The growth of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has been an exploding success in 2021, mainly due to the overwhelming popularity of NBA Top Shot, a major digital collectibles sports NFT. Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot, subsequently signed a deal with both the NFL and OneTeam Partners, the NFL Players Association together with the hope of replicating the same remarkable success of their basketball-themed NFTs.

Their new undertaking, called NFL All Day, sought to activate an even more popular international sport, inspiring football fans' excitement through their limited collections. Initial estimates were tremendous, but with the sudden crash of the NFT market, 2021 saw the two sides overwhelmed by lowered expectations.

The unfavorable market resulted in what is estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars of lost profits. Thus, discussions between Dapper Labs and NFLPA's joint venture, OneTeam Partners, rapidly intensified to come to terms of an agreement. Unfortunately, with an already decaying digital assets market and leading star Patrick Mahomes selling the collection, sales could not reach the desired bar.

A closer look into the digital wallets of the NFL All Day buyers revealed most were those with previous NBA Top Shot purchases, meaning only a handful of customers had been added to the existing customer base. Forced to rescind to restructure the deal and regroup, Dapper Labs, once worth $7.6 billion, has had to lay off personnel to cut expenses during the current crypto bear market.

Overall, although Dapper Labs made a bold attempt to capitalize on the thriving NFT and football fandom, the 2021 collapse wiped out any chances of similar NBA Top Shot profitability and Dapper Labs has paid the price of that magnitude. With the current market conditions still uncertain, many in the blockchain and crypto world are waiting to see how the upcoming months will affect NFTs and the businesses that depend on it.



Other News from Today