When the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, announced that it would be launching NFTs, the community got excited. So excited that the collection didn’t stay on the market very long. In fact, the recently launched collection sold out in a matter of hours. 

Here’s what happened:

UFC Launches NFTs

We’ve known that the UFC was going to launch a non-fungible token (NFT) collection, but we didn’t know just how successful it would be. The sport’s NFT drop has taken place, and all collectibles in the collection sold out in just under four hours. 

So, what did the collection consist of?

Well, there were 35 moments of fights covered in the pack. Each NFT was designed to show what the creators believed to be the best moments in various fights. 100,000 packs of these NFTs were available to the public. 

The Promotion Makes History

For quite some time, there has been a battle going on at the UFC. Essentially, athletes that fight for the sport aren’t generally paid for their likeness. However, the NFT kick off seems to be a step in the right direction. 

Fighters were paid a 50/50 split on the profits. Based on the amount of moments in each pack and the amount of packs that were sold, fighters featured once have expectedly made about $18,000 while fighters featured twice made double that amount from the sale.

It’s possible that in the future, other NFT drops, posters, and other products will result in payments to fighters, which would largely end the debate about fairly compensating fighters for their likeness. 

The Bottom Line

The bottom line here is simple. The UFC NFT drop isn’t just the story of a successful drop of digital collectibles; although, the release has been uber successful. No, the big story here is the appreciation the sports company is showing for its fighters. 

As mentioned above, this is one of very few times UFC fighters have ever been paid for their likeness, which has been a major debate. However, NFTs seem to be helping to put an end to that debate in a very constructive way. That’s great news for the UFC and its fighters, and the success of the project is great news for the metaverse as a whole.