- Tom Brady is launching a company called "Autograph."
- The site will sell digital memorabilia from sports icons and celebrities like Brady.
- The NFT market has been highly profitable for sports through platforms like NBA Top Shot.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
NFL star Tom Brady is launching a company for digital collectibles called "Autograph."
The platform will sell crypto memorabilia from sports icons and celebrities like Brady, according to the company's site.
"Autograph will bring together some of the world's 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," co-founder and CEO of Autograph Dillon Rosenblatt told CNN.
Brady and millionaire entrepreneur Richard Rosenblatt will act as co-chairs of the company. Autograph boasts a team with several big business names, including Lionsgate CEO Jon Filthier and Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino, as well as three of the founders of DraftKings.
There has been a boom in interest in digital collectible in recent months. Items that function as non-fungible tokens or NFTs have generated millions of dollars in sales. In March, a $70 million digital art sale made history.
Since then, artists and celebrities from rapper Snoop Dogg to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have gotten in on the action.
The items operate as unique digital assets. When someone buys an NFT they gain the rights to the unique token on the blockchain that acts as a digital certificate of authenticity. The token can gain value due to its relation to its creator or content. For example, tokens that represent memes like the Nyan Cat can gain in value as they increase in popularity online, though the NFT buyer is not be able to control the image's distribution.
The NFT market has been especially profitable for sports. The site NBA Top Shot, which allows people to buy NBA sports clips, recently received a $2 billion valuation from NFT tracking site DappRadar. Top NBA clips, including a LeBron James dunk moment, have sold for over $200,000 on the platform.
As an NFL legend, Brady NFTs would likely see similar high sales. Yesterday a Brady rookie card sold for about $2.3 million - smashing the record for the most expensive football trading card sale, according to Bleacher Report.
Brady himself is no stranger to selling his personal brand. In February, Brady merchandise sales set records as he became the best-selling NFL player ever, according to Reuters.
Autograph isn't Brady's first company. In 2013, the football star launched TB12, a sports performance and nutrition company.