This week, we meet Tom Lombardi of Network Media Group (CVE: NTE) to talk about the company’s new tie-up with the Hockey Hall of Fame in Vancouver, the explosive growth in the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) market and how NFTs will be increasingly used in the professional sports arena. The global NFT market size is expected to grow by $147.24 billion over the next five years, highlighting the importance for experienced investors and beginners to grow accustomed to this space.
On the Podcast
Network Media Group develops, produces and exploits film and television properties in addition to providing production services to third parties. The Canada-based company, which went public in 2009, focuses on creating documentaries and documentary series based on cultural icons from the music, entertainment and sports industries in order to present these icons to a global audience. Network Media Group’s success and award-winning reputation has attracted the attention of premier streaming platforms.
NFTs are a unique, nonreplicable token of ownership attached to a blockchain. Their value and capital appreciation is based on their future value, which is derived both from valuation changes and future cash flow, and driven by retail and institutional investor speculation. Tom Lombardi believes the recent growth of the NFT market is being powered by public popularity stemming from a newfound desire to own transferrable content that can be held and traded digitally.
Through its subsidiaries, Network Media Group has been highly active in the NFT market as the company looks to diversify its intellectual property into more modern applications. For example, these can come in the form of sports NFTs which are often perceived as a modern extension of collectible baseball cards because they represent digital ownership of sports content that can be shared through social accounts and communities. Network Media Group’s NFT model is based both on IP licensing, which involves acquiring NFT rights to blue chip IP which can be monetised via future campaigns, and IP partnership, whereby the company is hired as a strategic consultant to ideate, develop and execute on brand extension strategies via longer term NFT collaborations.
Tom Lombardi also gave us an insight into Network Media Group’s new partnership with the Hockey Hall of Fame, which will launch in the autumn this year. The multi-year, community-focused NFT project will offer access to innovative digital collectibles, multimedia experiences and interactions celebrating the game of hockey. It aims to attract a global sporting and cultural fan base that is inspired by the game of hockey and by the Hall of Fame’s rich history and unsurpassed collection of cherished memorabilia in order to encourage peer-to-peer collaboration and incentivise fans to interact with their digital collectibles, unlocking new rewards and experiences in the process.
Whilst Lombardi calls for a better connection between tech companies and banks in order to facilitate funding sources and improve consumer access to content channels, Network Media Group is still looking to further expand its activities within the NFT space. The company says it is actively exploring a large gaming opportunity with a Hollywood studio and looking engage in content based on the metaverse in the future.
