DraftKings crowns NFT Fantasy as new core offering

This upcoming NFL season will mark debut of Reignmakersan NFT fantasy play it DraftKings considers to be its fourth signature game offering– as potentially meaningful for the business as daily fantasy sports, betting and iGaming. Reignmakers Soccer is licensed by the NFLPA and is the first of several games it will be portion of Reignmakers brand, like the UFC extended his deal with DraftKings to launch its own version for NFT collecting MMA fans.

“This is our first product that we have launched in recent years, and we definitely do not every year take on something big and meaningful at DraftKings“ DraftKing’s co-founder and President Matt Kalish said in one product demo talk with journalists. “If we take it on instead of focusing on other things with our core business, it means that obviously we think it’s going to be popular, that we can acquire and retain and satisfy a lot of players over time.”

The premise for Reignmakers is beautiful equal traditional fantasy sports. Usee collect digital player cards through auctions or package openings and then insert those players into their lineups and watch your players score points based on their real NFL performance. While the earning potential of daily fantasy sports contests starts and stops with the prize pool associated with those contests, Reignmakers extends it a step further also to attach monetary value to trading cards that are bought and sold on the DraftKings NFT Marketplace.

“The primary use of the cards is to be able to use them in competitions where you [can] win over a million [dollars] every week in the seasonKalish said. “And these contests, if you play daily fantasy sports, will look familiar to you.”

Competitions will be divided into five levels: Core, Rare, Elite, Legendary and Reignmaker — as only users who have collected cards belonging to that oneaffiliated teams will be able to participate in certain competitions bearing cash prizes. Core NFTs on DraftKings represent cards that are the most common, while Reignmaker is the rarest. The most lucrative NFL cards sold so far on DraftKing’s secondary marketplace were one “Reignmaker” edition of the Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs that sold for $17,500. The average one the price of NFTs sold on the marketplace is $56. DraftKings charges a 10% merchant fee on all marketplace transactions.

“You don’t need yourself understand NFT or Web3 technology to play the game. In fact, I don’t think you ever need to mention the word NFT to fully explain the game or even nearly fully explain it. And in some cases it’s probably best not to mention the word NFT because I’d say it is right now, typically, huge amounts of skepticism in the NFT space,” Kalish paid. “Most projects are probably down like 80-90% in the last six to 12 months. I would say that the average fantasy sports player or collector is probably incredibly skeptical of any new NFT project. And often it’s not helpful or necessary to even mention the fact that the way the cards are created is that they are NFTs on the polygon blockchain.”

From a legislative perspective, Reignmakers Football is available in every state where DraftKings runs its daily fantasy sports competitions. While the concept of Reignmakers Football is quite equal regular fantasy sports contests, DraftKings thinks so The NFT fantasy product enables the company to engage with consumers from communities outside of traditional fantasy sports.

“We’ll see [Reignmakers] as a product that crosses many different lines areas of interest too many people—some people who come from a variety of backgrounds who aren’t even current DraftKings customers, but maybe they like EA Sports Ultimate Team or they played Magic the Gathering or other competitive CCGs [collectible card games]”Kalish paid. “Either they got into crypto and NFT two years ago, or they like it crush sports cards. Everything these interest groups really cross good with the interest in fantasy sports.”

Comedian Kevin Hart starred in a national TV commercial to Reignmakers Football that debuted earlier this month and including cameos from NFL players like Diggs, Lamar Jackson and Ezekiel Elliott. The NFLPA has a revenue sharing agreement with DraftKings for Reignmakersso that players have a financial incentive to help promote the game.

“Through our relationship with the NFLPA, we have tremendous amounts of access to player contracts and can use that relationship to identify players who want to become more involved In the gameparticipate in advertising and do experiences,” Kalish saidid. “We’re in it together in a lot of ways and the players are part of it.”