Sports Icon

TL;DR

Rebuilt Sports Icon's NFT trading platform from scratch, implementing blockchain integration, search functionality, and content management to create a seamless experience for sports fans entering the digital collectibles space.

About

Sports Icon is an NFT trading platform focused on sports stars, created by a team with backgrounds in sports management. Their vision was to bridge the worlds of blockchain and sports through digital collectibles. After an unsuccessful development attempt by another agency, they approached Antler Digital to rebuild the platform properly.

Challenge

The existing platform was partially built and suffered from quality issues that made it unsuitable. The client needed a complete rebuild that could handle blockchain transactions, display digital collectibles effectively, and scale with their ambitious growth plans. The platform needed to integrate with the Flow blockchain, provide robust search functionality, and allow for flexible content management.

Solution

I rebuilt the platform from the ground up using Next.js, creating a fresh codebase without the technical debt of the previous implementation. This involved developing custom components that could showcase the unique aspects of sports-related digital collectibles.

For blockchain functionality, I implemented integrations with Flow smart contracts, enabling secure minting, buying, and trading of NFTs on the platform. To make the growing collection of NFTs discoverable, I integrated Algolia for high-performance search and filtering.

Content management was handled through Contentful CMS integration, giving the Sports Icon team control over page content, athlete profiles, and collection information without requiring developer intervention for every update.

Result

The rebuilt platform provided Sports Icon with a stable, scalable foundation that properly represented their vision. Users could seamlessly discover, purchase, and trade sports NFTs while enjoying content about their favourite athletes. The blockchain integration worked reliably, while the search and content management systems made the platform accessible to users regardless of their blockchain expertise.