NFT Collectibles: Recur Set to Kick Off NFTU

Back in early February, I wrote this introduction to Recur after having the opportunity to sit down with co-CEO's Trevor George and Zach Bruch. Much has happened in the space since publishing that article, and with them set to drop their first collectible on March 14th through their college sports collectible site NFTU.com, I thought it would be a good time to update the Recur community.

I was fortunate enough to be able to sit down again with CEO Trevor George and discuss some of the drop details and what lies ahead in the coming weeks and months for his emerging platform along with some news on what the first character drops will be, and when!

ONE37pm: Tell me about NFTU and what you have planned for it both in the short and long-term.

Trevor George: NFTU is the largest destination for fans to discover, collect, and sell collegiate sports non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

Short term, the plan is two fold. Continue to secure the widest breadth of licensing rights - from multimedia to colleges to athletes - so we can build a world-class experience for college sports fans and our users. It’s important to understand that the collegiate space is not like pro sports where an NFT partner simply needs to do a deal with the “league” and the “players association”. In college, there are over a dozen major IP holders. The colleges own the rights to their official marks, but the conferences (think pac12) own the video highlights, but then you have to clear the player that appears in the video clip, and there is no “players association” so you have to do deals with players associations, talent agencies, and many times directly with the individual themselves. And the list goes on. With the progress we have and the exclusivity in the space, it is impossible for a company like “Dapper” to create a similar experience. 

Long term, the plan is much more multifaceted. We are integrating into college ticketing via Paciolan. Yes, TICKETING. We will be launching specific school storefronts so collectors can collect NFTs specifically from a particular school, and much more. We are integrating into the collegiate websites themselves that students, fans & alumni visit to check player stats, game times, buy tickets, and more. NFTU will be right there, on each individual school, making it a completely immersive fan experience. 

ONE37pm: In a recent tweet, you announced that Learfield joined NFTU to "further fuel NFTU.com across college ticketing, media, websites, apps & more". Can you give us a little more information on this partnership and what it means for Recur?

TG: The partnership with Learfield is both game-changing for RECUR, but industry-changing for the collegiate and sports industries, unifying the entire space. 

With Learfield, we will embark on the following: creating NFT tickets for fans, in-stadium signage and activations, exclusive NFT product offerings for Learfield partner universities, and partnering with COMPASS - Learfield's NIL platform - to educate and onboard athletes into NFTU. 

We love this quote from Sports Business Journal:

ONE37pm: In another tweet, Recur announced "Some NFT's will hero a singular athlete". Tell me a little bit about some of the athletes people can expect to see.

TG: We have two types of NFTs on NFTU to start:

Flashbacks (video clip moments)

Limelights (focused on the player only)

Currently, our athlete roster count is well into the hundreds, from fifty different schools. These athletes range in the era that they played, from the 90s, 2000s, to today, and include household names like Ja Morant, Carmelo Anthony, Paul George and current male and female superstar athletes like Drew Timme and NaLyssa Smith. 

We determined rarity of each athlete and moment by factoring in the desirability of that athlete and that moment that we're highlighting within the NFT, while also coupling in factors like national prominence, milestone game, and player performance within that game. 

ONE37pm: You guys have hinted a bit about what the Recur gameplay and collecting experience will look like. Any chance you can go more in detail?

TG: The game play is incredibly important to us here at RECUR as it's the center and driver of the fan experience. Our challenge system will begin in the weeks that follow the launch of NFTU on March 14, but it's built in a way that NFTU users can compete in challenges with the NFTs that they have collected to then earn additional rewards and rarer NFTs and collectibles. Hint, there’s a burning mechanism too. So if you have commons, you should expect the ability to trade up commons for more rare NFTs. 

ONE37pm:  With this being the first NFTU drop, do you have an updated timeline of when the first Recur character drop is coming? Any hints on what that drop might be? 

TG: In April you will see both Star Trek & Nickelodeon! Get ready. They will both be unprecedented collecting concepts and the beginning to an incredible long term collecting journey.