NFL player Rob Gronkowski has joined the roster of Tom Brady’s non-fungible token (NFT) platform Autograph. The player was one of the first athletes to make NFT headlines with a million dollar NFT collection sale earlier this year.
With Tom Brady’s exposure and a distribution partnership with Draftkings, Autograph has the potential to be one of the most mainstream NFT platforms. However, all of the drops were in partnership with athletes on the platform’s board of advisors until now.
Rob Gronkowski will be the first figure that’s not an advisor to launch digital assets with Autograph.
Gronkowski’s announcement that he’s joining Autograph is not much of a surprise. The football player is a friend of Tom Brady’s, having played on the same team for more than a decade, including the move to the Buccaneers. And following a successful experience with NFTs, it makes sense he would want to come back on the scene.
The prices of the digital cards will range from $12 to $100. The football player will also launch exclusive digitally signed cards, which have a starting price of $250.
While the price of the NFTs is fairly expensive, it is still more affordable than physical versions, which can sell for almost $2,000. The signature feature also adds exclusive value to the card, aligns with the branding of the platform, and eliminates risks of autograph forgery. If fans can accept digital autographs as similar to manual signatures, Autograph can establish itself as the go-to player for licensing this kind of intellectual property.
Compared to other NFT platforms, Autograph’s product strategy focuses on individual athletes and celebrities instead of team wide or league wide deals, which many other platforms are targeting. The exclusivity of Autograph’s deals is also unclear since some of the athletes that have dropped NFTs on the platform have also launched separate deals.
Still, Autograph has some of the most well known athletes on its roster, including Usain Bolt, Simone Biles, Tony Hawk and Tiger Woods.
With the NFL’s restrictions on teams and players entering into NFT deals and its recent announcement of a deal with Dapper Labs, the situation is anything but clear.
Meanwhile, Sorare signed a league wide deal with Bundesliga, which will also include the minting of moments highlights, very similar to Dapper’s offer. Dapper will launch moments for LaLiga in next year’s season, and RECUR is looking to bring NFTs to college sports.
