Fanatics, Gary Vaynerchuck and Mike Novogratz team up to launch sports NFT company
Popular sports merchandise company Fanatics and its founder Michael Rubin have partnered up with VaynerX chairman Gary Vaynerchuck and Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz to create a non-fungible token (NFT) company called Candy Digital.
The company will focus on sports-related NFTs. The first digital collectible on sale will be in collaboration with Major League Baseball. The collectible is an NFT of Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man" farewell speech, which the baseball player gave on July 4, 1939. The auction will happen around the same time this year, a tribute to the player's farewell to baseball after being diagnosed with ALS.
“When you think about NFTs, there is this concept of it being a fad,” MLB vice president of business development Kenny Gersh, told the New York Post in an interview. “What we’re looking to do, with the Candy [Digital] people, is to build a long-term sustainable business. What better person to symbolize durability and long-term success than Lou Gehrig?”
Sports-themed NFTs have garnered a lot of popularity in recent months, with, according to The Block's Data Dashboard, NBA Top Shot accounting for the majority of weekly NFT platform users.
