Football club AC Milan and Web3 football game MonkeyLeague have announced an NFT gaming partnership.
Hosted on the Solana blockchain, MonkeyLeague is a strategy football game. Unlike the high profile Sorare platform, this is neither a fantasy football game nor based on real-life games and football players. The NFTs are of monkeys in specific positions, such as a striker or goalie. As is typical of play to earn games, through gameplay users earn rewards in the form of MonkeyBucks $MBS which are also needed to participate in the game.
The MonkeyLeague game will launch a collection of AC Milan branded NFTs to be used in-game. The first drop will be released on 6 October on MagicEden, with the NFTs going to the highest bidders. Some of the AC Milan MonkeyPlayers will come with signed physical AC Milan jerseys.
Like other Web3 games, breeding features in MonkeyLeague. This means that AC Milan branded assets will randomly emerge during the breeding process.
Like many other clubs, AC Milan is looking to create new digital experiences for fans and open up new revenue streams with Web3 technology.
Nine months ago, MonkeyLeague made an initial token release of $4m. In July, Uncaged, the studio that developed the game, completed a $24m Series A funding round. One of the company’s backers is Drive By DraftKings, the venture arm of the major sports betting and gaming company.
However, similar play to earn games have risen and fallen with the crypto crash. One example is Axie Infinity, where at its peak, 8000 transactions were completed daily, compared to around 300 or so currently. Whether MonkeyLeague will face similar challenges remains to be seen.
