According to a report by the Sports Business Journal, Dapper Labs is set to announce its partnership with the NFL this week. With this deal, the two have agreed to create an NFT marketplace similar to NBA Top Shot. Here’s all you need to know about this deal.
The growth of the NFT marketplace in sports?
Dapper Labs is well known as a creator of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the Flow blockchain. This NFL partnership is their latest one in the sports league, having established NBA Top Shot in October 2020.
NBA Top Shot is an online marketplace for basketball collectibles that allows users to buy, trade, and collect video clips of NBA players and key moments. They then use blockchain technology to authenticate the videos, creating a certificate of ownership.
What does this new deal mean?
According to the publication, once this deal goes through, Dapper Labs will become second-largest the source of digital licensing revenue for the NFL Players Associations after EA Sports’ “Madden” video game franchise.
In addition, Dapper Labs will also focus on video content, just like with the basketball marketplace.
What more should we expect from Dapper Lab’s NFT marketplace?
Just recently, the company raised $250 million in a funding round. This increased the company’s total value to $7.6 billion. Some of the investors include Coatue Ventures, Version One Ventures, 16z, GV (formerly Google Ventures), venture capital firm BOND, and Singapore-based wealth fund GIC.
The company also announced a partnership with LaLiga, Spain’s top professional soccer league, to launch a soccer marketplace around 2022.
The popularity of collectible NFTs skyrocketed last year but slowed down due to the influx of many players. However, Dapper Labs has attracted a lot of traders, having traded $780 million worth of collectibles so far in 2021.
The overwhelming popularity of the NFL league could spark more trades and attract more investors to the Flow blockchain. This happens in a week when Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies are on a decline.
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