Backer of 54NFT platform partners with sports stars, teams on tokens
The company behind the 54NFT website, is partnering with high-profile athletes and teams around the globe to expand the marketing and development of sports-related digital tokens.
The company is also known as 54NFT. Partners include soccer (football) legends Milan Baros, a former Liverpool star striker and retired Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech, who are both Czechs, and Ukrainian Oleksandr (Alex) Zinchenko, a current star with Manchester City.
Teams involved include Paraguay’s Olympia and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal.
“On one side of the business, we're a platform that allows users to get in and create their own NFT store with their domain and with customization they want,” Alex Heikel, 54NFT’s CEO, told Capital.com.
“They can start minting and selling their entities, creating a unique store and we offer to them different kinds of (blockchains) and different kinds of payment methods.”
According to 54NFT’s website, transactions completed on the Ethereum mainnet incur gas fees payable in ETH. But no processing fees apply on transactions involving the firm’s default NFTs on Polygon and BCH. Cryptocurrency traders will have the option of using wallets provided by 54NFT or those offered by a third party.
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Headquartered in Los Angeles
The company, which is headquartered in Los Angeles and has an NFT development term in Paraguay, provides an open platform on which people can create NFTs. The firm also has agency services that drop (i.e. launch) NFTs featuring sports stars, teams, and other celebrities, said Heikel.
Heikel said 54NFT formed in late 2021 and the company launched its first NFT collection in January.
“We have more than 20 teams, athletes and celebrities,” said Heikel. “We have athletes from Europe, (mixed martial arts) fighters from (Ultimate Fighting Championship.)”
The company’s efforts are occurring during a period of escalating demand for sports-related NFTs. Wincast, DraftKings, and Sotheby’s, and several companies have developed NFT marketing and development programmes in recent months.
Chief marketing officer Sunny Oviedo, also a 54NFT co-founder, said the company has pursued soccer stars since its inception.
“Soccer is more global and we were more focussed on people that are not just big in the US, but people that are more globally known,” he said. “And, because a lot of NFT companies are here (in the US), a lot of the NFT drops are based in the US. We want to be more and more globally known.”
Sonny Oviedo, chief marketing officer, 54NFT - Photo: HandoutFirm to branch into other sports
Oviedo indicated that the company will branch into other sports.
“We actually have some (letters of intent) from some basketball players,” he said, adding that 54NFT has sought partnerships with big-name hoops stars from the beginning, but wanted to grow before pursuing “top 1%” superstars.
Oviedo, whose background is in sports marketing, has a close relationship with an unidentified sports management and hopes to develop more partnerships with athletes through it. The company initially offered free drops on the Ethereum blockchain, but is now able to sell more tokens, he added.
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“Even with our relationships now requiring a lot more money (to secure partnships), we’re able to, basically, just prove that we can sell these collectibles, and that we have access to all of these other people, and that we know what we’re doing,” he said.
“So we have a lot more leverage with these players.”
Oviedo, whose background is in sports marketing, indicated that 54NFT is also pursuing partnerships to market and develop tokens with National Football League (NFL) stars who do not already have NFT deals with other companies.
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