NFTSTAR, a subsidiary of The9 Limited (NASDAQ: NCTY), inked a deal with three different football superstars to feature them at NFTSTAR’s new online residence in The Sandbox metaverse.
The three football players, Neymar JR., Son Heung-Min and Luis Figo, feature as part of NFTSTAR’s plan to build a global sports metaverse platform for the billions of sports fans who share an appreciation for gaming. The company intends to hold meet and greets, ask me anythings (AMA), as well as exclusive NFT drops and a virtual sports arena.
“This marks the beginning of an exciting adventure that will include avatars, phygital experiences as well as the creation of a Global Sports Space that will expand into fully playable social hub experiences including a Stadium in The Sandbox. To better realize our vision, we are collaborating with our partner studio in South Korea, Fac Bros, as well as Forj, a Web3 solutions provider that delivers authenticated digital-first goods such as their Bored Apes to appeal to non-sports fans,” said Loretta Chen, co-founer of Smobler Studios.
The Sandbox, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, is a decentralized virtual world with partnerships with major brands including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft, The Rabbids, Gucci Vault, The Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg, Adidas, Deadmau5, Steve Aoki, Richie Hawtin, The Smurfs, Care Bears, Atari, ZEPETO, and CryptoKitties. It’s one of the principle outlets for virtual real estate, and provides the option to build games, products and more on The Sandbox IP, which has more than 40 million users.
The deal also includes a partnership with Smobler Studios and the Web 3 company Forj.
Smobler is an investee studio and recognized The Sandbox builder, specializing in world building, brand marketing IP creation and metaverse development. Its recent clients include Mighty Jaxx, 1-Group, The Food Bank Singapore and Tools of Rock NFT among others. Forj is a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, and is involved in NFT technology.
Read more: The Mugglehead technology roundup: the metaverse is real edition
Read more: Wonderfi Technologies brings web 3.0 closer to reality
NFTSTAR and The Sandbox
The biggest value point for The Sandbox is its ability to offer players and creators a decentralized space to create immersive 3D worlds and games. It also provides a space to store, trade and monetize these creations.
Harry Liu, the CEO of Forj, believes that adoption and growth in the Web 3 space hinges on entertainment and sports adoption as drivers. NFTSTAR, in particular, wants to build the largest sports fandom social platform using Web 3 tech. The general idea behind the move is to engage with both stars and fans using GameFi and SocialFi approaches.
GameFi involves blockchain based games where players receive financial rewards for playing. The model is also known as play-to-earn. Incentives range from tokens, upgrades, avatars, land and more. Additionally, SocialFi fuses together social media with decentralized finance (DeFi). Hence, a SocialFi platform would factor in decentralization into the activities of creating, managing and owning user-created content.
