decrypt.co
Dapper Labs’ officially-licensed NFL All Day NFT collectibles platform opened up to the public last month, and in the first couple weeks of the NFL regular season, an interesting trend is showing in the sales data: users are buying a lot more of the Flow-based NFTs on Sundays, the day of the week when most of the real-world games are played.
In the current crypto bear market, which has significantly impacted NFT prices and sales volume, NFL All Day’s surges are standing out.
On both September 12 and September 19, NFL All Day has appeared at the top of the overall 24-hour NFT market charts at CryptoSlam, beating the Bored Ape Yacht Club and other pricey “blue chip” projects. Whereas the average sale price of Bored Ape in September thus far has been about $110,000 worth of ETH, the average NFL All Day sale price is just $31.
On Sunday, September 11—the first major slate of games this season—NFL All Day recorded nearly $1.17 million worth of secondary market sales, per data from CryptoSlam, an increase of nearly 283% over the previous day. And that momentum carried into the following day, with just over $1.1 million on Monday, September 12.
It became a trend this week on Sunday, September 18, when the platform notched over $905,000 worth of NFT sales—a 204% jump over the previous day. This time around, the sales figure grew ever so slightly the following day, with nearly $906,000 on Monday, September 19. In both weeks, the total sales volume dropped considerably the following Tuesday.
More individual NFL All Day NFTs are selling on Sunday and Monday as well, and the average sale price is jumping along the way. For example, on Saturday, September 10, the platform saw over 10,900 NFTs sell at an average price of about $28 apiece. The following day, nearly 29,400 NFTs were sold on the platform at an average price of just under $40 each.
Dave Feldman, Dapper Labs’ senior VP of marketing, told Decrypt that the company has seen increased engagement during all game days, including Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. Indeed, CryptoSlam’s data shows a smaller, but still notable Wednesday-to-Thursday bump each day since the start of the regular season.
“This comes as no surprise to us,” said Feldman, who pointed to a couple of potential reasons why collectors might be buying more NFTs during games. One is that Dapper has launched a Playbook feature that serves up weekly challenges based around collecting NFTs and interacting with the platform, especially on game days.
New Week. New Challenges.
Week 3 of #NFLALLDAY Playbook is here! ❌⭕️
Check out what’s in store for your weekly Playbook.
➡️ https://t.co/1Sjr1ZrG0E pic.twitter.com/vnjVXhabpm— NFL ALL DAY (@NFLALLDAY) September 21, 2022
Users who complete the challenges can win rewards ranging from cosmetic perks for their profile—like trophies and banners—to packs of NFTs. Feldman sees NFL All Day as a complement to football fans’ existing online game day routines, including chatting on social media or participating in fantasy leagues.
“We’re not asking anyone to change their behavior,” he said. “Instead, we’re just giving them the opportunity to own a piece of the action that they are already so passionate about.”
Feldman also credited the Playbook feature with driving traffic to NFL All Day’s community, with a 53% week-over-week jump in visitors to its Discord server during the first week of the season, as well as a 65% increase in Discord chat activity.
Dapper Labs is also advertising its NFT collectibles platform on the official NFL Network channel, with ads featuring Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes, and is also using paid social media promotion to try and bring in new users.
NFL All Day is similar in approach to Dapper’s NBA Top Shot platform, which erupted into the mainstream in early 2021 as the NFT market rose to prominence. Both platforms take existing video highlights from each respective league and turn them into digital collectibles, each limited to a certain number of editions. An NFT is a blockchain token that represents ownership in an item, such as collectibles and artwork.
But the NFL has a very different cadence than the NBA. Whereas the basketball league has games throughout the week, the NFL concentrates most of its games on Sundays, with just a couple of games played on Monday and Thursday. That gives Dapper an opportunity to focus content and promotions on certain days—and also apparently yields clear sales upticks.