NFT
After the huge success of NBA Top Shot, the crypto startup that created the sports-themed digital collectibles was eager to repeat.
Back in 2021, Brave Labs signed a deal with both the NFL and OneTeam Partners, a marketing joint venture founded in part by the NFL Players Association, or NFLPA. The plan was simple: replicate the success of NBA Top Shot by creating and selling a non-fungible token, or NFT, collection using video clips from an even more popular professional sports league, the NFL.
At the peak, NBA Top Shot was generated sales revenue of $224 million in February 2021 before plummeting to $47.6 million exactly one year later, according to CryptoSlam! Then, in February of this year, with the entire digital asset market in the grip of a protracted bear market, NBA Top Shot only amassed $2.9 million in sales, also according to CryptoSlam!.
By the time the NFL deal went through and the football-themed digital collectibles known as NFL All Day became available to a limited group of individuals during a soft launch in late 2021, it was already clear to Dapper executives that they would and would not meet the minimum guaranteed requirements it had agreed to pay OneTeam Partners, according to two people familiar with the matter.
JV of NFL players threatens to sue NBA Top Shot maker
Not only would the collection fall short of expectations, NFL All Day was on track to be “hundreds of millions of dollars” short, one of the people said. Bravely tried to get OneTeam Partners back to the negotiating table, but the joint venture threatened to sue at one point, the two people said.
Dapper and OneTeam got into a lengthy and heated negotiation that lasted months, the two people also said. Amid a significantly worsened NFT market, the two sides finally settled on new terms, one of the people said.
Dapper Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. OneTeam Partners also did not respond immediately.
Sales Volumes NBA Top Shot vs. NFL All Day: The Block Research
Not even Patrick Mahomes
Even as superstar Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes promoted the collection, the NFTs failed to take off. NFL All Day not only fell far short of expectations, but also fell short of attracting new consumers.
NFL All Day’s best sales month came a month after last year’s August launch and right as the NFL season kicked off. The collection raised $14.3 million in September 2022, according to CryptoSlam! By January, the last full month of the NFL season, volume was down more than 75% to $3.5 million, also according to CryptoSlam!
Unfortunately for Dapper, when researching the digital wallets that bought NFL All Day NFTs, the company found that almost all of the wallets had also bought NBA Top Shots, showing that the company had barely expanded its customer base with the football-themed collection, one person said. who is familiar with the case.
Dapper Labs, like many of its peers in the crypto and blockchain space, has struggled in recent months and as a result has had to lay off staff gathered during the bull run that helped drive NBA Top Shot sales. Dapper Labs was once valued at $7.6 billion.
