FIFA Expands NFT offering with Polygon, Remains in Partnership with Algorand

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Today’s newsletter focuses on FIFA’s Web3 headline in late 2023 that puzzled many.

They were annulling their partnership with Algorand, a layer 1 blockchain solution, to partner with Polygon, to launch digital collectibles on leading marketplace OpenSea.

This headline was rebuked by FIFA themselves when a spokesperson said the global football body would remain in partnership with Algorand on their platform, and that this partnership with Polygon was a new venture.

As per Decrypt, a FIFA representative clarified that the platform is ‘expanding’ to Polygon, but ‘not shifting’ away from Algorand.

One of the questions I’ve been asked, and seen asked on panels at conferences, is whether or not your choice of blockchain matters…

And the answer is… a very complex one.

As a rights holder, the answer to this question is not simply who will provide you with the most technical support or who has the most sustainable blockchain — the commercial elements heavily influence choice. If a blockchain is willing to pay a lot of money to have your blockchain activity on their network, that will naturally weigh into the decision-making.

The story of FIFA trying to get the best of both worlds by partnering with two blockchains, is fascinating and perhaps went under the radar due to being publicised so late in the year. Discussed in this newsletter:

📱What is FIFA+ Collect, in partnership with Algorand⚽FIFA’s latest Web3 move with Polygon⛓️Does Multichain work for sports brands?🧠Concluding thoughts 

📱What is FIFA+ Collect, in partnership with Algorand

In May 2022, ahead of the Qatar World Cup 2022, FIFA named Algorand as its official blockchain sponsor in a ‘technical partnership that will inform the Web3 strategy of the soccer global governing body’ 

In October 2022, FIFA launched FIFA+ Collect, their attempt at digital assets in the same format as the NBA’s Top Shot product.

It was and is a simple proposition.

They are essentially Panini stickers but instead of being static images, they’re moving moments in video form.

The drops were accessible from a price perspective. When looking into the platform I bought packs for $5 each, for example. Creating an account was simple, and I was able to pay by card.

Since its inception, FIFA+ Collect has had 11 NFT drops, with 909,255 digital collectibles minted to a total of 16,448 holders. The platform has seen $2.4 million in trading volume across primary and secondary NFT markets.

By most metrics, it should probably be deemed a success.

It also looked like it was successful for Algorand, who saw a bump in TVL (Total Value Locked) in October 2022.

Whether this was all attributed to FIFA+ Collect, it’s hard to say, but it seemed to generate some positive traction.

At the time I wrote:

⚽FIFA’s latest Web3 move with Polygon

Before the turn of the year in late December 2023, FIFA announced that they were partnering with Polygon, to drop NFTs during the Club World Cup 2023.

Polygon had originally old publications that the ‘project had moved to Polygon’ but this was later clarified by FIFA as an ‘expansion’ rather than a ‘shift away’.

The FIFA+ Collect project employed a tech company by the name of Modex to take over the proposition, and their first move in the collaboration was to launch a dual collectible for the FIFA Club World Cup that took place late last year.

A total of 900 digital collectibles were issued on the Polygon network via OpenSea on the 19th of December 2023, comprising of memorable moments from the Club World Cup, as well as digital versions of memorabilia. The rarest collectibles were given the chance to secure FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets.

FIFA Chief Business Officer, Romy Gai, said:

To summarise FIFA’s Web3 Journey so far:

• Signed a partnership with Algorand to become their blockchain partner in May 2022

• Launched digital collectible packs during the 2022 World Cup via their FIFA+ Collect, on Algorand

• Launched 11 drops on the platform to this point

• Collaborated with Tech firm Modex in late 2023 to take over the FIFA+ Collect platform

• Dropped 900 NFTs on OpenSea on the Polygon Blockchain in December 2023

⛓️Does Multichain work for sports brands?

This is one of the first times I have seen a traditional sports brand work with two chains at once.

Karate Combat for example, allows fans to claim $KARATE tokens on both Ethereum and Hedera networks, but few traditional incumbent rights holders have gone ‘multi-chain’.

There are always questions that we still do not have the answers to when it comes to Web3 working with IP.

• What happens if a sponsorship deal runs out and you have to move your entire network of on-chain fans to another blockchain?

• How do you balance immutable online items with the fact there is a time-limited commercial deal involved?

We’ve seen things happen that might hint at the answers, but there are not enough clear examples to generate a playbook for brands in this space.

Another example would be F1 Delta Time, the Animoca Brands game that used F1 IP to create tradeable cars for their racing game - which shut down when license renewal conversations broke down.

When you’re making the playbook as you go, there are going to be plenty of failures along the way and plenty of rough edges.

For FIFA specifically, I’m surprised that Algorand who signed on as a ‘Blockchain’ partner allowed Polygon to work with a brand they had paid for.

Which beckons a multitude of further questions about the commercial structure of the deal, and the future of the partnership (s) in question.

• Will Algorand be around in the long term with FIFA?

• Are Polygon paying FIFA, or was this the easiest way to get further exposure on OpenSea?

• Why are FIFA launching NFTs on OpenSea rather than their platform FIFA+ Collect?

There are so many questions here and I don’t think the answers are clear.

If I had to guess, it’s probably a mixture of the following:

• Algorand coming to the end of their deal / not showing any signs of renewing

• FIFA were not happy with Algorand’s delivery of the project so far

• Polygon were able to step in from a commercial sense

• Polygon gave FIFA more flexibility around what they could do, when and how

Broadly, I think this could have been pushed by a combination of unhappiness with the blockchain partner (Algorand) and onboarding a tech vendor like Modex.

🧠Concluding thoughts 

One of the eyebrow-raising things for me here is the fact that FIFA, or Modex, are regressing in terms of offering.

They’re selling digital collectibles (NFTs) via OpenSea.

This is something we saw from brands in 2021.

‘Desperate’ is the wrong word but it seems forced to some extent, and it’s a shame because they had already created a platform to onboard users in a very simple way.

OpenSea is more difficult for the average person or football to navigate, buy and collect.

Brands still use OpenSea, but we are seeing more of them create their own platforms and applications, for obvious reasons. There’s more control, you control the user experience and the onboarding — and you can make the blockchain part of the proposition stay in the background and become seamless.

Creating NFTs to sell on OpenSea seems like a step back for FIFA.

It looks and feels like more of a crypto-native NFT project than something created by a sports brand for the mass market.

Let’s see if that step back is to take two steps forward in the future.

💡 Sporting Crypto Spotlight - Ep. 11 of the Podcast!

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Watch the episode below on YouTube!

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