Our biggest focus has always been the draft. That's the fun of fantasy football. A few years ago, we finally created an on-chain draft product - a world first. No one else had done this before, and it's what we are most proud of.
OpenSea: This perfectly leads into my next question - from the perspective of ownership and transparency, why is it important to build a complete SBS on-chain?
Richard Vagner: If you want to connect fantasy sports and cryptocurrency, you need to overlap them as much as possible. Buying and selling teams only works when everything is on-chain; you can't fake it.
Boris Vagner: Exactly right. When you draft a team and convert it to an NFT, it exists. It can be listed on OpenSea, and people can search and filter. It's not just about avatars - it also includes utility, money, and strategy, which is really exciting. Additionally, the involvement of collectors makes it even cooler.
Richard Vagner: You can even recommend your team to friends. Everything is public and decentralized. It’s not on our servers; it’s completely open.
OpenSea: This level of transparency is very important. On traditional platforms, you can’t always see this level of detail.
Boris Vagner: Exactly, you don’t always know if someone is gaming the system, but since everything is on-chain, anyone can check.
OpenSea: You mentioned earlier that the Degen and Fantasy Football communities naturally overlap, but how do you view attracting Fantasy Football players who have not yet joined Web3? Are you trying to entice them to join? How do you make that easier?
Boris Vagner: That's a great question. This has been one of our biggest goals for years. We're launching social login features this year - you can log in with Twitter or email without needing a wallet, and it will automatically create one for you.
OpenSea: This is so important. The wallet creation process can be a significant barrier.
Boris Vagner: Right? We also added credit card payment functionality. Many Web2 developers told us, 'I want to try this, but I don’t want to set up a wallet or figure out what ETH is.' We are removing those barriers.
Richard Vagner: Even for those in the cryptocurrency space who don’t hold ETH, we enable them to use any blockchain. From the start, we believed fantasy sports is one of the most effective ways to bring Web2 into Web3. Just look at the example of Top Shot.
Boris Vagner: It largely drove the NFT bull market, showcasing how sports and blockchain can merge in ways people truly enjoy. Fantasy games are a perfect cross-industry collaboration.
OpenSea: How are you scaling your business? What did you learn at the beginning?
Richard Vagner: We need to improve on micromanagement, seriously - it’s crazy. We’ve done some small things before, like starting a fantasy football advice channel on YouTube, but this time the level is higher. We can't sleep; everything has to be done manually.
Boris Vagner: Later, we had a friend help us develop a bot specifically to notify us when there were draft slots available. Last year, we were manually counting down: 'Six people left', 'Five people left'. It was crazy.
Richard Vagner: Automation will definitely help because, to be honest, right now it's just me and my brother doing this. There’s no big team.
Boris Vagner: On the other hand, there's the community. Seeing so many people love this product makes it all worthwhile. Someone on Twitter said, 'This is the coolest thing ever.' We've also seen people ask, 'Can someone develop a Web3 fantasy football game?' Then we comment, 'Hey, check this out.' And they say, 'Wow, this is amazing.'
Richard Vagner: This recognition motivates us to keep going. We aren’t saving lives like Boris’s wife - she’s a doctor - but we are innovating and changing how people experience fantasy sports, which means a lot to us.
OpenSea: That's so cool. It perfectly leads into my next question. You have clearly contributed to the community. How much influence does the community have on your business decisions? Are you responding to their requests, or do you plan the roadmap yourself and hope the community will get involved?
Richard Vagner: Wow, your question is great. So, in our fantasy football game, we did some different things: we utilize team positions. In traditional fantasy football games, people pick players - like Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes.
So, on our platform, you no longer select specific players, but rather the quarterback for the Patriots or QB1 for the Chiefs. This is a huge change. At one point, we thought maybe we should pick players like everyone else, but we consulted with community members who insisted, 'Don’t change the team positions.' They really liked this approach, so we stuck with it.
