Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo launches NFT collection with Binance
Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo is partnering with Binance to promote Web3 and NFTs.
Video Transcript
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- Well, despite the unfolding crypto crisis, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is getting into the industry, launching NFTs through a partnership with Binance. Now, Ronaldo and the crypto giant are dropping the first collection on Friday as part of a multiyear exclusive partnership. And, Rachelle, you gotta question the timing on this. Clearly, you don't think it works out in favor of Cristiano Ronaldo. Even ahead of this week, we know the appetite for NFTs has been falling pretty dramatically.
Sales on OpenSea, which is the largest NFT marketplace, they're down five months in a row. NFT sales plunging to 3.4 billion in the third quarter. That's down from over 12 billion in Q1. I'm kind of scratching my head at this decision.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, obviously, at a time when a lot of celebrities are backing away from things like Binance, it's interesting that Ronaldo would put himself on the front line. I'm-- I'm assuming this deal was in the works before all of this sort of blew up. But it's interesting because NFTs is also one of the ways, reportedly, that-- that people are trying to get their money off of FTX's platforms by buying NFTs, not that this one is involved in that. But obviously, you have the timing of the World Cup as well, and one of the biggest soccer stars in the world in Ronaldo.
So an interesting choice to be the face of this sort of product at this time when NFTs really are falling out of favor. But, I mean, anything's possible. I guess, with the fan base he has, you never know. Maybe it'll work for him if there's enough use case for his NFT.
- The fan base is unrivaled in the-- in the world in terms of professional sports. 496 million Instagram followers, 100-plus million Twitter followers, most of them hammering him on Twitter, to your point, not just about the timing in terms of the crypto winter and the fall of the NFT prices. But also, just hours after he gave an interview to Pierce Morgan in which he slammed Manchester United as merely a marketing club that will get its money from marketing the sports, well, they don't really care, in my opinion.
So that timing on top of NFT prices, not ideal. But hey, to Rachelle's point, this was well before all of this, and it's two days before the World Cup. So at least he picked the right horse, Binance not FTX.
- Yeah, although-- yeah, although I think you can make the argument that the appetite for NFTs has been falling now for quite a bit, since we--
- Sure.
- --did reach the peak a few quarters ago. We have seen that drop pretty-- pretty precipitously.
- April I think was the peak, right?
- April is the peak, and now it's down-- it's what-- a third, a fourth of what it was just a few months ago. So, I don't know, maybe Cristiano Ronaldo is the person to turn it all around. We'll see.
- If anyone can--
BOTH: --it's him.
