Through his co-founded NFT platform Autograph, seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady inks a multi-year NFT deal with sports broadcaster ESPN.
Tom Brady is, hands down, one of the most successful athletes to ever grace a sports arena. Considered a living legend and the face of the National Football League (NFL), Brady has been instrumental in making American Football a global sport.
However, aside from his love of the sport, Brady has also led active and retired NFL players in leveraging the NFT ecosystem. Since 2021, Brady has capitalized on his co-founded NFT platform, Autograph, to participate in several iconic and exciting NFT projects.
Still, with his latest NFT collaboration, it looks like his journey along the NFT ecosystem has just begun.
Tom Brady Collaborates with ESPN
On Wednesday, ESPN and Autograph announced a multi-year partnership kicking off with the release of an NFT collection. The NFT collection is based on the 10-part documentary series and magazine issue “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady” that ESPN produced and is currently airing. The docuseries’ producer is Religion of Sports, which Brady also co-founded.
If you haven’t seen an episode yet, the docuseries highlights some of the most iconic moments in Brady’s professional and personal life. It also chronicles the different milestones of Brady’s legendary NFL career as seen through a psychological and emotional lens.
The “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady” NFT collection includes three magazine covers from ESPN magazine’s special edition December issue. The issue contains 14 stories about Brady that ESPN had written. The legend himself will sign fifty editions of the NFT covers with his autograph.
The first collection launched on April 6, and Brady himself made some noise about the drop to his 2.6 million Twitter followers. A second NFT collection entitled “Back in the Arena” will drop as soon as the tenth and final episode of the docuseries airs.
In a statement released to the press, Dillon Rosenblatt, co-founder and chief executive officer at Autograph, said, “As the first NFT partner for ESPN, the possibilities across sports and technology are endless, and we couldn’t be more excited to get this content out to the world in a massive way.”
A Unifying Project for Two Giants
ESPN recently launched the ESPN Edge Innovation Center in Collaboration with Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution. Its purpose is to pursue technology-related partnerships like this one with Autograph.
According to ESPN, aside from Web3 experiences, they plan to use augmented and virtual realities to connect with sports fans in innovative and engaging ways. The sports broadcasting giant is on the right track because a recent PwC report referred to NFTs as “the future of digital assets in sports.”
Indeed, the sports industry has widely embraced Web3 and NFT initiatives. Sports arenas renamed to crypto companies, NFT trading cards (NBA Top Shot), and F1 sponsorships are just prime examples.
For Brady’s part, this collaboration with ESPN is an indication that all is well between the two. It will be remembered that Brady announced his retirement from the NFL shortly after the 2021-2022 season. However, the retirement was short-lived as Brady is now officially back.
There are even reports that it was never his intention to retire, given that he is still in prime condition and has a few more years ahead in his career. People speculated about his purported retirement, and his father’s suggestion that the media pressured him into retiring only fueled speculation.
This collaboration between Autograph and ESPN is a clear sign that Brady has moved on from the “retirement fiasco” and that there is no bad blood between the two sports giants.
Get more news updates
Get more NFT news updates at CollectorX News. For more information on CollectorX, and details on how to join our community, please follow our Twitter, join our Discord, or subscribe to our Telegram channel for more updates, and please feel free to submit your article.