National Football League, Ticketmaster to offer game tickets through NFTs
As part of its experiment with commemorative NFT ticket stubs, the National Football League awarded commemorative tickets to participants in select live games from the previous season, and now the league plans to introduce more games for the 2022 season.
Ticketmaster and the NFL are expanding their program for fans to receive free commemorative tickets as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
In 2021, more than half a million souvenir tickets were minted, including about 20 select regular season games, every playoff game, the Pro Bowl, and the NFL Draft. Every fan who scans his or her ticket upon entering the venue will be able to access NFTs for more than 100 games in 2022, including every Week 1 game and at least three home games for all 32 teams. However, unlike last year, there are no plans to offer some generic NFT tickets for sale to the public.
“We are still in the testing and learning phase of all of these NFT explorations,” said Abby Desai, who works for the NFL's Club Business Development team. “We wanted to offer something to fans of all 32 clubs in their local area.”
Fans opened NFT-related emails up to four times as often as standard marketing messages from the NFL in 2021, according to NFL data. A dedicated NFL marketplace powered by Ticketmaster allows fans to access and sell their NFTs.
In addition to digital goods such as artwork and collectibles, NFTs serve as proof of ownership. In 2021, the NFT market grew by 25 billion dollars in trading volume, and sports collectibles, such as NBA Top Shot, helped mainstream audiences discover tokenized digital collectibles.
Ticketmaster offers a marketplace for virtual ticket stub holders to resell their NFTs, and Desai said that the league saw secondary demand during the inaugural season. Desai noted that the league will be keeping an eye on resale interest with almost five times as many eligible regular season games this year, plus more NFTs offered for each game.
Desai noted that the league will be keeping an eye on resale interest with almost five times as many eligible regular season games this year, plus more NFTs offered for each game.
