A daily fantasy sports giant, American sportsbook, online casino, and now, NFT marketplace. DraftKings recently announced the unveiling of its own NFT (Non-Fungible Token) ecosystem, DraftKings Marketplace, as well as a new partnership with Autograph, an NFT platform co-founded by Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (which still feels weird to say).
The first drop of NFT content is part of the Preseason Access Collection, featuring Brady and other prestigious athletes such as Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, and Tony Hawk. The Preseason Access Collection will feature a variety of NFT editions available exclusively on Autograph.io and DraftKings Marketplace, which will offer collectors access to future limited edition drops as well as access to the private Discord community.
DK Marketplace was built upon the Etherium Layer 2 blockchain by Scarcity Labs, a tech company recently purchased by DraftKings to help the company not only enter the NFT space, but simultaneously arm it with its own cryptocurrency. For its first collaborative NFT drop, DK is not actually minting the NFTs, but rather placing Autograph’s NFTs upon its blockchain. Whether or not DraftKings will ever rely on Scarcity Labs to mint actual NFTs is still unknown, but it’s trending toward “highly likely.”
Sign up for DraftKings Marketplace today and begin trading your favorite athlete NFTs
How DraftKings Marketplace works
The Queue
Like many NFT ecosystems, DraftKings Marketplace releases its minted NFTs during predetermined drop dates and start times. A waiting room opens 30 minutes prior to the drop time so users can enter and secure a place in the queue. When it’s time for the drop to start, users are given a random number, correlating to their spot in the queue. If a user lucks out and receives a number that is less than the amount of NFTs available, they’re taken to a purchase page to secure the NFT. For example, if a collector is given a queue number of 350 or below during a drop with 350 NFTs for purchase, that collector is guaranteed the ability to purchase the NFT.
It’s important to note that users don’t have the ability to select a specific edition once they land upon the webpage to purchase. Rather, they are assigned a random edition (eg. Edition #100/350) and have the option to purchase or cancel.
Secondary Marketplace
For collectors who miss out on a drop, there is the secondary marketplace. Those lucky enough to purchase an NFT during the drop can list them for sale at their desired price for others within the community to see. Expect new drops in the near future, which will add plenty more opportunities to purchase collectibles.
Portfolio
Collectors can view NFTs they have purchased on DraftKings Marketplace within the portfolio feature and on Autograph’s platform. In the coming months, users will also have the ability to transfer their NFTs to a wallet on Ethereum Mainnet.
The Tom Brady Preseason Access Collection
The name “Preseason Access Collection” tells you these NFTs will offer collector’s utility in the form of future drops, specifically the Limited Edition series. This could mean one of two things for collectors of the Tom Brady Preseason Access Collection: either they’ll be given exclusive access to the Tom Brady Limited Edition NFT drop (meaning users without a Preseason Access edition NFT will be unable to join drop or actually purchase), or they will be automatically given a queue number that will guarantee them a chance to purchase a Limited Edition NFT.
If NBA Top Shot has taught us anything from a tech standpoint, it’s easier to keep an entire set of users out of a drop, rather than assign some users a specific queue number, leading me to believe users without a Preseason Access NFT won’t be able to join the queue for the future Limited Edition series drops.
There are two more important considerations for those interested in collecting these Preseason Access NFTs. For starters, if you believe in the future success and sustainability of DraftKings Marketplace, the value of these NFTs is likely to increase over time as they are not only a part of the first-ever NFT Collection series for both DraftKings and Autograph, they will be the first NFTs ever for both companies. Second, we don’t know what the edition size of future drops will be on DraftKings Marketplace, but we can assume they will grow in tandem with an increase in collectors.
Top Shot is once again an existing use case that supports both of those points. In Top Shot’s first season, cards were released in batches sometimes consisting of 1,000 editions, 500 editions, even as low as a 1-of-1 edition size. Nowadays, you’re most likely going to see an edition size of at least 30,000 cards, driving up the price of those early, scarce editions tremendously (a LeBron James Season 1 card was recently placed on the marketplace for $1 million).