Boris Vagner: Of course, we know that some of the community's needs take time. We can't implement everything overnight, but we will definitely listen. They have given us great ideas and direction.
OpenSea: That makes sense, Boris. How has your experience at Yuga influenced your founding of this company?
Boris Vagner: To be honest, they are first-class. The way they communicate with the community, the way they build products, and their organizational structure - I've learned a lot from them. They gave me a life-changing opportunity. The founders and the team are all amazing people. I learned how to run a company the right way. You have to put in the time, care deeply about your users, and build genuine connections. Everyone matters, especially in the early days.
Real-life connections are tight. People plan to meet every month and show up on time, and that relationship deepens. These real-life connections can build trust and make everything feel more personal.
OpenSea: This contradicts public perception, right? Web3 is anonymous, but when I meet them in real life, it feels very intimate and genuine. They are enthusiastic, thoughtful, and can truly communicate with people.
Boris Vagner: I estimate that 99% of the people I met in the Ape community are like this. Even new members are drawn to this sense of authenticity. Sure, meme coins and such can be a bit crazy, but the OG community has built something deeper. I find people in the Web3 community are more willing to open up and share their lives than those in the Web2 community.
OpenSea: Richard, you are clearly a Grammy-winning musician. Tell me about the Grammy awards you have won.
Richard Vagner: I play the violin and have participated in an album by SOJA, which won the Best Reggae Album award a few years ago. I still don't understand why it ultimately won a Grammy, but I'll take it!
Boris Vagner: He loops live - violin, guitar, drums - it's absolutely crazy. He records every layer live and then stitches them together into a complete track. It's really cool.
Richard Vagner: I've also done some interesting things in the Web3 space. I attended the first ApeFest in New York and other events like ETHDenver and Miami. Just last month, I went bowling with a group of apes - although I got completely drunk, I had a great time. Everyone was relaxed and we could chat for hours.
OpenSea: Does your music background help you in building SBS?
Richard Vagner: Indeed, running a business is more creative than I imagined. You’re always thinking of new ideas, solving problems, and looking for better ways to do things. I feel like my brain exercises this part every day, but spreadsheets and deadlines also make me less happy.
Boris Vagner: At that time, I added these things to my brother's to-do list.
Richard Vagner: I oscillate between creative and analytical every day.
Boris Vagner: We are ten years apart - I’m 36, he’s 26. I raised him. We’ve been working together since he was 15. I even had him play violin in the band I formed with friends when he was 14. We’ve had ups and downs, but I don’t want to be with anyone else.
Richard Vagner: We argue a lot, but there is real love between us.
OpenSea: Let's talk about the future. Do you think NFT-based games will become mainstream? You are involved in this field - will it become mainstream? How will that happen?
Boris Vagner: Of course, I see this issue from a sports perspective. Over 80% of people worldwide watch sports, and a large portion of them play fantasy games. The potential for sports games is enormous. While we don’t know when and how it will be realized, it will eventually happen. It will make everything better. Look at Fortnite; people are already spending money on skins. Imagine if they could actually resell those skins.
Boris Vagner: Blockchain makes these experiences sweeter, with better ownership, more interactivity, and more meaningful interactions.
Richard Vagner: I agree - and I think most people don’t even realize at first that this is Web3. With social login and credit card payment features, they’ll just feel like they are playing a fantasy sports game, but one day they will realize, 'Wait, can I sell this? Do I have a wallet?' It will be an easy, seamless transition. The back end is Web3, but the front end feels familiar.
OpenSea: Last question: Suppose you are pitching SBS to ESPN or the NFL. What is your elevator pitch? What do you want them to remember?
Boris Vagner: We created the first and only on-chain fantasy draft platform. We firmly believe fantasy football should be played this way - it’s more fun, transparent, and vibrant. It represents the present and the future.
OpenSea: Thank you very much.
Richard Vagner: Thank you, Stephanie!
Boris Vagner: Thank you very much. I really enjoyed this interview.
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