Adidas and Nike, as very old sports brands, have seen each other upset for many years.
Recently, two major international sports brand giants went to court over intellectual property issues. Nike sued Adidas for infringement because Adidas violated its Flyknit design technology and requested the US International Trade Commission to block the import of a number of Adidas sneakers.
In the metaverse, Adidas and Nike are also not giving way to each other.
First, Nike announced the acquisition of virtual sneakers and collectibles brand RTFKT. Nike President and CEO John Donahoe believes that this move will help accelerate Nike’s digital transformation work:
“Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, serve and develop their innovation and creative communities, and expand Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.”
The news was announced a few days later. Adidas announced the launch of a series of NFTs in collaboration with Bored Ape Yacht Club, Gmoney NFT and Punks Comic.
What’s more interesting is that Adidas’s official website has been changed to “Into The Metaverse”, which shows that Adidas is determined to enter the metaverse. Today, users can purchase the officially released NFT through the official website of Adidas at a price of 0.2 ETH.
Adidas believes that the metaverse can allow anyone to express their most primitive ideas and become the truest self.
This event sold a total of 30,000 NFTs, of which Adidas and partners retained 380. Holders of the partner’s NFT can also subscribe directly, and all others need to go to the official rush to buy.
If interested parties miss the sale, they can only buy through Opensea’s secondary market.
Buyers of Nike NFT this time not only get an NFT, but also a special product experience in digital and physical forms. The physical products will include the same sports suit from Ape Indigo Hertz, gmoney’s iconic orange hat, and a hoodie with a blockchain address.
NFT buyers can collect it for free throughout 2022, but they need to prove that they still hold the NFT at the time of collection. The NFT and its extensions are all prepared for the digital community.
Adidas plans to build a “metaverse virtual land experience” by the community in 2022 and beyond. Before that, Adidas has purchased 144 virtual land in the 3D open world game “The Sandbox”. NIKE also announced a similar plan, it intends to create a virtual world NIKELAND, this virtual world is inspired by Nike headquarters in Oregon, USA.
After entering NIKELAND, players can not only play mini games, but also wear Nike ACG, Tech Pack and sneakers. This digital world also allows players to transfer offline activities to online games, thereby launching real activities in the digital space.
At present, visitors can play dodgeball and other games in this digital space, or use interactive sports materials to design their own mini games. At the same time, mobile phone players can also make virtual characters make corresponding actions through sensing devices.
Both of these brands started from NFT, step by step to build their own kingdom in the metaverse. Although the metaverse is still far away, once the giants are involved in this competition, they cannot tolerate falling behind.