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After establishment NFT-based fantasy sports games around the National Football League (NFL) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), sports betting company DraftKings announced today that it will launch an NFT fantasy golf game in partnership with the PGA Tour.
DraftKings will roll out Reignmaker’s PGA Tour experience in March, following the same type of format as with its previous NFT projects. Digital cards based on PGA Tour golfers will be minted and sold via Polygonone Ethereum sidechain network, and users can compete for cash prizes worth millions of dollars.
Just like in traditional fantasy sports games, users will earn points based on the real-world performance of the players in their respective lineups. But as in DraftKings’ other Reignmakers games and in rival games such as Hurtusers will build their lineups by buying and trading digital cards based on the real athletes.
It is an extension of DraftKings’ existing alliance with the PGA Tour, which began in 2019 and includes a traditional fantasy golf experience without the NFT elements. Beth Beiriger, DraftKings’ senior VP of marketplace operations, said Decrypt that golf is the company’s fourth largest fantasy sport and seventh most wagered sports league.
“We’re already seeing high engagement from these users,” she said of DraftKing’s golf fans, adding that Reignmakers allows the company to “take gamified NFTs and really push our users into the fantasy space a little bit more.”
The Reignmakers PGA Tour will begin its launch with a premium Greens Pass NFT on March 1, which Beiriger said will provide “preferred access, as well as season-long rewards” for players. It is similar to the field pass NFT from Reignmakers Footballwhich is officially licensed by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), but not the league itself.
The first set of PGA Players Cards will launch on March 6, then ahead of the game’s first event – The Players Championship – from March 9-12. The NFT-driven experience should be largely familiar to players from other Reignmakers games, but Beiriger said to expect future NFT drops to be specially themed around major PGA Tour tournaments.
This is the PGA Tour’s second NFT collaboration, following an agreement announced with Tom Brady’s NFT startup Autograph September last year which has not yet borne fruit.
Autograph’s NFTs will be digital collectibles themed around moments on the course, according to Tom Jeffs, PGA Tour’s VP of media business development, while DraftKings focuses on player cards with in-game tools. He believes that there is enough room for both projects to thrive in the sports NFT world.
By and large, Jeffs said Decrypt that the PGA Tour sees potential for NFT projects to increase fan affiliation with players through ownership of their respective assets, citing pros like Jon Rahm and Max Homa who battled it out last weekend at the Genesis Invitational.
“You live and breathe that player’s success, and not just for the week you enter a contest,” Jeffs said. “Now you’re looking forward to the next time Max plays it because you know you’ve got him on your list – so you feel entitled.”
