NFTs and Athletes: A new beneficial partnership
Feb 09, 2021 - 3 min read
In the past year, sports leagues and teams have all entered the digital world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs; at the same time, athletes have also entered this world by partnering up with NFT companies and creating NFTs of their own. NFTs are one of the most significant products in the online world right now. A variety of industries, from football to the gaming industry, have found a way to benefit from this current trend. When it comes to athletes, it is all about their brand. Cryptocurrencies and NFTs in sports have proven to be an excellent tactic to increase digital fan engagement. The interest in all sports fandoms for these digital assets is constantly growing; therefore, athletes are creating tactics to use this new technology to create an additional revenue stream.
Source: Sorare.com
NFTs and their hype
NFTs or non-fungible tokens have become very popular over the past year. NFTs are digital tokens that can be bought and sold using blockchain technology. In sports, NFTs can be useful for many different things, such as videos, clips, highlights, cards, art, and much more. Almost every industry has found a way to use these digital products' current hype and trend to benefit themselves. Some companies still consider NFTs to be experimental and are hesitant to invest in these digital assets. Some people also believe NFTs to be useless and do not see the value in them, but this won't stop all the different industries as they take advantage of this hype and create their way to monetize this technology. In the graph below developed by the Financial Times, we can analyze that many sales took place in the NBA Top Shot NFT Marketplace.
What are athletes doing with NFTs?
Athletes from all sports, such as Tom Brady, Stephen Curry, James Rodriguez, Tony Hawk, Tyson Fury, and more, have partnered up with NFT companies and creators and have produced their own NFTs. With NFTs, athletes have the chance to benefit themselves financially and have the opportunity to come closer with their fans. Athletes are now working with NFT creators to offer their fans another way to interact and engage with them. According to Sports Room, the connection between NFTs and sports comes from utilizing the athlete’s image and likeness rights, allowing the athletes to use every specific event in their career and convert those into exclusive Non Fungible Tokens, giving the athlete the chance to offer different content through NFTs. Consequently, the two main benefits NFTs bring to athletes are helping with their brands and good monetization.
NFTs have already proven to be beneficial financially. For example, in a recent report by PENTA, boxer Tyson Fury sold his sports NFT for nearly US$1 million at an auction. The digital token featured the lineage of the British professional boxer bare-knuckle brawling and boxing. Moreover, NFTs also bring a new digital engagement and interaction between fans and athletes.
More athletes will probably join the world of NFTs in the future.
Even though many athletes have joined the world of NFTs, there is still more learning to gain about these digital assets. The market for NFTs will probably keep rising, and the demand for sports NFTs will be higher. That is why it is very likely that as time passes, more athletes will join the world of NFTs to see the different benefits they can gain from them as an additional source of income.
"It is unknown how NFTs will perform in the sports and entertainment industry. We know this new "digital asset" will give athletes, celebrities, and institutions enormous revenue opportunities. At Shine, we are building the right bandwidth to understand and help our clients to create revenue streams from it." Dario Brignole, CEO of Shine Entertainment Media.
Source: NBA Top Shot