Last week, Bad Left Hook shared the story of DAZN’s entry into the non-fungible token (NFT) market with a limited series of Canelo Alvarez vs. Billy Joe Saunders NFTs.
DAZN originally planned to offer over 4200 NFTs based on the fight. 23 would sell at auction for a price to be determined, with 4210 listed for fixed prices and a potential gross revenue of 812 ETH (“Ether”, the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain). In US Dollar terms, that meant a possible $2.5 Million at May 3rd ETH prices, or around $3.4 Million at today’s current exchange rate.
So, how did that work out?
As of publication, DAZN has sold 25 NFTs for a combined 10.692 ETH. After accounting for known commission costs through the sales platform DAZN chose, the most they could have grossed at today’s exchange rates comes to less than US$45,000.
Two important caveats: First, this total does not include two ongoing NFT auctions; one for a “Legendary” grade Canelo ring walk NFT, and the other for a “Legendary” grade ‘How it Ended: Canelo’s Uppercut’ NFT. Those auctions will not close until May 15th. At the time of this writing, there are no bids on either offering.
Second, this possible not-quite-$45,000 windfall does not account for “gas fees”, the transaction processing cost for the Ethereum blockchain. They can be substantial, and any processing costs that fell on DAZN rather than buyers would, of course, reduce their net profit from the NFT sale.
A few notable observations:
Almost half of the total revenue came from the sale of the “Legendary” Canelo Knockout NFT for 4.862 ETH (over US$20,000 at current exchange). The buyer was Wilcox_NFT, and I would love to speak with them if they’re reading this.
A buyer named Hithesi spent 1.05 ETH (just under US$4,500) on the “Legendary” Saunders Knockout NFT. I would REALLY love to speak with them, too.
The “Gold” level Billy Joe Saunders Tale of the Tape NFT failed to sell, peaking at an offer of 0.035 ETH (about US$160). This is interesting because the token also would have come with a one year subscription to DAZN (a $99.99 value here in America) and gloves signed by Eddie Hearn. So, the market offer price on this auction implies that, if you assume the underlying NFT is absolutely worthless, the effective value of Eddie Hearn signed boxing gloves, shipping included, is less than $60.
If we’ve learned nothing else from this NFT experiment, at least we’ve learned that much.