Candy Digital is a company that provides digital assets to fans and collectors as part of the next generation of collectibles. It serves as Major League Baseball’s first official NFT ecosystem, enabling fans to buy, trade, and exchange authorized NFTs to enhance their passion for the sport.
Candy aims to create digital assets for the next generation of sports and culture, offering genuine items and experiences that enhance fan interaction and connect individuals with their interests.
With the aid of top-notch digital artists, designers, and technologists, Candy is creating a wide selection of digital collectibles, starting with sports content and broadening into art, entertainment, music, and other areas.
Candy Digital was established by a trio of executive partners, namely Micheal Rubin, who is the CEO of Fanatics, Mike Novogratz, the founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, and Gary Vaynerchuk, a serial entrepreneur and investor.
Major League Baseball
In 2021, Candy Digital launched an exclusive long-term agreement with its first content partner, Major League Baseball. The deal was headlined by a one-of-a-kind Lou Gehrig NFT that was released for fans on July 4.
Play of the Day Set
The Play of the Day is an exclusive NFT collectible from Candy that showcases the most impressive play from each day’s MLB games. The MLB chooses the Play of the Day after the conclusion of the day’s final game and releases it on the Candy platform the next day. The POTD is an open edition, with a release window from 12:00 PM ET to 11:59:59 PM ET every day.
Users who collected 150 unique 2022 POTD NFTs were rewarded a Season Recap Highlight Compilation Challenge Reward. The reward contained highlights of the entire 2022 MLB season.
MLB ICON Leadoff Series:
The Leadoff Series is among the most extensive sports collectible series ever launched. Fans can collect and exchange unique versions and rarities (Core, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary) of the NFTs for each of the 720 players featured.
Aside from the player NFTs, the Leadoff Series unveiled 8 Candy World Series NFTs, which are exceptionally rare. The creative complexity of the Icons become more intricate as their rarity increases:
Core: Player Card
Uncommon: Player Card + Video
Rare: Player Card + Video + Animation/VFX on Video
Epic: Player Card + Video + Animation/VFX on Video + Player Signature
Legendary: Player Card + Video +Animation/VFX on Video + Player Signature + 1/1
There were 485,000 total 2022 ICON Leadoff packs available
MLB ICON All-Star Series
The ICON All-Star Series includes both Blue and Gold Edition packs that contain 80 players representing the MLB All-Star roster. The Blue Editions contain 3 cards and are made up of Core, Uncommon and Rare ICONs with a small chance to pull an Epic. The Gold Editions contain 10 cards and are made up of Core, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary ICONs.
Hall of Fame ICON Series
The Hall of Fame ICON Series is Candy’s first product in partnership with the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The Series contains 30 players from the Hall of Fame including:
- Bob Feller: Cleveland
- Craig Biggio: Houston Astros
- Phil Rizzuto: New York Yankees
- Warren Spahn: Milwaukee Braves
- Ralph Kiner: Pittsburgh Pirates
- Willie McCovey: San Francisco Giants
- Eddie Murray: Baltimore Orioles
- Phil Niekro: Atlanta Braves
- Jim Palmer: Baltimore Orioles
- Ryne Sandberg: Chicago Cubs
- Tom Seaver: New York Mets
- Ozzie Smith: St. Louis Cardinals
- Duke Snider: Brooklyn Dodgers
- Willie Stargell: Pittsburgh Pirates
- Bruce Sutter: St. Louis Cardinals
- Frank Thomas: Chicago White Sox
- Robin Yount: Milwaukee Brewers
- Luis Aparicio: Chicago White Sox
- Johnny Bench: Cincinnati Reds
- Lou Brock: St. Louis Cardinals
- George Brett: Kansas City Royals
- Gary Carter: Montreal Expos
- Rollie Fingers: Oakland Athletics
- Whitey Ford: New York Yankees
- Tom Glavine: Atlanta Braves
- Ken Griffey Jr.: Seattle Mariners
- Catfish Hunter: Oakland Athletics
- Al Kaline: Detroit Tigers
- Barry Larkin: Cincinnati Reds
- Tony Pérez - Cincinnati Reds
Uncut Diamonds ICON Series:
The Uncut Diamonds ICON packs consist of three Candy MLB Icons, representing tomorrow’s rising stars. Upon opening a pack, users will discover three Icons from the Uncut Diamonds Series, which highlights the best prospects from every team, totaling 30 top prospects to collect. Candy has minted Core, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary NFTs for each prospect, and each pack includes at least one non-Core collectible.
