Sports fans love memorabilia. They have collections that range from autographs of their favorite teams to hoodies, branded merchandise to baseball cards and basketballs to boxing gloves.
Anything that brings them closer to that whiff of victory as they cheer for their favorite athlete, sportsperson or team.
While old school, physical, hold in your hands artifacts are something most sports fans will always crave.
But today as cliched as it sounds, times have changed. And now like everything else that's found a digital counterpart on the internet, so have these.
Nonfungible tokens -- or NFTs which is primarily a way of asserting ownership over a piece of online content like a photo or a recording. -- that are a rage these days, have become popular across art, music, gaming, sports and entertainment.
Here is a brief how-to guide in case you're an NFT novice.
NFTs lend people a credible sense of ownership and have taken off in a big way in sports too.
Wrestling company WWE on Sunday launched its new NFT platform, WWE Moonsault.
Own The Glory
The exploding interest in NFTs has now found its way to The Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC. UFC fights are characteristic of fist-blows of boxing, the body slams of wrestling and some people have also compared them to live gigs and rock concerts.
In January, UFC partnered with Dapper Labs, that is backed by cultural heavyweights including Will Smith, Michael Jordan and Ashton Kutcher to launch its own UFC Strike video NFT brand.
UFC President Dana White recently told the Las Vegas Review Journal that everything the popular fighting league has "put on sale sold out in minutes."
"If it keeps heading in the direction it’s heading in now, it’s going to be massive,” he added.
“One of the cool things about the NFTs and all these cool things that they’re doing … you can own a piece of your favorite sport’s history. I think it connects the fans with something that they love even more," White further explained.
“We’re even at a point now where Dapper Labs is creating a variety of content during fight week,” White told Las Vegas Review Journal. “The open workouts, the press conferences, the weigh-ins and things like that.”
“Sports is such an important part of our lives, and it’s much bigger than we ever realized, until recently,” White said.
The league also put out signed posters, fight kits, worn or unworn [jerseys] and actual trading cards that all sold like hot cakes.
Fans can use UFC Strike to connect with their favorite fighters and collecting digital video NFTs of highlights from their fights and other specific iconic moments from the fighters as video NFTs from UFC’s past and present.
The first round of UFC Strike NFTs was sold out. There were 35 fights, or “moments,” included in each pack. Each NFT featured the winning and losing fighter, both of whom were paid half of the profit.
The average athlete that’s featured will receive about $18,000. Fighters who are featured twice will be paid double that, according to Fight Sports.
UFC Strike made $5 million in sales in January.
A new round of these packs will drop on March 22 and March 24.
Investment firm Wedbush told investors last November that the metaverse will allow users to create digital assets like NFTs with added financial incentives.
