(Bloomberg) — Dapper Labs Inc., the creator of the highly popular NBA Top Shot platform for NFTs, is tackling a new sport: Football.
The company and the National Football League, as well as its players association, on Wednesday announced a partnership to create non-fungible tokens of digital-video highlights from games. Fans will be able to collect digital-video moments from the season’s plays, and all 32 NFL teams are set to participate.
“We can’t wait to give the more-than-300-million NFL fans the opportunity to own the game that matters to them and engage with the sport in a whole new way,” Roham Gharegozlou, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Dapper Labs, said in a press release.
The digital collectibles will allow NFL fans to collect and own NFTs featuring in-game snapshots and memorable moments throughout the season, as well as plays from past games. It’s set to launch later this year.
“We believe blockchain technology has great potential to enhance the NFL fan experience in the future and we are excited to have Dapper Labs as one of our first partners in exploring this emerging space,” Joe Ruggiero, senior vice president of consumer products at the NFL, said in the release.
Earlier this month, Dapper Labs said it raised $250 million in its latest funding round and, at the same time, announced a deal with LaLiga to offer digital collectibles for soccer fans. The collaboration with the popular soccer league will give users the opportunity to collect and own NFTs from over 10 seasons of play and will feature content from teams including Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Atlético de Madrid, Sevilla FC and others.
Interest for non-fungible tokens — which are known as NFTs and allow holders of art and collectibles to track ownership — has been gaining steam. A wide variety of them have become popular, including pictures of rocks, as well as cartoonish depictions of penguins and apes, among other things.
Dapper Labs’s NBA Top Shot, a joint effort with the basketball league that allows users to find limited edition video “cards,” or short highlights from games, has been a hit with fans. It has more than 1 million registered users and it’s seen 13 million total transactions.
Gharegozlou said in an interview with Bloomberg News recently that the company had plans to expand to “basically all major sports.” Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, it already had backing from multiple prominent NFL players, including Stefon Diggs, Tyrod Taylor and Trent Williams, among others.
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