ESPN Partnering With Tom Brady
ESPN getting involved with NFTs from the goat.
Tom Brady has been very active the last couple of years in the crypto world. He famously gave a fan 1 BTC as a trade to get back the ball he threw his 600th career touchdown pass with. He has also been in commercials for FTX, one of the most popular crypto exchanges in the world. Brady has also pushed his reach into the world of NFTs with his own NFT platform called Autograph. Not too long ago, Autograph secured $170 million in series B funding from venture capital firm A16z.
This week, it has been announced that ESPN is getting their feet wet in the NFT game. They have come to an agreement with Autograph to be the platform that they release their NFTs on going forward. The deal also involves the release of NFTs based around the show “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady” which is based around the illustrious career of, who else, Tom Brady. The show itself is also run by ESPN so this deal just makes a lot of sense for both parties to get the ball rolling. NFTs are already viewable as of April 6th, and users can buy them now using the DraftKings marketplace.
The collection will consist of 50 NFTs that are “autographed” by Brady himself. The whole concept of Autograph is that you can get digital signatures of your favorite athletes in 3 different tiers of rarity. Kind of weak to me but people buy it so what do I know. This is not all they have already planned for us. ESPN has also said that they will be releasing a special collection for the 10th episode of “Man in the Arena” when that episode airs. You can stream “Man in the Arena” on ESPN+ to get caught up.
"ESPN is excited to offer our first NFTs to meet our fans at the intersection of sports, technology, and content," said Kevin Lopes, Vice President of Sports Business Development & Innovation at ESPN, in a statement. "Our work with ESPN Edge has led us to where we are today, exploring new, innovative ways of engaging fans, and we are thrilled to partner with Autograph for this collection and others in the future.”