University of Arizona athletes are now able to appear on personalized digital collectibles with their likenesses and keep the bulk of the profits under a new commercial license agreement.
The deal between UArizona and Athlete Assets is the first of its kind and allows university-owned copyright, logos to be used to create blockchain digital assets known as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs that look like digital trading cards and depict the athletes.
The NFTs are part of a new opportunity that was made possible last year when college athletes were allowed to start making branding and sponsorship deals with businesses in exchange for money or other compensation.
In the past, such arrangements — called name, image and likeness, or NIL, deals — were against the rules and could lead to serious penalties for athletes, teams and schools.
Under this UArizona deal, athletes will be provided with at least two different individually personalized digital collectibles (60 total units for sale) and will be able to pocket more than 80% of the net revenue from the NFT sales, Athlete Assets said.
Read more of this story from the Phoenix Business Journal.
