Sports related NFTs

Fans are always looking for more ways to interact with their favorite sport. Blockchain can help bridge that gap through Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the Metaverse. Considering the media coverage NFTs has received last year and with overall figures of generating $25 billion in sales in 2021 alone, it would not be surprising that most people may have already heard of NFTs even if they do not understand the concept.

It has been predicted by Deloitte that sports related NFTs will double the figures of last year, and generate more than $2 billion in sales in 2022. Deloitte has also predicted that by the end of this year, approximately 5 million sports fans would own at least one sports related NFT.

This opens up a huge opportunity for the sports industry to ride the wave of the future and interact with billions of sports fans, while also earning a new source of revenue. Some of the traditional collectibles like trading cards now have the option of being converted in digital files and being traded as NFTs. There are videos of important sports events called 'moments' being traded as NFTs on certain platforms, memorabilia and also gifs. Sports players can also create their own NFTs and with the advent of the Metaverse, the possibilities are truly limitless.

Lets have a brief look at some examples of how the sports industry is utilizing this opportunity in the NFT world. There are many sports related NFT marketplaces that exist today such as:

1) NBA Top Shot : This is the official NFT marketplace by the National Basketball Association (NBA) that has generated $842 million in sales by volume since its launch, figures courtesy of DappRadar. NBA Top Shot uses the Flow Blockchain.

2) Sorare : This is all about soccer/football. It is blockchain based game for fantasy football where one can earn tokens or rewards by setting up teams, playing with other teams and ofcourse offers an NFT marketplace for digital collectible cards. Although based on fantasy, it currently works with approximately 130 of the best known football clubs and leagues in the world. Sorare is built on the Ethereum blockchain.

3) Fancraze : The International Cricket Council (ICC) has partnered with Fancraze and recently released its first collection of NFTs, ICC Crictos of 75 unforgettable moments of cricket from the 2015 and 2017 ICC Mens Cricket World Cup series. This platform uses the Flow blockchain.

4) NFL All Day : This is a NFT marketplace by the National Football League (NFL) that has NFTs related to American football. There are plans to launch NFTs for the Super Bowl and taking it a step further, the NFL has announced that each attendee of the Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles on February 13, 2022 will receive a free Super Bowl NFT of their ticket with details such as their seat and row numbers. Even the much hyped about commercial time of the Super Bowl has aspects of blockchain, with cryptocurrency platform Binance and certain NFT collections expected to make appearances. NFL All Day uses the Flow blockchain.

5) UFC Strike: This is the NFT marketplace of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) whose first NFT drop happened very recently on 23rd January 2022. Each NFT pack has collections or moments from 35 fights, and all 100,000 of their NFT packs sold out in just four hours! UFC Strike is built on the Flow blockchain.

6) Topps MLB NFTs :The Topps MLB NFT Collection is all about taking the traditional baseball trading cards and digitalizing them into NFTs. It is an official partnership between Major League Baseball (MLB) and Topps, which has been making baseball cards for the past 84 years. Topps initially used the WAX blockchain but later switched to the Avalanche blockchain.

7) Zed Run Racehorse: There are also options for digital race horses! Zed Run Racehorse is a popular NFT horse racing gaming platform. The horses are the NFTs on this platform which can be bought from its own marketplace and are also traded on other NFT market platforms such as OpenSea. This play to earn game is based on Polygon, Level 2 layer of the Ethereum blockchain.

8) nWayPlay by the International Olympic Committee launched Olympic Pins NFTs last June and also has digital NFT pins for the ongoing Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022. nWay also released a gaming app called Olympics Games Jam: Beijing 2022 which has a gaming element and NFT marketplace as well. Even the official mascot of the games is up for sale as an NFT. nWayPlay is built on the flow blockchain.

9) In Tennis, the US Open Champion Cards are NFT trading cards featuring the US Open Championship. They are available on OpenSea. The Australian Open also launched the AO Decades Collection featuring six NFT collections to celebrate the iconic decades of the Australian. The Australian Open teamed up with NFT platform Sweet.io for its NFT collection.

10) Many celebrities have also been getting in on the NFT space such as Tom Brady who launched his own NFT space called Autograph and has produced NFTs with sports stars such as Tiger Woods and Simone Biles. This is built on the Polygon technology blockchain which is a layer 2 solution for the Ethereum Network.

The advantages of some of the marketplaces mentioned in this article are that you can purchase an NFT without needing to buy cryptocurrency. So for those intimidated to venture in to the crypto world, some of these NFTs can be bought using traditional fiat currency.

This list just touches the surface of the ice berg. There are many more players in the Sports related NFT world. What is certain is that Sports NFTs are definitely a way forward to bring sports enthusiasts into the blockchain world.

Disclaimer: This article is not investment advice regarding buying NFTs. This article is published with educational intent to highlight the options of NFTs related to the sports industry.