NFT
Sports Illustrated today announced Box Office, a new NFT ticketing platform built on Polygon, an Ethereum scaling network. The move marks the legendary sports brand’s entry into primary ticketing alongside the secondary marketplace SI Tickets that launched in 2021.
Box Office is now part of SI cards, the online marketplace that resells tickets for major sports, concerts and theater events. Rather than focusing on the biggest sports and music events, Box Office welcomes ticket listings from smaller community events that would normally appear on ticketing sites like Eventbrite or DICE.
“We are not here to compete against Ticketmaster, SeatGeek or AXS. We are focusing on the self-service event market,” said David Lane, CEO of SI Tickets Decrypt.
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“We are trying to bring about the first mass market adoption of NFT ticketing,” he continued, “so that anyone from a 15-year-old to a 90-year-old can buy their first NFT ticket without going through a blockchain crypto tutorial , or having to buy a wallet and understand all aspects of it.
Box Office is built with Ethereum software studio ConsenSys.
Box Office’s NFT tickets can be found in the SI Tickets mobile app. In addition to granting access, event organizers can also equip tickets with content such as photo and video highlights, collectibles, personalized messages, promotional offers and loyalty rewards to attract fans. Content can be recorded and uploaded before, during and after an event.
For example, tickets for an upcoming Texas youth soccer championship — which seats up to 2,000 fans — will be listed on Box Office. In addition to youth sports, Box Office expects to list both free and paid tickets from partnered music venues, nightclubs, corporate conferences, private parties, fitness and yoga studios, comedy clubs, religious retreats and charity organizers.
“As the global economy continues to recover from the pandemic, we expect live events, concerts and sporting events to regain their pre-pandemic popularity.” Johnna Powell, Global Co-Head of ConsenSys NFTsaid in a statement Decrypt. “The combination of these factors suggests that consumer demand for NFT ticketing for events will increase in the coming years.”
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Lane claims that SI’s Box Office has a 20% lower cost structure than Eventbrite. Fans can also transfer their tickets to NFT marketplaces and other secondary ticketing platforms such as Vivid Seats, SeatGeek and Stubhub to resell their Box Office NFT tickets.
Sports illustrated offers a 50-50 revenue split on resale with event organizers and artists, and will do so by tracking the on-chain data of Box Office transactions.
“You always get paid when your ticket sells, but you don’t participate in resale of it on the secondary market – but that’s what changes here,” Lane said.
“We share 50-50 with our partners. They get 50% of resale revenue,” he added. “For the events that have resale value, this is one of the great benefits of NFT ticketing. So I really believe this will become the standard as we go forward.”
Users who purchase a ticket on Box Office will also receive a $10 bonus for purchasing tickets to any of the 250,000 major events listed on the secondary marketplace SI Tickets, which list A-list events in addition to Box Office events in the same app appear.
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“Your event will be listed on our site alongside the area’s biggest sporting, concert and theater events,” said Lane. “[Organizers] are no longer relegated to a hyperlocal Eventbrite-esque landing page. You’re literally right next to Taylor Swift, Billy Joel, and the Knicks. It gives great visibility to any event that wants to partner with us.”
The NFL has been offering free NFT memorial virtual tickets on Ticketmaster since 2021 for fans who purchased traditional tickets to attend games, while MLB’s partnership with Candy Digital also includes commemorative NFT tickets. Ticket master introduced an Ethereum NFT token gating feature for artists in March to give their NFT fans early access to tickets.
“[Box Office] is really about the mass adoption of NFT ticketing — not about novelty, niche, limited quantities,” Lane said. “This is something that anyone can use. It applies to any type of event. We expect this to be the entry point for millions to enter blockchain and get their first NFT ticket.”