With the 2022 Winter Olympic Games not far from the horizon, the Jamaican bobsled team hopes to quality. To help raise funds for their bid, Electric Token, a minority-owned tech company is partnering with @NFT to create a Jamaican bobsleigh NFT. @NFT was co-founded by Jason Falovitch and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
The NFT will release a limited edition digital artwork, showcasing the highlights of the brand and image of the beloved Jamaican bobsled team, as stated in a press release. The artwork was designed by Gabe Weis & Stonez The Organic, and “mixes a range of authentic Jamaican digital and physical experiences.”
Curated by Florian Tappeser, every collectible will be a Jamaica-themed bobsleigh adorned with digital 3D art, as well as featuring art for each of the six bobsleighs slated to appear at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. The featured artwork will be from Jamaican artists, chosen by Electric Token and Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment, and Sports.
The funds raised from the NFT will aid in providing for Jamaica’s financial needs to qualify for the Olympics this upcoming February.
“The early ideation around fundraising for the Jamaican Bobsleigh team was intriguing to say the least,” said Chris Hoyle, senior business development for @NFT, a division of Leverage Game Media, in the release. “We are excited to partner with Electric Token on amplifying the launch by displaying digital art and collectibles in one place as well as share their collection on social media platforms.”
Rohan Midha, Jamaica bobsleigh team’s Sponsorship Agent, hopes this effort will also raise awareness of what NFTs can do for widespread branding.
“In addition, it will help move the NFT space into mainstream for artists, athletes, entrepreneurs and more to own, manage and monitor their own brand value,” Midha said in the release. “It’s a shift in power to the creator and away from commercialization; a seismic shift in how value is owned, accumulated and traded.”
This is not the first time cryptocurrency was used to fund the Jamaican bobsled team. In the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, $25K was raised via Dogecoin to aid the team, as reported by The Guardian. The money was raised by supporters after one of the team members, driver Winston Watt, only had enough money to fly his two-man team to the training session, but not enough to Sochi.
The Jamaican bobsled team first came into prominence at the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Ontario. That team was then immortalized in the 1993 Disney biopic, Cool Runnings, starring Leon, Doug E. Doug, and John Candy, which brought the team into mainstream public consciousness.
The team competed in five consecutive Winter Olympic games from 1988 to 2002, but failed to quality again until the 2014 Games in Sochi, according to Bleacher Report. Although the men’s team failed to qualify again for the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Jamaica sent a women’s bobsled team, who did qualify, as reported by Deadspin.
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