Issue 20: Goat NFTs, soccer moments, more league activity

Here's your weekly review on what happened at the intersection of NFTs and Sports:

• 🐐 Goats: Brady's Autograph platform is live, Messi's first NFT
• ⚽ Official soccer moment NFTs by RealFevr
• 👾 UFC partners with Panini and MLB uses stadiums

Let's have a closer look! 👀

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So here's what happend in a rather calm NFT Sports week.

🐐 Goats: Brady's Autograph platform is live, Messi's first NFT

Some of the greatest athletes in sports are getting into NFTs. We already spoke about Tom Brady's platform Autograph when it was announced a couple months ago as well as two weeks ago when the partnership with DraftKings was communicated. And now the time has come: The football Goat himself marks Autograph's debut on the DraftKings NFT marketplace. The first Brady-themed items are lived and were quickly followed by ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, with others to follow soon.

And all Goat-ness doesn't stop there. Ethernity, who have been pushing NFT collections of multiple superstars, now announced the "Messiverse" collection featuring PSG's historic signing. The collection will consist of four art pieces and is open for pre-registration.

⚽ Official soccer moment NFTs by RealFevr

Lisbon-based company RealFevr has dropped their very first NFT collection on August 12. Why is this worth mentioning? For starters they seem to be the first ones out there to publish soccer highlight clips as NFTs, all officially licensed. And not only did they win Bruno Fernandes as an ambassador, but they also have some interesting licenses, mainly from the Portuguese leagues, featuring some old but gold CR7 moments. And their debut went well: All 75,000 packs were sold out within a short amount of time, generating $1.5m in sales, using their $FEVR token that is based on Binance's Smart Chain. We're curious about their upcoming launches, as this is obviously a fight for the top licenses. Their launch however should give them some good arguments in potential negotiations. Nice one!

👾 UFC partners with Panini and MLB uses stadiums

It feels like the cooperation announcement between UFC and Dapper Labs was already ages ago, and nothing feasible has come out of it yet. To the contrary the UFC and Panini America are actually pushing things now with the first-ever UFC trading card collection. Some more details from the announcement: "The Panini UFC NFTs will be digital replicas of the popular Panini UFC trading cards, which feature UFC’s biggest fights, moments, and milestones.  The Panini UFC NFTs will be available for purchase on the Panini NFT Blockchain Platform and will incorporate Panini's unique Select and Prizm designs and will feature more than 100 UFC athletes." The first series of Panini UFC NFTs will be rolled out over a six-week period beginning August 9 and continue through September.

And the last one for today: While MLB's trading card platform with Topps is struggling, they seem to be way more convinced of their partnership with Candy Digital. Their newest drop is an interesting one, as for the first time the team's venues are in the center of attention. The NFTs feature all of the league's 30 ballparks and will be up for auction on a weekly basis. They were designed by renowned artist S. Preston. Select winners will also received special VIP experiences in the venues. A really nice approach in our opinion!

🤓 Wrapping it up

So what have we learned in this week's issue?

• NFTs are a topic for some of the greatest athletes on our planet (or at least their management), with Tom Brady seemingly in the lead with his own platform and a strong partner in DraftKings.
• Highlight clips have finally arrived in soccer, which is not a surprise in itself, but we were rather expecting it from one of the big rights holders. Now a "third party platform" with RealFevr has made the first step.
• Big leagues keep pushing NFT projects, even in cases were they have not made good experiences. While the UFC goes an already classic approach with digitising an existing physical product, the MLB goes a different way with new, creative items and a forward-thinking partner.

That's it for this weeks issue! And as always: Feel free to reach out for feedback and to discuss all things NFT and sports! And to stay up to date: Make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for stats, drop announcements and more. And join us on our Discord server to discuss the latest news and insights about NFTs in sports.