San Francisco 49ers veteran cornerback Richard Sherman has become a co-founder and chief brand ambassador of a new fantasy football platform called Daily Number.

The Super Bowl winner and three-time first team All-Pro, 30, says his involvement with Daily Number is not simply just a product endorsement but he will appear in the company’s marketing material. Sherman is thought to be one of the first NFL players, if not the first, to have a founding stake in a fantasy game, although others have previously acted as brand ambassadors.

Daily Number is initially launching in 23 states and positions itself as an alternative to other daily fantasy games by allowing players to set lineups that try to beat a preset ‘target score’ developed by proprietary algorithms.

"Fantasy football has been growing steadily over the years and I’ve wanted to get directly involved with it. It’s become such a huge industry," Sherman told US business publication Forbes earlier this week.

"It has better connected fans to players and I think it helps them know players better, plus the ups and downs (we) go through on the field. And it helps the biggest fans feel more invested in the game."

Chief executive Tom McAuley added: “We are driven by the opportunity to develop a proprietary platform and customer database that will be extremely valuable to many industry stakeholders as sports gaming continues to evolve in the United States."

Sherman’s move into fantasy sports comes as a surprise for a player who last year railed against the league’s injury reports existing only for the benefit of the gambling industry.

"Fantasy football, oh, my God,’’ he said the Seattle Times in September 2017. “They are almost as bad as the gamblers.”