There are two distinct challenges associated with the Uncut Diamonds series, including a timed full-set collection challenge and the MLB Call Up Challenge.
To complete the challenges, users had to purchase one of each of the forty Uncut Diamonds Packs and hold all of them in their Candy account. At least five of the forty NFTs had to be Rare, Epic, or Legendary in rarity. The reward for the MLB Call Up Challenge was a Drew Jones horizontal chaser.
MLB Stadium Series:
Candy capitalized on baseball fan’s profound attachment to their ballpark by launching the MLB Stadium Series on August 9 2022. Each release is a tribute to one of the 30 professional league parks. The series was created by renowned sports art specialist S. Preston, who has been producing art for MLB and the Baseball Hall Of Fame since 2014. Throughout August and September, the stadium NFTs were released on a weekly basis, with each stadium having a 1/1 gold edition that provides the owner with a VIP game day experience.
World Series Commemorative Collections:
Candy has released commemorative NFTs representing the winning World Series teams. These NFTs include images and game videos from the final World Series game, and collectible cards with a 3D Gold Commissioner’s trophy. The set began with the Atlanta Braves’ World Series win over the Houston Astros in 2021.
Additional Sports and Pop Culture
Sweet Futures:
Candy Sweet Futures is the first NFT Collection featuring top college athletes. The collection started out exclusively with College Football, but expanded into College Basketball in 2022.
Both collections were released in the same fashion:
Auction for 1/1 Legendaries
100 Epic editions available for #350
300 Rare editions available for $150
Four-day open edition for Core editions
2022 NASCAR ICON Driver Series
In February 2022, Candy Digital revealed “Candy Racing,” its newest set of digital collectibles, in partnership with Race Team Alliance. The Set featured 23 NASCAR Cup Series drivers from 10 racing teams, including 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson and two-time champ Kyle Busch.
Once the 2022 Daytona 500 started, collectors who owned NFTs of the race’s top three finishers received a subsequent, unique NFT honoring the champion.
Netflix Stranger Things
Candy teamed up with Netflix to release a range of Stranger Things collectibles. The initial collection, which featured 17 characters from Season Four of the popular Netflix series, was available starting July 14 2022.
For the initial launch, a collection of 11,111 tokens were minted, showcasing popular characters such as Eleven, Dutin, and Max. Among them, Eleven had the lowest edition run, with only 223 NFTs available.
The partnership between the two companies emphasized their dedication to creating sustainable collectibles. All of the digital assets were minted on the Palm blockchain, which is an Ethereum-based side-chain known for its near-zero carbon footprint.
WWE
In March 2022, the WWE signed a deal with sports platform Fanatics to design and release trading card NFTs through Candy Digital. The collection depicted two-time WWE Hall-of-Fame inductee, and four time World Champion, Shawn Michaels.
The set gave users the opportunity for a personal meet-and-greet with Michaels, as well as ringside seats at an NXT 2.0 event to sit alongside other WWE Superstars with a backstage tour.
The ‘70s Music & Culture collection
On March 7 2022, Getty Images and Candy Digital teamed up to release an inaugural collection of NFTs celebrating the music and culture of the 1970s. The collection features rare and iconic images from Getty Images’ archives, featuring Elvis, David Bowie, and more.
For Volume 1 of the ‘70s Music & Culture collection, music fans and collectors will be able to obtain their own piece of ‘70s music history by purchasing a Collection or Individual collectibles.
