Candy Digital
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has partnered with Candy Digital to offer non-fungible tokens (NFTs) celebrating some of the most famous names on the history of the sport.
The digital collectibles use officially licensed, Major League Baseball (MLB) archival photos and video, while future collections will use 3D scanning technology to bring to life various artefacts from the museum.
The Hall of Fame says the NFTs are a crucial way for it to engage with younger audiences and drive awareness of baseball’s heritage, which it sees as ‘crucial’ to the sport maintaining its status as America’s pastime.
“Sharing baseball’s storied history with its passionate fans is core to our mission and digital collectibles provide us with an entirely new way for our fans to learn about the game’s legends and interact with the incredible artifacts from our collection,” said National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum president Josh Rawitch. “We are proud to partner with Candy Digital.”
The inaugural ‘2022 Hall of Fame Icon’ collection will launch on 2nd August in packs of ten or four, with each given a rarity classification – core, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary – that dictates its desirability and therefore value. Once owners have opened these packs, they will be able to buy, trade and sell with other collectors via an online marketplace.
A separate ‘Hall of Fame induction digital collectible’ will be given away for free to anyone attending the Hall of Fame weekend events in Cooperstown, New York. The NFT features the names and pictures of the 2022 inductees, which include Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso and Tony Oliva, Bud Fowler, Buck O’Neil, and David Ortiz.
Candy Digital’s other partnerships include the MLB itself, while it also has relationships with Getty Images, Netflix and the WWE. It says these latest NFTs will be minted on Palm, a more environmentally friendly Ethereum-compatible blockchain, and will have a carbon footprint of almost zero.
“Baseball has a rich, storied history that creates a deep bond between the sport and its fans. Celebrating the players that have made baseball great has been a key part of our focus since day one,” said Scott Lawin, Candy Digital chief executive. “We’re thrilled to be launching the Baseball Legends Series to introduce unique digital collectibles that connect the next generation of baseball fans to the history of the sport in exciting new ways.”
