DraftKings Crowns NFT Fantasy as New Core Offering
This upcoming NFL season will mark the debut of Reignmakers, an NFT fantasy sport that DraftKings considers to be its fourth signature gaming providing—as doubtlessly significant to the enterprise as each day fantasy sports activities, betting and iGaming. Reignmakers Football is licensed by the NFLPA and is the primary of a number of video games that will probably be a part of the Reignmakers model, as UFC expanded its cope with DraftKings to launch its personal model for NFT-collecting MMA followers.
“This is our first product that we’ve launched in the last several years, and we definitely do not every year take on something large and meaningful at DraftKings,” DraftKings co-founder and president Matt Kalish mentioned in a product demo name with journalists. “If we’re taking it on instead of focusing on other things with our core business, that means we obviously think it’s going to be popular, that we could acquire and retain and satisfy lots of players over the course of time.”
The premise of Reignmakers is fairly much like conventional fantasy sports activities. Users accumulate digital participant playing cards by auctions or pack openings after which insert these gamers into their group lineups and watch their gamers rating factors based mostly off their real-life NFL performances. Whereas the incomes potential for each day fantasy sports activities contests begins and stops with the prize pool affiliated with these contests, Reignmakers extends {that a} step additional by additionally attaching financial worth to the collectible participant playing cards purchased and offered on the DraftKings NFT market.
“The primary utility of the cards is being able to use them in contests where you [can] win over a million [dollars] every week of the season,” Kalish mentioned. “And those contests, if you play daily fantasy sports, it will look familiar to you.”
Competitions will probably be divided throughout 5 tiers: Core, Uncommon, Elite, Legendary and Reignmaker — as solely customers who’ve collected playing cards belonging to {that a}ssociated tier will have the ability to be a part of sure contests bearing money prizes. Core NFTs on DraftKings symbolize playing cards which can be the most typical, whereas Reignmaker is the rarest. Probably the most profitable NFL card offered thus far on the DraftKings secondary market was a “Reignmaker” version of Buffalo Payments large receiver Stefon Diggs that offered for $17,500. The typical worth of NFTs being offered on {the marketplace} is $56. DraftKings collects a ten% charge from the vendor on all market transactions.
“You don’t need to even understand NFT or Web3 technology to play the game. In fact, I don’t think you ever need to mention the word NFT to fully explain the game or almost fully explain it. And in some cases, it’s probably best to not mention the word NFT because I would say right now there’s, typically speaking, tremendous amounts of skepticism about the NFT space,” Kalish ssupport. “Most projects are probably down like 80-90% in the last six to 12 months. I’d say the average fantasy sports player or collector is probably immensely skeptical about any new NFT project. And often it’s not helpful or necessary to even mention the fact that the way that the cards come into existence is that they’re NFTs on the polygon blockchain.”
From a legislative perspective, Reignmakers Soccer is offered in all states the place DraftKings operates its each day fantasy sports activities contests. Whereas the idea of Reignmakers Soccer is kind of much like customary fantasy sports activities contests, DraftKings believes its NFT fantasy product allows the corporate to interact with shoppers from communities outdoors of conventional fantasy sports activities.
“We see [Reignmakers] as a product that intersects a lot of different areas of interest for a lot of people—some people who come from a variety of backgrounds that aren’t even current DraftKings customers, but maybe they like EA Sports Ultimate Team or they played Magic the Gathering or other competitive CCGs [collectible card games],” Kalish ssupport. “Or they got into crypto and NFTs two years ago, or they like breaking sports cards. All of those interest groups really intersect well with the interest around fantasy sports.”
Comic Kevin Hart starred in a national TV ad for Reignmakers Soccer that debuted earlier this month and included cameos from NFL gamers akin to Diggs, Lamar Jackson and Ezeqiel Elliot. The NFLPA has a income sharing settlement with DraftKings for Reignmakers, so the gamers have a monetary incentive to assist promote the sport.
“Through our relationship with the NFLPA, we have tremendous amounts of access to make deals with players and can use that relationship to identify players who want to be more involved in the game, participate in advertising and do experiences,” Kalish said. “We are in it together in many ways and the players are part and parcel with that.”
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