After establishing NFT-based fantasy sports games around the National Football League (NFL) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), sports betting firm DraftKings announced today that it will launch an NFT fantasy golf game in partnership with the PGA Tour.
DraftKings will roll out the Reignmakers PGA Tour experience in March, following the same kind of format as with its previous NFT projects. Digital cards based on PGA Tour golfers will be minted and sold via Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain network, and users can compete for millions of dollars’ worth of cash prizes.
Just like in traditional fantasy sports games, users will earn points based on the real-world performance of the players in their respective lineups. But as in DraftKings’ other Reignmakers games and in rival games like Sorare, users will build their lineups by buying and trading digital cards based on the real-world athletes.
It’s an extension of DraftKings’ existing alliance with the PGA Tour, which began in 2019 and includes a traditional fantasy golf experience without NFT elements. Beth Beiriger, DraftKings’ senior VP of marketplace operations, told Decrypt that golf is the firm’s fourth-largest fantasy sport and seventh most-bet-on sports league.
“We already see a high level engagement from these users,” she said of DraftKings golf fans, adding that Reignmakers lets the firm “take gamified NFTs and really push our users over into the fantasy space a little bit more.”
Reignmakers PGA Tour will begin its launch with a premium Greens Pass NFT on March 1, which Beiriger said will provide “preferred access, as well as season-long rewards” for players. It’s similar to the field pass NFT from Reignmakers Football, which is officially licensed by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) but not the league itself.
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