Report Reveals NFLPA Is Unable To Collect $41.8 Million After Collapse Of NFT Market

graph of the NFT market collapse

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In their latest financial report, the NFL Player’s Association (NFLPA) announced that it is unable to collect $41.8 million, representing roughly 25% of its annual commercial revenue.

A report from The Athletic reveals that the outstanding $41.8 million the NFLPA is unable to collect is likely tied to the collapse of a crypto market, more specifically, the collapse of the NFT market.

In the report, the NFLPA wrote “As of Feb. 28, 2023, there is uncertainty surrounding collection of certain accounts receivable from OneTeam Partners, LLC. Therefore, an allowance has been recorded as of that date for those amounts.” Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic adds “the NFLPA listed $41,799,008 for OneTeam next to accounts receivable, a category for funds owed by customers.”

The report goes on to discuss how OneTeam Partners has been very successful in recent years working with the NFLPA, MLB, U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, Major League Soccer Players Association, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, and others as well as getting into the NIL space.

The report then goes on to discuss the losses…

In April, it was reported that Dapper Labs and DraftKings’ Reignmakers NFTs were seeking to renegotiate licensing deals. And here is the meat and potatoes of the report that NFTs collapsing has cost the NFLPA $41.8 million:

“OneTeam would have expected around $60 million from Dapper & DraftKings, of that, $41 million would go to the NFLPA,” the person who has been involved in past NFLPA dealings wrote in a direct message. “Now, NFTs are relatively new, so most of the money typically comes from Madden and trading cards.” By that, this person means the bread-and-butter licensing businesses like video games and trading cards at the NFLPA remains healthy. Cryptocurrency is a relatively new category for the unions and has not been a relied-upon source of revenue. Still, this person described the nonpayments of $41.8 million as “horrific.”

For context of just how ‘down’ the NFT market is, here are some stats from a report by Glossy in December:

n October of 2022, NFT sales were down by more than 90% in nearly every metric — including volume and price — compared to the year before. Trading volume on OpenSea, one of the biggest markets for NFTs, dropped from $3 billion in September of 2021 to $350 million in September of 2022.

Two years ago, NFTs were all the rage. Justin Bieber bought one for $1.3 million!!

This clip of Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton talking about their Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs seems to really capture how absurd that time in history was.

Then reality caught up. Tons of A-List celebrities are being sued over various NFT-related allegations.

The NFL PA is in good financial standing. Their assets grew from $1.003 billion to $1.055 billion in the past fiscal year according to the report reviewed by The Athletic. But the fallout from the NFT collapse continues and there were almost certainly be reports of this scale (of losses) in other industries in the coming years.

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Cass Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of BroBible. Based out of Florida, he covers an array of topics including NFL, Pop Culture, Fishing News, and the Outdoors.