The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) and Upland fan experience partnership extends real-life identities with NFL players as part of Upland’s new generation of interactive NFTs known as Upland Legits. The hot NFT market and expanding metaverse meets fan engagement deal brings 2,000+ active NFL players to fans across the globe using 3D designs optimized for the mobile fan experience. Upland’s metaverse economy and gaming ecosystem is available to the NFLPA through OneTeam Partners. The Sports Techie community blog applauds NFL Players Inc because they represent the first group of athletes to mint NFTs and engage with fans inside one of the fastest-growing platforms on the blockchain metaverse. It sits on top of the real world, allowing users to buy, sell and trade virtual properties that are mapped to actual addresses. NFLPA Legits capture iconic moments and performances as collectable, tradable football NFTs on Upland’s open marketplace.
Upland NFT Metaverse
Driven by its mantra – “Rebuild the World” – Upland is revolutionizing the current model of fan engagement. Until now, fans have only been able to engage with their favorite players via likes, shares, or comments on social media while on NFT marketplaces, player interaction is generally limited to buying and selling of digital assets.
Through Upland’s platform, passionate communities of fans – called Uplanders – can now buy virtual properties, fan items and other digital goods which can be traded with other fans or sold in U.S. dollars. Upland’s first Legits sold out within hours and are proving to be a success with Uplanders.
“The metaverse represents the powerful convergence of gaming, NFTs, athlete influencers and a highly engaged community, NFL Players are delivering unparalleled authenticity through Upland’s must-have NFTs,” said Terése Whitehead, Vice President, Consumer Products & Strategy at NFL Players Inc. the marketing and licensing arm of the NFLPA.
As the NFL season matures and approaches the Playoffs, the excitement around NFLPA Legits and the performance of favorite players will increase as Uplanders compete to get NFTs from their favorite and high performing players first.
“NFLPA Legits are not just next-generation collectible NFTs, but also offer fans a gamified way to engage with their favorite players,” said Idan Zuckerman, Co-Founder of Upland. “Fans can now play and compete to mint one-of-a-kind, official Player NFTs prior to actual football games, and then go root for their players and see how their performance will affect the final NFT that they scored!”
The new Legit NFTs add layers of gamification through collections, location-based minting events, burn/merge mechanics, and other unique interactions with professional football players such as virtual autograph signings.
OneTeam Partners
OneTeam Partners is the group licensing partner of the NFLPA leading their digital media business and facilitated the deal. “The Upland team has built a truly compelling value proposition with their version of the real-world metaverse,” said Joshua Valensi, Vice President, Product Development (Games) at OneTeam. “It provides fans with new and unique kinds of engagement experiences around collectible NFTs and virtual locations.”
Formed in November 2019, OneTeam Partners is a joint venture between the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), MLB Players Association (MLBPA) and RedBird Capital Partners. OneTeam helps athletes maximize the value of their name, image and likeness rights by transforming the way in which athletes interact with businesses across four verticals: licensing, marketing, content and investing. OneTeam represents a range of commercial business interests on behalf of the NFLPA, MLBPA, Major League Soccer PA, U.S. Women’s National Team PA, WNBPA, and U.S. Rugby PA.
Interested football fans can learn more about the gameplay and how to sign up at www.upland.me/nflpa.
Sports Techie, the NFLPA was established in 1956. I am educated guessing none of the organization’s leadership or membership back then had any idea that we would be talking high performing NFL Players NFTs in 2022. Americana in the 50s consisted of the radio, and black & white TV and cameras. Back in the 50’s, there was no HD, 5G internet hosted in the cloud, or smart devices like the iPhone and iPad, many times more powerful than the first ever, IBM super computer, the 305 RAMAC, complete in 1956 with 5MB Hard Drive.
NFT Blockchain Collections are the new way. Upland NFLPA Legits are cool, unique, collectable and tradable.
Near real-time minting during an NFL week, together with fan competition to obtain a one-of-a-kind, blockchain protected NFT, mixed in with some gamification and Uplanders, and what do you have?
NFLPA Legits.
See you later sportstechie in Seattle, Atlanta and around the world!
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