Last week, DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) proclaimed an grant with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) to lot collections of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and some market place observers regard possible investment implications inward the deal.

Notably, the NFLPA is granting the gaming companion name, image, and likeness rights rights for fighting(a) NFL players. The NFT collections testament debut on DraftKings Marketplace during the 2022-2023 NFL season. While NFTs and cryptocurrency aren’t DraftKings’ magnetic core business concern at this point, there’s potentiality for the fellowship to get into a major NFT participant as that market expands.

Imagine an arcade-style NFL gamey (i.e., NFL Blitz) where you possess the playable variant of Saint Patrick Mahomes as an NFT. Now layer on an element of peer-to-peer wagering based on the outcome of a twin against another team owner,” says RoundHill Investments co-founder Will Hershey.

NFTs are units of data stored on and verified past the blockchain. NFTs have got applications with a change of digitized items, such as sound and video files, as easily as pictures. They are non traditional works of artistic creation that hang up on walls or measure trading cards.

NFT Expansion Logical for DraftKings

DraftKings isn’t an old companionship — it turns 10 years older next year — but in that respect are already hints that several years from now, it power non appear a great deal same it does today.

NFTs are I way of life of enhancing that evolution, diversifying the operator’s revenue flow beyond the hyper-competitive mankind of sports wagering spell leveraging a make that’s extremely placeable to sports fans. DraftKings launched its NFT market before this year, forthwith revealing an concord with Autograph, an NFT collecting weapons platform co-founded by Tampa Bay Buccaneers field general and seven-time Super Bowl title-holder Uncle Tom Brady.

As Hershey notes, DraftKings clients could be open to not only investment inwards NFTs, specially those of the sports variety, but also leveraging those assets for potency upside via gamification.

“If executed properly, the possible is certainly there, peculiarly with a absorbed DraftKings audience that is likely well-heeled with the risk-taking associated with speculative assets the like NFTs,” he adds. “From an investment funds perspective, the chance feels like a worthy phone choice for a troupe with a low-toned be of capital letter and hard cash on the equipoise sheet.”

There’s an element of cryptocurrency inwards the equation, too. DraftKings customers sounding to purchase NFTs must fare so with the digital token Polygon, which is based on the Ethereum blockchain. Polygon outperform Bitcoin, the largest digital coin, in recent months.

Another New Rating on DraftKings

Separate from the commentary on NFTs, DraftKings carry landed another new rating today. MoffettNathanson analyst Henry M. Robert Fishman starts insurance coverage of the gaming equity with a “neutral” rating and a $36 toll target, implying upside of almost 20 percent from the Dec. 10 close.

Fishman sees high-pitched promotional disbursement — long a power point of contention with DraftKings investors — hampering near-term profitability, but notes that disbursement “cements its top side positioning over the long-term.”

The market “still inward the very ahead of time stages of this warfare and the costs of these battles testament live with us for years to come,” adds Fishman.