The crypto ecosystem continues to grow at a rapid pace, with new concepts driving this trend. Non-fungible tokens, popularly known as NFTs are one of the novel digital assets that have caught the attention of mainstream media in the past 24 months.
This is largely due to the unique form of NFTs that can be deployed to great effect in digital arts, entertainment, gaming, and sports. SportsIcon is a blockchain platform that wants to integrate the use of NFTs within the sporting world in an innovative way.
Sports and NFTs
The sports industry is one that has embraced cryptocurrencies and is known for embracing new technologies. Social media and the Internet have broadened the reach of athletes and sports brands to connect with fans worldwide.
The use of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, in particular, has led to a better way for sporting brands to incentivize fans directly. As a result, fan token has emerged as a new trend, especially in soccer, where many clubs have released tokens.
These tokens enable fans to vote for changes to the club theme songs, jersey colours, and provide access to exclusive events. NFTs are seen by many as the future of sports tokenization due to their uniqueness and versatility.
The unique nature of NFTs means that they can be used to store value and serve as access to view exclusive content. This has made it popular among sports brands and athletes who use NFTs to tokenize important moments, collectibles, and access to exclusive content.
SportsIcon is one of the latest NFT platforms to develop an ecosystem that connects fans with exclusive video content.
SportsIcon: Integrating NFTs in a Sporting Ecosystem
SportsIcon has designed a scalable sports-focused NFT platform to deliver value to fans, athletes, and sports brands. It leverages the architecture of Flow, a unique blockchain designed by Dapper Labs, and powers popular NFT platform NBA Top Shot.
SportsIcon operates similarly to NBA Top Shots and collaborates with sporting athletes and brands to create videos accessed by sports fans via NFTs. It has already collaborated with some sporting stars and brands including Romelu Lukaku, Mike Vick, Lucha Libre, and club PUMAS, to create exclusive footage.
This approach is unique since it gives fans a personalized experience viewing exclusive footage of their favourite sporting celebrity. SportsIcon users will be able to purchase NFTs that tokenize each of the video chapters about the athlete. A total of 21 NFTs is released per collaboration with the NFTs divided into different chapters with increasing rarity as the athlete video journey progresses.
The NFTs also represent access to different historical moments in their careers and will be auctioned off on the dedicated NFT marketplace. In addition, SportIcon NFT holders can hold their digital assets for exclusive perks or resell them for profits.
Backed by Industry Stakeholders
SportsIcon is backed by key players in the blockchain industry and recently raised $5.5 million in its latest seed round. The Seed round included top firms and venture capitalists such as Dapper Labs, AU21 Capital, Vinny Lingham, Elefund, Craig Clemens, 4th Revolution Capital, Vendetta Capital, Sunny Madra, FishDAO and more.
This development shows that institutions and blockchain stakeholders believe in the potential of SportsIcon. The list of SportsIcon partners and investors continues to grow and includes key figures like rap legend and tech investor Nas; former NBA champion Andrew Bogut; Roham Gharegozlou, the CEO of Dapper Labs and creators of NBA Top Shot; Wndrco; On Deck Runway Fund.
Other partners include Nihal Mehta of Eniac Ventures; Mike Edwards of Argo Blockchain; Anand Agarawala, Founder of Spatial; Andrew Masanto of Reserve Protocol, Hedera Hashgraph and Pet Lab Co.; and Chad Hurley, the founder and former CEO of YouTube.
Moving Ahead
SportsIcon has already sold 9,000 NFTs lion themed NFTs raising more than $1.4 million in sales. These unique NFTs provide access to the SportsIcon Lion club, an interactive sporting community with real utility such as exclusive access to tickets for sports games and collectibles.
The NFT platform also uses its native token $ICON to create utility within its ecosystem. For example, ICON holders can purchase NFTs, get exclusive footage, and access extra features. The IDO for the ICON token is expected to be held in Q4 2021 and will be subsequently listed on conventional crypto exchanges.
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