According to CoinDesk, the National Hockey League (NHL) has announced its entry into the world of digital collectibles with the launch of NHL Breakaway. The initiative comes two years after other major sports leagues, such as the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, embraced the NFT trend. NHL Breakaway was developed in partnership with Sweet, a platform that enables brands to create NFT collectibles under the Ethereum ERC-721 standard on Polygon and the Ethereum mainnet, as well as the Tezos standard for NFTs. The terms of the agreement between the NHL and Sweet have not been disclosed.
Sports-league collectibles gained popularity in 2021, with the NBA launching NBA Top Shot and the NFL announcing a partnership with Dapper Labs. Major League Baseball also unveiled NFT collectibles in collaboration with trading card manufacturer Topps. The official launch of NHL Breakaway took place on Wednesday, although Sweet's website had already been promoting the new program earlier in the week. A beta version of the platform went live in April. A unique feature of NHL Breakaway is 'The Trade Lounge', a hub for collector community interaction where fans can trade packs and highlights of their favorite plays or NHL players with others in the community.
