Following the debut of the NCAA basketball-focused digital assets, the top Solana NFT marketplace expects an increase in its retail audience.
Magic Eden, a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace based in Solana, has announced a cooperation with Overtime, a prominent sporting entertainment platform, to launch an NFT collection aimed at increasing fan interaction and providing exclusive experiences.
The relationship is centred on the 2022 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, a national collegiate championship conference known as March Madness and widely regarded as one of the country’s largest sporting events.
The competition will begin on March 15 and end on April 4 with a championship match at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome stadium, which seats over 75,000 people.
Overtime, a cross-media entertainment brand with over 1 million and 6.5 million followers on Twitter and Instagram, has raised $135 million from prestigious venture capitalists Spark Capital and Bezos Expeditions, as well as leading contributions in both Series A and Series B rounds from Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z.
Similarly, Magic Eden has risen to prominence in the recent few years since its launch in September 2017, logging about $400 million in trading volume in the last 30 days as the most popular DApp on Solana, and surpassing the daily transaction value of OpenSea in December last year.
Recently, the network announced plans to create a decentralised autonomous organisation, or DAO, by distributing three-tiered NFT airdrops to loyal users to kickstart the process.
Cointelegraph met with Dan Porter, co-founder and CEO of Overtime, and Jack Lu, co-founder of Magic Eden, to learn more about the joint venture, as well as expert opinions on the future of fan involvement in the sports business and the financial aspects behind the asset launch.
“We felt Solana would be a seamless experience for individuals who had bought NFTs in the past, but also for first-timers who don’t have to deal with gas prices,” Porter said, adding that Magic Eden “added enthusiasm, ideas, and resources to the table to help make this vision a reality.”
Read about our #MagicTicket airdrop + @TheMagicDAO@TheMagicDAO's purpose is to work together w/ the community to create a stronger Solana NFT ecosystem
DAO will be funded with 1K SOL from ME + 2% of Magic Ticket tx fees + 5% of Magic Ticket royalties.https://t.co/RjajMLtg3M pic.twitter.com/1uX6YsbrtV
— Magic Eden 🪄 Solana's Leading NFT Marketplace (@MagicEden) February 22, 2022
Porter talked about the nascency of the NFT area, and how difficult it is to accurately predict future events and trends over a multi-year horizon. He did, however, outline Overtime’s plans to shift to a Web3 community mentality in the wake of huge social media triumphs, as well as explaining that:
“Typically, a fan sits back and watches a game, keeps up with the team on social media, and perhaps purchases a jersey. NFTs allow for actual participation, ownership, and, in certain situations, decision-making power. […] NFTs are another lever for leagues to build further interaction with fans and hence another avenue to monetize IP, similar to what we’ve seen with sports betting.”
With the beginning of their moment’s campaign this time last year, popular basketball NFT collection NBA Top Shot, developed on Dapper Lab’s Flow blockchain, seized on the increasing desire for historic sporting artefacts. Since then, the initiative has helped enable $881 million in sales, with the most expensive sale being the famed LeBron James NBA 2020 Finals slam shot, which sold for $230,023 in mid-August last year.
The most popular collections on Magic Eden right now are profile-picture projects, or PFPs, and access permits. Solana Monkey Business, Degenerate Ape Academy, Shadowy Super Coder DAO, and Boryoku Dragonz all laid the way for the market’s expansion in 2021, while newer initiatives like Portal and Lux Real Estate aim to give their holders with a variety of metaverse utility offers.
CHATTANOOGA BUZZER BEATER TO GET A TICKET TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT 😱 (via @CBBonFOX)pic.twitter.com/UymwBWYWMw
— Overtime (@overtime) March 8, 2022
Lu stated that he expects sporting NFTs will effect the cultural scene on both Magic Eden and the wider market in the following ways:
“We believe that the next generation of sports fans will be able to have a completely different sports experience than the previous generation of millennials, who grew up passively watching sports on TV or in person.”
When asked about how these NFTs will be redeemed or minted, the expected launch date, and the estimated dollar value of each asset, Porter compared it to the typical pricing structure of the pinnacle basketball match, stating that “the value of accessing a finals NBA, for example, can be near $1,000,” and that “these NFTs become valuable assets put in the hands of sports fans, changing the way they interact with games.”
The assets will be released on March 11, and “extended bracket utility (such as access to games, meet and greets, special events and competitions, unique material, AMAs, and special launches) will be available after the tournament concludes,” according to Lu. At this time, Magic Eden is unable to validate the assets’ worth.
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