When NFT sales are discussed, there is a tendency to focus on revenue. Big-name profile picture collections like Cryptopunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club are consistently at or near the top of the leaderboard. While the transactions in those collections are high value, there are very few. In contrast, sports and gaming are where the action is in terms of volume.

And the contrast is dramatic.

Revenue leader BAYC only had 296 NFT transactions over the past 30 days, but turned over $32.8 million, according to CryptoSlam. While NFL All Day ranks second on the volume charts, with 482,000 transactions and revenue of $15 million.

NFL All Day, Sorare fantasy football collectibles and NBA Top Shot are ranked two, four and six by number of transactions. Five of the top ten collections by volume are sports, three are games, and one is a game-related collectible.

It would be easy to attribute the success of sports collections like NFL All Day and NBA Top Shot from Sorare and Dapper Lab to huge fan bases. Make no mistake, that helps. But in both cases, they have innovations that are quite subtle, so much so that they seem obvious, especially when compared to Uber and AirBNB.

The genius of video moments

Dapper Labs could have released animated collectible sports cards. But he chose video instead, which is vastly more financially lucrative. Most sports fans have a limited number of favorite athletes that they closely follow. So when it comes to trading cards, there aren’t many to choose from.

But each athlete has the potential to star in multiple video moments during each game. Hence, an almost unlimited amount of collectibles is created, although of course, some will be better than others.

That has been confirmed with NBA Top Shot, the first of Dapper’s sports NFT initiatives, which surpassed $1 billion in cumulative trades a few months ago.

The combination of a large fan base and ongoing engagement is consistent with Dapper’s stated goal of attracting newcomers to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Although Sorare is in a different segment than Dapper, its business model also encourages more sales. He took the concept of fantasy sports games that have been around for decades and added the web3 tweak of turning your fantasy team players into NFTs. Active fantasy gamers rarely keep the same gear all the time, hence the desire to regularly buy new or trade.

With success comes VC money

In hindsight, big hits often seem easy. But we remember the early days of Sorare when there was a small number of transactions. Despite that, he managed to sign numerous soccer teams. The firm’s tenacity was rewarded last year with a massive $680 million Series B funding round at a $4.3 billion valuation.

He has used his deep pockets to double down on football with deals with leagues like La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A and MLS. Since then, he has branched out from soccer to golf to baseball, signing licensing deals with the PGA Tour and MLB. With Serena Williams as an adviser, one might expect tennis to follow soon. A Morningstar survey showed that tennis and golf are among the most lucrative sports in terms of willingness to bet money.

Dapper Labs has also done well. At the end of last year, it raised $250 million at a rumored valuation of $7.5 billion, bringing the bankroll to more than $600 million. He also founded the Flow blockchain on which all his NFTs are placed.