Sotheby’s Is Auctioning NBA Top Shot NFTs

Sotheby’s is auctioning off NBA Top Shot digital collectibles as the NFT market experiences a modest resurgence amid a broader crypto market boom in recent months.

The auction house is selling eight NBA Top Shot NFTs, valued between $500 and $3,000 each, as part of its broader NBA memorabilia sale, a company spokesperson said Tuesday in a statement. Bidding is open through January 21.

The sale includes digital collectibles featuring several well-known basketball players, including Jaylen Wells, Bub Carrington, Pacôme Dadiet, and Kyshawn George. Each lot includes a highlight clip from the respective player’s first-ever NBA game.

The auction comes as digital art collectibles have experienced a slight rebound, with broader NFT trading volume climbing in December as certain projects gained substantially in value. However, some of that rise appeared to be attributed to buyers attempting to earn crypto rewards around the Pudgy Penguins PENGU token launch, and it’s unclear whether the broader NFT market is seeing a growing resurgence.

NBA Top Shot launched in 2020, kickstarting an NFT craze among mainstream sports fans in early 2021 that has since died down considerably.

While the project saw a monthly sales peak of $226 million in February 2021, the Flow-based NFTs accounted for less than $2 million worth of sales last month, per data from CryptoSlam. The collection has generated roughly $1.25 billion in sales to date.

Sotheby’s has made several forays into NFTs in recent years, despite a protracted downturn in the one-of-one token market. 

In 2021, Sotheby’s sold nearly $17 million in NFTs in collaboration with digital creator Pak, according to its website. And just last summer, the auction house put up for sale a batch of Bored Ape Yacht Club-centric Ethereum NFTs. 

Last year, Sotheby’s also took a deeper dive into the Web3 world, rolling out a secondary marketplace for on-chain NFT sales on its metaverse platform.

Edited by Andrew Hayward