The NFL’s greatest-of-all-time quarterback Tom Brady is launching his very own NFT marketplace called Autograph which hopes to attract the biggest names in sport and entertainment.
Details of Brady’s latest venture were outlined in an interview with CNN Business this week, which sees the seven-time NFL champion follow in the footsteps of his close friend and longtime teammate Rob Gronkowski who earned nearly $2mln worth of ETH through the auction of a limited edition NFT trading card set in March.
Brady is listed as founder and chairman of the company alongside Richard Rosenblatt who holds the same titles, with advisors from firms involved in the American sport and entertainment industries.
The platform is aiming to attract the biggest names in American sport, as well as influential figures from the world of Hollywood’s actors, musicians and other entertainment figures to develop and sell unique digital collectibles according to Autograph’s co-founder and CEO Dillon Rosenblatt.
“Autograph will bring together some of the world’s most iconic names and brands with best in class digital artists to ideate, create and launch NFTs and ground-breaking experiences to a community of fans and collectors,” Rosenblatt said in a statement.
NFTs continue to snowball
Brady is the latest big name to enter the NFT arena and his star power could well attract the biggest American sports stars and influencers to get in on the NFT craze that continues to attract millions of dollars of investment.
His NFL partner in crime Gronk set the bar high with his recent Championship Series NFT digital trading card auction. The series consisted of four unique cards, each of which had 87 digital editions on sale, while a fifth stand-alone Career Highlight card was the prize card of the lot.
The auction lasted for two days and saw a total 349 trading cards sold at auction as well as the one-off Career highlight card to 95 different owners. The total trading value of the auction was 1,014 ETH valued at $1.8 mln at the time of the sale.
While the world of sport is quickly adopting the variety of platforms that are offering unique digital collectibles of their favourite players, teams and brands, other entertainment sectors are also enjoying the fruits of the NFT boom.
None more so than digital artist Mike Winkelmann, better known by his nickname Beeple, who sold off a digital collage of a collection of his work titled “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” at renowned auction house Christie’s for a total of $69,346,250.
Perhaps more telling is the fact that the digital art piece was the highest amount ever made off an auction at Christie’s. The sale is a big milestone for the NFT and cryptocurrency space and adds credence to the value of digital scarcity that is being championed by various takes on non-fungible tokens.
