What are they and why are they so popular?
Sports NFTs are a growing segment of the non-fungible token (NFT) market, enabling sports fans to collect digital trading cards, virtual memorabilia and more.
Read on to find out what sports NFTs are, where you can buy them, and whether they’re worth buying.
What are sports NFTs?
Sports NFTs are verified unique digital assets created on a blockchain to represent digital trading sports cards, sports moments, digital memorabilia and other types of sports items.
The issuance of sports NFTs provides athletes, clubs and sports brands with a new way to make money, while allowing fans to connect with their favorite clubs and athletes in a new way.
For example, owning a limited edition virtual memorabilia of your favorite basketball team or a rare trading card of your favorite baseball player is something many fans are willing to pay good money for. As a result, sports NFTs often trade for thousands and thousands of dollars (or more), and the value of some of the rarest pieces has increased significantly since they were minted.
Where can you buy sports NFTs?
There are many marketplaces where you can buy sports NFTs. Let’s take a look at two of the most active NFT marketplaces that sell sports-related NFTs.
Open sea
OpenSea is the world’s leading NFT marketplace, enabling anyone worldwide to create, sell and buy a wide variety of non-fungible tokens. From digital art and music to crypto collectibles and sports NFTs, the platform offers almost everything the NFT market has to offer.
Rare
Rarible is one of the leading NFT marketplaces where people can create, sell and buy a wide range of different types of non-fungible tokens. The “community-centric NFT marketplace” sells NFTs representing PFPs (profile pictures), art, domains, music and more. You can also buy NFTs from many of the leading sports NFT brands on Rarible.
In addition to Ethereum (ETH) based assets, Rarible also supports NFTs operating on Tezos (XTZ), Flow (FLOW) and Polygon (MATIC).
Autograph
Founded by American football star Tom Brady, Autograph is an NFT sports platform that sells signed limited edition sports collectibles from a number of leading athletes and former athletes, such as Tony Hawk, Wayne Gretzky and Naomi Osaka.
Autograph supports NFTs operating on Ethereum and Polygon.
Top Sports Card NFT Brands
In addition to famous athletes such as Rob Gronkowski dropping headline-making NFT collections, a handful of sports NFT brands have emerged to take the lion’s share of the sports NFT market. Let’s take a look at them.
Hurt
Sorare is a fantasy football trading card game that allows players to buy, sell and trade trading cards. Sorare players act as soccer managers by creating teams composed of five soccer players using virtual cards represented as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.
Each card represents a real football player and their performance on the pitch affects the score on Sorare.
NBA top shot
Built by Dapper Labs (also responsible for CryptoKitties), NBA Top Shot is a virtual trading card platform on the FLOW blockchain, officially licensed by NBA Players Association. NBA Top Shot NFTs are short videos featuring notable slam dunks, three-pointers and other exciting game events, called “Moments.”
NBA Top Shot reportedly reached a market cap of over $1.1 billion in March 2022.
NFL all day
NFL All Day was released at the end of the 2021 NFL season as a trading card game in a partnership between the NFL and Dapper Labs. The platform allows fans to purchase and collect NFTs of players and memorable moments in the NFL.
NFL All Day operates on the FLOW blockchain and at the time of writing had a market capitalization of USD 68.15 million.
UFC strike
Another partnership bringing trading cards closer to fans is UFC Strike, which was created by Dapper Labs and Ultimate Fighting Championship. Just like NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, UFC Strike gives fans the opportunity to collect virtual trading cards based on famous fighters in the form of NFTs minted on the FLOW blockchain.
UFC Strike had a reported market cap of US$7.9 million as of March 2022.
Should you collect sports NFTs?
Sports NFTs have made headlines due to the celebrity lure of the athletes’ names associated with high-profile drops.
In addition, leading NFT companies, notably Dapper Labs and Sorare, have managed to secure licensing deals with some of the biggest sports leagues in the world, enabling sports fans to engage with their favorite clubs and athletes in a whole new way in the digital rich.
Sports NFTs have also allowed savvy collectors to make significant returns by buying the right trading cards and virtual memorabilia and selling it at the height of the 2021 NFT boom.
While the NFT market may not be as hot as it was last year, depressed by the significant fall in the crypto markets, the number of sports fans entering the NFT space could help push the value of sports NFT higher in the years to come. .
However, the NFT market is extremely volatile and collecting sports NFTs can lead to a total loss of funds, for example if an NFT brand loses a licensing deal (like F1 Delta Time earlier this year). Therefore, anyone planning to buy sports NFTs as an investment should never invest more than they can afford to lose because there is a very real chance of losing money in the NFT market.
That said, if you’re a fan and are willing to pay “whatever” to get your hands on the latest collectible of your favorite club or athlete, sports NFTs might be right up your alley.
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Learn more:
– NFL, Dapper Labs launches new marketplace for digital collectibles
– FLOW takes off on Google Cloud & Dapper Labs Partnership News
– Used NFT market for NBA Top Shot packs appears on eBay
– NBA, MLB, e-sports, and now Bündchen and Brady are joining FTX’s marketing team
– Super Bowl champion Gronk will auction his own NFT collection
– New York Yankees’ Bitcoin Deal
– Heavyweights in football are sweating over the crypto firm’s “non-payment” of sponsorship agreement
– Crypto exchanges back away from sports spending as crunch continues
