NFT
After establishing NFT-based fantasy sports activities video games across the Nationwide Soccer League (NFL) and Final Preventing Championship (UFC), sports activities betting agency DraftKings introduced right this moment that it’ll launch an NFT fantasy golf recreation in partnership with the PGA Tour.
DraftKings will roll out the Reignmakers PGA Tour expertise in March, following the identical form of format as with its earlier NFT tasks. Digital playing cards based mostly on PGA Tour golfers will probably be minted and bought through Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain community, and customers can compete for hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ price of money prizes.
Similar to in conventional fantasy sports activities video games, customers will earn factors based mostly on the real-world efficiency of the gamers of their respective lineups. However as in DraftKings’ different Reignmakers video games and in rival video games like Sorare, customers will construct their lineups by shopping for and buying and selling digital playing cards based mostly on the real-world athletes.
It’s an extension of DraftKings’ current alliance with the PGA Tour, which started in 2019 and features a conventional fantasy golf expertise with out NFT components. Beth Beiriger, DraftKings’ senior VP of market operations, advised Decrypt that golf is the agency’s fourth-largest fantasy sport and seventh most-bet-on sports activities league.
“We already see a excessive degree engagement from these customers,” she mentioned of DraftKings golf followers, including that Reignmakers lets the agency “take gamified NFTs and actually push our customers over into the fantasy house a bit bit extra.”
Reignmakers PGA Tour will start its launch with a premium Greens Go NFT on March 1, which Beiriger mentioned will present “most well-liked entry, in addition to season-long rewards” for gamers. It’s just like the sphere cross NFT from Reignmakers Soccer, which is formally licensed by the NFL Gamers Affiliation (NFLPA) however not the league itself.
The primary set of PGA participant playing cards will launch on March 6, then, forward of the primary in-game occasion—The Gamers Championship—from March 9-12. The NFT-driven expertise needs to be largely acquainted to gamers of different Reignmakers video games, however Beiriger mentioned to anticipate specially-themed future NFT drops round main PGA Tour tournaments.
That is the PGA Tour’s second NFT collaboration, following a deal introduced with Tom Brady’s NFT startup Autograph final September that has but to bear fruit.
PGA Tour Golf NFTs Coming to Tom Brady’s Autograph Platform
Autograph’s NFTs will probably be digital collectibles themed round on-the-course moments, based on Tom Jeffs, the PGA Tour’s VP of media enterprise growth, whereas DraftKings focuses on participant playing cards with in-game utility. He believes that there’s sufficient room for each tasks to thrive within the sports activities NFT world.
Broadly, Jeffs advised Decrypt that the PGA Tour sees potential for NFT tasks to spice up followers’ affinity for gamers by means of possession of their respective property, citing professionals like Jon Rahm and Max Homa that battled it out final weekend on the Genesis Invitational.
“You’re residing and respiration by that participant’s success, and never just for that week through which you might be taking part in a contest,” mentioned Jeffs. “Now you possibly can’t wait to see the subsequent time Max goes to tee it up, as a result of you recognize that you’ve got him in your roster—so you’re feeling vested.”