NHL, NHLPA partner on official NFT licensing deal

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Sweet, a non-fun­gi­ble token (NFT) dis­tri­b­u­tion plat­form, is now the offi­cial NFT part­ner and dig­i­tal col­lectibles mar­ket­place of the NHL, the NHL Play­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion and the NHL Alum­ni Asso­ci­a­tion in one of the largest licens­ing deals in league history.

With a planned launch at the start of the 2022–23 NHL sea­son, the mul­ti-year part­ner­ship is the first to bring the NHL, NHLPA and NHLAA togeth­er to offer NFTs using cur­rent and archival video moments and col­lectibles. They’ll fea­ture teams and play­ers from across the NHL.

Sweet is build­ing a stand­alone NHL mar­ket­place for NFTs, seek­ing to reach the col­lectibles mar­ket as well as fans look­ing to access a vari­ety of hock­ey expe­ri­ences through the tokens.

“The deci­sion that we real­ly made us go with Sweet was their will­ing­ness to cre­ate some­thing specif­i­cal­ly for the NHL and our fans, as opposed to plug­ging into a mul­ti-sport mar­ket­place,” Dave Lehan­s­ki, the NHL’s exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent for busi­ness devel­op­ment and inno­va­tion, told ESPN. “Any­thing past, cur­rent and future is on the table and in a con­sol­i­dat­ed marketplace.”

That includes NFTs of play­ers past and present, as this is a full part­ner­ship between the NHL and its play­ers associations.

“We’re look­ing for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Sweet to pro­mote our game like nev­er before, by giv­ing fans a chance to col­lect their favorite play­er moments, and to inter­act with the play­ers and oth­er fans in a whole new way,” said Math­ieu Schnei­der, assis­tant to the exec­u­tive direc­tor for the NHLPA.

Lehan­s­ki acknowl­edged that “some peo­ple might say we took too much time” to get into the NFT space but dis­agreed that it was a dis­ad­van­tage for the NHL.

“If we had done some­thing back when every­one said we should do some­thing, we would­n’t have been able to think long term, we would­n’t have been able to see what else every­one had done. We’ll be bet­ter pre­pared than some of the enti­ties that got into a year ago,” he said.

That includes the abil­i­ty to roll with the volatil­i­ty of the NFT mar­ket — as well as with the skep­ti­cism sur­round­ing it.

“For the peo­ple who say ‘ha, NFTs,’ we don’t believe that. We spend a lot of time speak­ing to peo­ple in the space, and they say the same thing: There will be short-term volatil­i­ty but longer term NFTs are absolute­ly going to be here and be a viable means for build­ing con­sumer prod­ucts,” he said.

Among the planned NFT inno­va­tions for the NHL, NHLPA and NHLAA: spe­cial­ty packs, gam­i­fied col­lec­tion expe­ri­ences, 3D inter­ac­tive tro­phy rooms in which users can dis­play their col­lec­tions, and dynam­ic NFTs designed to change based on cur­rent team data, as well as quests and chal­lenges that increase fan engage­ment through their collectability.

Tom Miz­zone, CEO of Sweet, said in a state­ment: “We’re hon­ored to be part­ner­ing on an indus­try-first launch with an orga­ni­za­tion as glob­al­ly renowned as the NHL. Work­ing close­ly with the League and the Asso­ci­a­tions, we’ve curat­ed some visu­al­ly stun­ning action-packed moments, lever­ag­ing in-play gam­i­fi­ca­tion to cre­ate a gen­uine­ly engag­ing and unique rela­tion­ship between col­lectibles and experiences.”

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