Sports has always been a favorite pastime for millions of people. Now there are rare collectibles, and real digital assets to own. The NFT games and the blockchain games in the digital sports space are gaining traction!
The implementation of NFTs in sports is huge. NFTs go beyond sports memorabilia to engage with millions of fans worldwide, giving them a say in their favorite sports teams. Read more about our ultimate guide to NFT sports platforms.
NBA NFTs have been on a winning streak lately, and it seems inevitable that NBA sports and NFTs are a match. Here, we dive into some of the top sports NFT platforms.
Table of Contents – Top NFT Sports Games
- Sorare
- F1 Delta Time
- NBA Top Shot
- Dugout
- Socios
- DeRace
Why Are NFTs and Sports a Match?
The average sports fan constantly rehashes the same explanation as to why they’re passionate about an athlete, a sports team, or a sports organization: it’s more than sports. There is some truth to this, but it is difficult to convey the logic behind such a statement to non-sports fans. Now that NFT sports have emerged, every sports fanatic can support their love for a franchise, athlete, or team for yet another reason. What explains it?
NFTs provide fans with access to a world of highly immersive sports and rewards them for their passion at the same time. The scarcity and uniqueness that the blockchain offers are increasingly being viewed as the ultimate assurance that fan engagement and the economy that comes with it would surge exponentially. With this blockchain system, fans are incentivized to continue following their favorite athletes and teams. Fans have more opportunities than ever before to make money online by monetizing their knowledge and commitment to their favorite franchises.
Rare Collectible Sports Memorabilia
It is worth mentioning that this exciting possibility is one of the major factors driving the demand for sports collectibles and memorabilia. Before now, it was a tad complex to exchange sports collectibles and memorabilia like cards, signed jerseys, and so on for money. Today, sports lovers can verify the authenticity of such items on the blockchain – thanks to NFTs – and execute peer-to-peer trades in seconds. The tamper-proof and distinguishable natures of NFTs preserve not only the ownership of rare sports collectibles but also the appeal of such items.
While this is a given, some solutions have taken things up a notch by creating active economies that trail fan sentiments and the performance of sports franchises. Below I have listed some of these platforms and discussed the features that make them unique.
Most Visited NFT Sports Platforms
Sorare – Sports Nft Trading Cards
Sorare has created a collection of NFT football trading cards that players can use to build their fantasy team and compete in order to unlock more NFT cards and win Ethereum. At the time of writing, Sorare is officially licensed with over 150 football teams, including household names like Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Juventus.
You will find 2 categories of trading cards on Sorare. The first is what Sorare calls Commons, which are given to you at the beginning of your playing career to build a team. The second sets are tokenized cards with capped supplies. Tokenized cards earn you points when you compete in the platform’s fantasy football tournament.
With this, you can assemble a five-player team and generate revenue based on the performances of the players in real life. In essence, the real-time stats of featured players in football matches will automatically reflect on the card and determine the number of points you win. You earn points for the on-field performance of players on your roaster. The good thing about this is that you own the NFT cards you have collected. Hence, you can sell them to other players on NFT marketplaces. Note that Sorare’s NFT cards are priced based on their rareness.
More information about Sorare can be found on their website here.
F1 Delta Time – Formula One NFT Collectibles
F1 Delta Time has created a blockchain ecosystem where Formula One fans can collect NFT cars, race tracks, drivers, and tires. Like Sorare, F1 Delta Time players are not just collecting these digital collectibles for the fun of it. The ultimate goal is to compete in tournaments using NFT assets.
As we have come to expect of NFT platforms, the value of F1 Delta Time’s collectibles lies in the limited supply of individual digital items. Also, the rarity of these items is tiered. Therefore, the price that each will fetch on secondary markets varies. You can use the platform’s native utility token, Revv, to purchase these NFT collectibles.
Learn more about F1 Delta Time on their website here.
NBA Top Shot – NFT Collectibles
The NBA is one of the largest sports organizations that have bought into the NFT craze. By partnering with Dapper Labs, the NBA has been able to bring special basketball moments to the blockchain. The entire catalog of collectibles sold on NBA Top Shot is tokenized clips of basketball highlights. To make it more exciting and at the same time create a thriving economy around this offering, the platform issues tokenized basketball moments with varying levels of rarity.
It is worth mentioning that the value of each collectible depends on a combination of factors – the rareness of the NFT and the sentiments of fans or collectors. When these two factors are in play, these NBA NFT moments could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars – as was the case for a particular Lebron James dunk highlight that sold for $387,000. The unique thing about NBA Top Shot is that collectors can buy these NFTs with conventional payment methods. This removes all of the technicalities that sometimes shroud other NFT platforms that solely provide the option to purchase collectibles with crypto. It is rather easy to buy an NFT on NBA Top Shot. This has helped propel the popularity of NBA Top Shot such that it is now one of the most valuable NFT marketplaces currently.
Dugout – Korean NFT Baseball Marketplace
Dugout is an NFT marketplace for the Korean baseball league. You collect limited editions of NFT-based baseball cards, which you can resell to generate profits. If you wish to collect cards, either buy packs – in the hopes of discovering valuable NFT moments – or buy your favorites on the marketplace. Whatever strategy you choose, you are still 100% in control of the cards you collect.
More information could be found on Dugout official website here.
Socios – NFT Fandom Platform
Socios is a fast-rising NFT fandom platform where users can buy the fan token of their favorite teams to have voting rights on certain team activities. For example, owning fan tokens could give you the privilege of picking the team’s playlist, the design of the warmup kit, the team bus design, and so on Chiliz (CHZ) is the digital currency powering the socios.com platform.
In particular, football teams have begun to acknowledge the level of fan engagements that this solution provides. Therefore, it is no more surprising that teams like Manchester City, Juventus, and Barcelona are delegating more decision-making responsibilities to their fan token-holders. Note that the more fan tokens you own, the more your vote counts.
Socios also launched a partnership with UFC – the world’s largest mixed martial arts organization, with more than 625 million fans worldwide. This partnership brings UFC fans together through more engagement, offers, and rewards.
DeRace – NFT Horses Game
DeRace issues DNA-enriched NFT horses for the ultimate horse racing ecosystem. Here, players collect horses, breed them and race them to win all participants’ fees and a percentage of bettors’ stake. As such, we can say that DeRace enables a horse racing universe where you can either become a racer, a bookmaker, or a better. The bookmaker owns the arena on which these races take place, and bettors rely on the provable fairness of blockchain technology to ensure that outcomes of bets are transparent, verifiable, and fair. Notably, DeRace is designed to permit horse breeding. In essence, each horse comes with its own unique traits and genetics that determine its visual appearance and racing performance. If breeding seems too complicated, you can decide to buy NFT horses on the DeRace marketplace or secondary NFT markets. Find out more here.
Conclusion
It is easy to see why non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are somewhat the most marketable blockchain implementations. Other than the fact that they enable relatable applications on the blockchain, they also provide the possibility of enhancing some of our most addictive hobbies, including art, sports, music, and gaming. In this guide, we will focus on the explosion of NFT sports applications and highlight notable platforms championing this emerging market.
Judging by the success of sports NFT platforms, it is safe to say that we will see more variants of such solutions emerge in the coming years. On the one hand, the influx of this NFT sector will force sports franchises and athletes to reimagine new ways of engaging with their fans. On the other hand, fans would become a lot more involved in their favorite sports and even get to monetize their passion. All in all, it is a win-win situation for everyone involved.
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Questions?
Did you buy any Sports NFTs?
Have you been to any of the above Sports Platforms?
