DraftKings Tees Up PGA Tour NFT Fantasy Golf Game

NFT

After establishing NFT-based fantasy sports activities video games across the Nationwide Soccer League (NFL) and Final Combating Championship (UFC), sports activities betting agency DraftKings introduced at present that it’ll launch an NFT fantasy golf sport in partnership with the PGA Tour.

DraftKings will roll out the Reignmakers PGA Tour expertise in March, following the identical sort of format as with its earlier NFT initiatives. Digital playing cards primarily based on PGA Tour golfers will probably be minted and bought by way of Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain community, and customers can compete for tens of millions of {dollars}’ price of money prizes.

Identical to in conventional fantasy sports activities video games, customers will earn factors primarily based on the real-world efficiency of the gamers of their respective lineups. However as in DraftKings’ different Reignmakers video games and in rival video games like Sorare, customers will construct their lineups by shopping for and buying and selling digital playing cards primarily based on the real-world athletes.

It’s an extension of DraftKings’ present alliance with the PGA Tour, which started in 2019 and features a conventional fantasy golf expertise with out NFT components. Beth Beiriger, DraftKings’ senior VP of market operations, instructed Decrypt that golf is the agency’s fourth-largest fantasy sport and seventh most-bet-on sports activities league.

“We already see a excessive degree engagement from these customers,” she stated of DraftKings golf followers, including that Reignmakers lets the agency “take gamified NFTs and actually push our customers over into the fantasy area a bit bit extra.”

Reignmakers PGA Tour will start its launch with a premium Greens Go NFT on March 1, which Beiriger stated will present “most well-liked entry, in addition to season-long rewards” for gamers. It’s just like the sphere go NFT from Reignmakers Soccer, which is formally licensed by the NFL Gamers Affiliation (NFLPA) however not the league itself.

The primary set of PGA participant playing cards will launch on March 6, then, forward of the primary in-game occasion—The Gamers Championship—from March 9-12. The NFT-driven expertise must be largely acquainted to gamers of different Reignmakers video games, however Beiriger stated to anticipate specially-themed future NFT drops round main PGA Tour tournaments.

That is the PGA Tour’s second NFT collaboration, following a deal introduced with Tom Brady’s NFT startup Autograph final September that has but to bear fruit.

PGA Tour Golf NFTs Coming to Tom Brady’s Autograph Platform

Autograph’s NFTs will probably be digital collectibles themed round on-the-course moments, in line with Tom Jeffs, the PGA Tour’s VP of media enterprise growth, whereas DraftKings focuses on participant playing cards with in-game utility. He believes that there’s sufficient room for each initiatives to thrive within the sports activities NFT world.

Broadly, Jeffs instructed Decrypt that the PGA Tour sees potential for NFT initiatives to spice up followers’ affinity for gamers by possession of their respective belongings, citing professionals like Jon Rahm and Max Homa that battled it out final weekend on the Genesis Invitational.

“You’re residing and respiration by that participant’s success, and never just for that week wherein you’re taking part in a contest,” stated Jeffs. “Now you may’t wait to see the following time Max goes to tee it up, as a result of that you’ve him in your roster—so you are feeling vested.”