RealFevr, a Portuguese startup company specialising in fantasy football, has reported a revenue of $1.5 million generated through the sale of football-themed NFTs.

The company sold 75,000 digital collective tokens within 24 hours after making the packs available to customers on 12 August, with the ‘highlight’ pack featuring Portuguese midfielder Bruno Fernandes.

The Manchester United player was featured on an exclusive NFT depicting his celebration after scoring a goal for Sporting CP during the 2017/2018 season.

Making its digital products available across three categories –  Basic, Rare and Super Rare – RealFevr sold 5,000 Super Rare packs and 15,000 rare packs for a total of $1 million, with the remaining $500,000 made through the sale of around 55,000 Basic releases.

RealFevr facilitated the sale of the NFT packs via its $FEVR cryptocurrency token, first launched on global crypto ‘launchpad’ Polkastarter on 8 July with an initial price of $0.0006, and has experienced growth of over 1,600% to $0.01 to reach a market capitalisation of over $20 million.

“It is clear proof that Portuguese companies can compete internationally at the  highest level and with impressive results,” explained Fred Antunes, RealFevr CEO, who described the deal as a ‘historic moment’ both for the company and for Portugal.

“It is an honor to lead this team and we are not done yet. This is just one step on the long road we have envisioned and that motivates us to keep working hard.”

RealFevr has confirmed plans to release a second round of products, including one NFT featuring Ronaldo’s first goal as a professional player whilst at Sporting CP in the early 2000s, whilst Diogo Jota and other famous players have appeared in other releases.

The announcement comes as consumer interest in NFTs continues to grow, with fantasy sports and sports betting operator DraftKings launching its DraftKings Marketplace last week.

Meanwhile, sports organisations have become increasingly drawn towards NFTs as a means of generating income and engaging with their followers, with the French Football Federation (FFF) and Burnley FC of the Premier League exploring blockchain technology for these purposes.

Outside of football, global sports streaming service DAZN released its own range of NFTs ahead of the Super Middleweight unification bout between Billy Joe Saunders and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez on 8 May, whilst Ethernity has partnered with National Hockey League (NHL) star Alex Ovechkin to launch a range of releases.