La colección Messiverse de Lionel Messi y BossLogic. Tokens fungibles de clubes futbolísticos en Chiliz. Triples, tapones y volcadas NFT en NBA Top Shot.
This whole process that we have been reviewing in video games, plastic arts and music also has its correlation in the sports world. The most striking NFTs always end up being the ones that develop a community the best or fastest, and both artists, athletes and sports institutions already start from a fan base, from a community prior to entering the blockchain ecosystem.
Sports tokenization, from Chiliz football fan tokens to NBA Top Shot NFT plays.
A very resonant case is that of Lionel Messi. The Argentine footballer, who got tired of breaking records in the traditional world, also tried his hand in the crypto field with his first NFT collection: Messiverse, created by digital artist BossLogic.
Crossing sports fanaticism with digital art, BossLogic put together a series of illustrations with titles such as The Man of the Future, which show epic scenes of Messi as a chess strategist, as an all-powerful cyborg or as a soccer field surfer.
This collection was traded on the Ethernity Chain platform, where, for example, there are also NFTs of the AFA logo, historic National Team jerseys, player collectible cards and all kinds of paraphernalia.
Despite the resounding, of course the Messiverse is not the first use case of blockchain in sports. American basketball has the NBA Top Shots, while Sorare brought fantasy football to the collectibles boom and a new economy is currently being generated based on Chiliz / Socios.com Fan Tokens.
The NBA Top Shot case
December 15, 2021
NFT clips with the most remembered from NBA history. NFT “figurine packs”. The intersection of gaming, sports, betting and non-fungible tokens.
The American basketball league NFT collections are one of the most successful cases of any type of NFT. They consist of short video clips depicting epic moments in the history of that sport. From a steal in a final to an impressive dunk, a three-pointer made at the buzzer or a memorable celebration.
NBA Top Shot established a system that other similar projects replicate, and also many blockchain video games: surprise envelopes, which depending on the case can be boxes or chests. These packs usually have a fixed value and content that can vary in rarity or scarcity.
For example, a pack can cost the equivalent of $10 in crypto and contain a common card (or in this case a video of a play) that has a resale value of $5, or a mythic or legendary card that can resell for 2000 dollars. Resale prices are at the mercy of the market, that is, the amounts that the community is willing to pay for each NFT.
This system gives a taste of surprise and bets on the purchase of NFTs, but it also helps to strengthen the relationship between an artist or project and their community. Instead of going for a specific item in a marketplace, looking for a certain result (such as a character with a certain power for an NFT game), in this case we support whoever is behind that collection and at the same time speculate on the possibility of obtaining a very valuable asset with a minimal investment.
NBA Top Shot has a system of NFT «packages», where you can get plays of different «rarity», and therefore of different value.
Sports + Gaming + NFT
The path that NFT, sports and blockchain gaming is already crossing is that of sports simulators or fantasy games about football, racing or other sports. In many of them you can purchase NFT stadiums or racetracks, which are then rented for virtual events or races.
In parallel, another trend is beginning to appear more strongly: that of tokenized betting, both for real confrontations in physical sports (such as a Champions League match or a boxing fight) and for fantasy challenges, esports finals and sports simulations.
