NFL and Dapper Labs set for football version of NBA Top Shot
You’ll soon be able to collect moments like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s recent flip into the end zone in the same way you could own highlights of your favorite NBA player.
As was first reported by the Sports Business Journal’s Ben Fischer, the NFL, NFL Players Association and Dapper Labs are entering a partnership that will lead to a football version of the NBA Top Shot platform.
Dapper Labs confirmed the news a day after Fischer’s report, allowing collectors to join the waitlist for the new digital marketplace.
Per Fischer’s report, the deal will make Dapper Labs “the union’s second largest source of digital licensing revenue behind ‘Madden’ maker EA Sports,” and the new platform is expected “to be active before the end of the NFL season.”
Dapper Labs took the sports world by storm when it released NBA Top Shot in 2020, which serves as a digital marketplace for NBA-centered NFTs (non-fungible tokens) marketed as “officially licensed digital collectibles.”
>>RELATED: The rise of NBA Top Shot as collectors pay thousands for digital highlights
The platform allows NBA fans to collect video highlights, known as “Moments,” as if they were pulled out of a pack of sports cards that you would find at retailers like Target or Walmart.
Amid a rapid rise in the sports collectible space, specifically relating to sports cards, NBA Top Shot caught the eyes of tens of thousands of fans around the country.
According to data from Dappradar, the marketplace had 45,000 users and approximately $48 million in transactions as of February 22, 2021, before a drop to approximately 5,570 users as of September 27, 2021.
On September 28, 2021, amid reports of an NFL-centered installment, NBA Top Shot users jumped back up to approximately 6,540, signaling an 18.7 percent increase over the span of the prior 24 hours.
The move to make an NFL-centered edition of Top Shot comes as players around the league test the waters with the NFT scene.
Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady launched an NFT company in 2021 called Autograph, which a CNN report said would house “some of the biggest names in sports, entertainment, fashion and pop culture,” and would also include NFTs for Brady himself, as well.
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Brady’s teammate Rob Gronkowski also stuck his toes in the NFT waters, releasing “The Rob Gronkowski Championship Series NFT Collection” that drove more than $1.2 million in sales.
Time will tell how many NFL fans will flock to the new NFT platform, or what the marketplace will even be called when it launches in the near future.
But, if the rise in the sports card industry and NBA Top Shot’s early success are both any indication, the partnership between the NFL, NFLPA and Dapper Labs could bring massive benefits for all of the parties involved.
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