The sports based entertainment firm came up with an offer to sell 500 gold tier packages with the NFT for $1,000, but that did not seem lucrative to the fans who bought only a small portion of the offerings. “I speak so much about failure, and this concept ended in failure,” Cena said. “Myself and the WWE felt $1,000 was a reasonable pricing point. We were mistaken. We were completely incorrect. We sold 37 of them,” he said. “It was a colossal failure.”
Cena and WWE issued two levels of NFTs for the wrestler: a 24-hour sale of a “John Cena Platinum NFT” and 500 special edition NFTs as portion of the aforesaid bundle of tangible collectibles the next day. The platinum NFT allegedly sold for $21,000, with the winning bidder getting VIP seats to WrestleMania 38 in Dallas or WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles, along with lodging.
Even before the emergence of NFTs, the WWE veteran pushed the cryptocurrency sector on social networking sites. He posted a photo of the actual token well before 2017 Bitcoin (BTC) bull run, when the value was in the $4,000s. The Undertaker, a former professional wrestler who was a member of the WWE until 2020, has also appeared in NFT series.
It’s unknown if wrestling fans were put off by the NFT’s price — Cena himself assessed the digital image to be worth about $500 — or simply the tangible souvenirs. In July, a businessman held simultaneous bids for an Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resume and an NFT of the very same. The actual paper sold for $343,000, while the total amount for the NFT was 12 Ether (ETH), or around $27,460 at the time.