Preseason Access NFTs
There were two sets of drops for the Tom Brady Preseason Access NFTs, one for the Premier collection and one for the Signature collection. The table below lays out the purchase price and edition size for each collection within the Preseason Access series.
| Collectible Name | Edition Count | Release Date | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Brady Carbon Premier | 5000 | 8/11 | $12 |
| Tom Brady Platinum Premier | 2500 | 8/11 | $25 |
| Tom Brady Emerald Premier | 1500 | 8/11 | $50 |
| Tom Brady Sapphire Premier | 750 | 8/11 | $75 |
| Tom Brady Ruby Premier | 375 | 8/11 | $100 |
| Tom Brady Carbon Signed | 100 | 8/13 | $250 |
| Tom Brady Platinum Signed | 100 | 8/13 | $250 |
| Tom Brady Emerald Signed | 50 | 8/13 | $500 |
| Tom Brady Sapphire Signed | 25 | 8/13 | $750 |
| Tom Brady Ruby Signed | 12 | 8/13 | $1500 |
The most obvious differences between the Premier series and the Signature series are the edition sizes and prices. Not only do the Signature series NFTs all have much lower edition sizes and thus are more costly, they also contain a personally-written Tom Brady signature on each, which is not the case for the Premier series.
Below are the details for the most expensively-priced NFTs for the Premier series and Signature series, both Ruby-level NFTs.
Tom Brady Ruby Premier Details
The Tom Brady Ruby Premier is an official Autograph Preseason Access Pass. Holders will be granted VIP access to our first Limited Edition Tom Brady Drop and gain access to Autograph’s private community on Discord.
Tom Brady Ruby Signature Details
The Tom Brady Ruby Signature is an official Autograph Preseason Access Pass. Each edition includes Tom Brady’s authentic signature, signature individually and personally by Tom Brady. Holders will be granted VIP access to our first Limited Edition Tom Brady Drop and gain access to Autograph’s private community on Discord.
The Premier series dropped Wednesday, Aug. 11 and sold out quickly. One day after the Premier level editions were sold, the cheapest available edition on the secondary market was a Tom Brady Carbon Premier edition, listed for $195. The most expensive, a Tom Brady Ruby Premier, was listed for $3,199. You can view the NFTs available for purchase on the secondary marketplace by selecting the Browse link at the top of the page.
The Signature series dropped Friday, August 13 and also sold out in a matter of hours. Just a few hours after the drop was complete, the most expensive edition, a Ruby Signed edition, was listed by its collector for $127,001. The cheapest signed edition available, the Carbon Signed edition, was listed for more than six grand.
Tom Brady Autograph Collection Controversy
Although the first drops seemed to avoid any major technical issues, there was still a DraftKings Marketplace controversy. Some users that had joined in on the drops angrily claimed a few suspicious cases of the same users landing multiple Tom Brady Signature NFTs, despite only one hundred or fewer being available in the drops.
One user, SweetBabyNicco, sold four of the autographed NFTs within days for more than $76,000 combined.
What Does It All Mean?
DraftKings certainly put in the leg work to ensure they were ready to hit the ground running as soon as they launched DraftKings Marketplace (minus being accused of allowing multiple users to game the system and acquire multiple NFTs).
By acquiring Scarcity Labs, they are able to distribute a solid, self-sustaining product to a massive existing fanbase without the need for external partnerships to thrive (although I expect we’ll see plenty of partner collaborations moving forward similar to the one with Autograph).
While there are just as many differences between DraftKings Marketplace and NBA Top Shot as there are similarities, DK Marketplace will face many of the same hurdles Top Shot has so far, especially as its user base grows. Hurdles such as the inability to control outrageously expensive secondary market listings, creating utility around the NFTs to offer extra incentive outside of the collector aspect, and an influx of users looking to make a quick buck and get out.
One hurdle DK has already conquered that Top Shot continues to grapple with is technology that won’t crash. DraftKings’s existing technology infrastructure handled the large amount of users in the Brady drops. Not surprising considering DraftKings is a publicly traded company and Dapper Labs is still a startup company. In short, we’ll never have to fear that DraftKings Marketplace will simply fail to load in the middle of a crucial sale or purchase.