NHL, NHLPA Partners in an Official NFT Licensing Agreement

Sweet, a non-fungible token (NFT) distribution platform, is now the official partner of the NFT and the NHL Digital Collectibles Marketplace, the NHL Players’ Association, and the NHL Alumni Association in one of the largest licensing deals in the world. league history.

With a planned release at the start of the 2022-23 NHL season, the multi-year partnership is the first to bring the NHL, NHLPA, and NHLAA together to offer NFTs using current and archival video moments and collectibles. They will feature teams and players from across the NHL.

Sweet is building a standalone NHL marketplace for NFTs, looking to reach the collectibles market as well as fans who want to access a variety of hockey experiences through the tokens.

“The decision that really made us go with Sweet was the desire to create something specifically for the NHL and our fans rather than connecting to a multisport market,” Dave Lehanski, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Innovation at NHL. , told ESPN. “Any past, present, and future are on the table and in a consolidated market.”

This includes NFTs from past and present players, as this is a full partnership between the NHL and its player associations.

Mathieu Schneider, Assistant Director. NHLPA executives, said, “We look forward to collaborating with Sweet to promote our game like never before, giving fans the chance to collect their favorite player moments and interact with players and other fans in a whole new way.” 

Lehanski acknowledged that “some people might say it took us a long time” to break into the NFT space, but disagreed that it was a disadvantage for the NHL.

“If we had done something when everyone said we should do something, we couldn’t think long term, we couldn’t see what else everyone else did. We will be more prepared than some of the entities that joined a year ago. For people who say ‘ha, NFTs’, we don’t believe that. We spend a lot of time talking to people in space, and they say the same thing: there will be short-term volatility, but long-term NFTs will absolutely be here and it will be a viable way to build consumer products,” he said.

This includes the ability to deal with the volatility of the NFT market – as well as the skepticism surrounding it. Among the NFT innovations planned for the NHL, NHLPA, and NHLAA: special packages, gamified collection experiences, interactive 3D trophy rooms in which users can showcase their collections, and dynamic NFTs designed to change based on current team data as well such as quests and challenges that increase fan engagement through your collection ability.

Tom Mizzone, Sweet’s CEO, said, “We are honored to partner on an industry-first launch with an organization as globally renowned as the NHL. Working closely with the League and Associations, we’ve curated a few moments filled with visually stunning action, leveraging in-game gamification to create a genuinely immersive and unique relationship between collectibles and experiences.”