- Sporting Crypto
- Posts
- Tom Brady's Autograph Relaunches Without NFTs
Tom Brady's Autograph Relaunches Without NFTs
Autograph, co-founded by Tom Brady, raised over $200m to compete with Dapper Labs and Candy Digital. Now, they're pivoting to a digital fan engagement app.
Thanks to the 3,808 readers exploring where Sports meets Web3. If you're reading this and still haven't signed up, click the subscribe button below!
š„š Sporting Crypto Jobs of the week
Visit the Sporting Crypto Job Board today to explore new career opportunities, or to find the perfect fit for your organisation.
Tom Brady's Autograph Relaunches Without NFTs
Sporting Crypto Newsletter is supported by The HBAR Foundation.
Discussed in this edition of Sporting Crypto:
Autograph - The Journey So Far šļø
a) Launch and Capital Raises
b) Layoffs and FTXRelaunch and Pivotš²
a) App Overview
b) Business Model ChangeAnalysis & Concluding Thoughts š§
a) NFTs as a Product
b) Fan Super apps
Autograph - The Journey So Far šļø
Rewind to April 2021.
NFTs are hot, volumes are soaring ā and every time you check any social feed, someone, somewhere has bought a picture of a random animal for an obscene amount of money.
Chart showing NFT volumes since 2018
From mid-2021 to April 2022, NFT volumes were in the billions of dollars, before collapsing dramatically between mid-2022 and mid-2023.
Just before the crazed run-up in volumes in the middle of 2021, in April of that year, Autograph, an NFT business co-founded by Tom Brady, was launched. It was launched to digitise real-life signatures and memorabilia, raising $30m to do so.
At the time, Dillon Rosenblatt, Co-Founder and CEO of Autograph said:
āAutograph will bring together some of the worldās most iconic names and brands with best in class digital artists to ideate, create and launch NFTs and ground-breaking experiences to a community of fans and collectors.ā
Fast forward to January 2022, Autograph raised an eye-watering $170m in fresh capital in a Series B round led by a16z and Kleiner Perkins. At the time of the raise, Autograph had launched NFT collections featuring Brady, Tiger Woods, Naomi Osaka, The Weeknd, Simone Biles, Tony Hawk and Darek Jeter.
At the end of 2022, following the FTX scandal and shutdown, Autograph laid off dozens of employees ā predominantly in the marketing, HR and creative departments according to reporting at the time. Tom Brady was of course involved in FTX as a well-publicised investor, and disgraced former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried had joined the Autograph board. Autograph cited market conditions as a reason for the reduction in workforce.
Six months later ā in May 2023 ā the business announced a further reduction in staff ā this time laying off a third of their workforce.
Their rise and fall as a business mirrored the NFT market, which is likely why they have chosen to relaunch and pivot.
Relaunch and Pivotš²
Autograph have pivoted their business to a sports fan super app.
Upon downloading the application users are asked to subscribe to teams and leagues they follow, curating stories, podcasts and content for those picked. When users engage with these content feeds, they are rewarded with coins. Collect enough coins, and you can enter special raffles and buy exclusive memorabilia. Fans are ranked in leaderboards and have their own āpassportā which tracks their activity and achievements on the application.
Autograph have tested this over the last 9 months with the University of Michiganās football team, engaging ātens of thousandsā (according to reports) of Michigan fans in an attempt to prove this new model. In this model, the company doesnāt create any of its content (thus far) but instead aggregates content from blogs, YouTube channels and podcasts, with 3,800 sources in the beta so far. The aggregated sources are not paid, with the creators rewarded with distribution.
Rosenblatt talked to publications about the reason for their pivot, saying that they saw āthe entire NFT market shift,ā. He went on to say that they are āproud of the work we did in chapter one of the business. Today the mission is the same. Give fans a new way to engage and be rewarded for what they do.ā
From a business model perspective, Autograph are not looking to rely on advertising, but rather tickets, memorabilia and collectibles (physical) via their new app.
Although the pivot has removed any semblance of blockchain from the new iteration of the product, Rosenblatt and Autograph say they can āāturn onā that aspect of the business and have said that some achievement trophies in the app will be onchain eventually, but capabilities were not built out in time for this launch.
Analysis & Concluding Thoughts š§
In an interview with Fast Company, where many of this editionās quotes are lifted from, Rosenblatt said āOnce you own a collectible (referencing NFTs) you own itā¦ how do you keep the party going to have this always-on thing for fans?ā
The quote perfectly encompasses what many NFT-centric businesses realised slightly too late.
The NFT canāt be the product. For 99.99% of businesses that incorporate NFTs in some way, this will be the case.