Lasting Connections: Heroes Den Bosch — The First Ever Sports Evolving Collectibles
GET Protocol’s Heroes Showcase: https://www.nft.get-protocol.io/heroes
In this Lasting Connection series, we take a look at how NFT Ticketing through GET Protocol is extending the lifecycle of a ticket by forging meaningful, deeper connections between fans and creators in the events industry.
Let’s dive into the ways Dutch National Championship winning basketball team, Heroes Den Bosch used their NFT Tickets post-event during the 2021–2022 playoffs & finals.
The second that you step into the Heroes Den Bosch home ground, the Maaspoort, you’re instantly greeted by a wave of electrifying atmosphere that could easily make you believe that you’re sitting at any of the greatest basketball venues in the US. Whether it be the up-tempo soundtrack that whips up the crowd, the familiar chants of support from those in the ground and announcements that build on the experience, time spent in the Maaspoort is hard to forget.
It’s this energy that hangs in the air, that demonstrates the ability for fans to shape the momentum in favour of their team when it truly counts. Heroes are no slouches in this department, clearly understanding this phenomenon innately and using it to perfection by giving fans all the encouragement and opportunities needed to make their voices heard.
It’s no surprise for a team that values the fan connection so greatly, that NFT Tickets represented a wonderful opportunity to further the connection between every fan and the team post-event.
For the 2021–22 playoffs, GET Protocol user, GUTS Tickets facilitated NFT Tickets that became post-event collectibles which preserved spectacular highlights from each Heroes match.
Every fan could look back on cherished games with a tangible momento capturing the tense moments of days gone by.
From Crazy Play - To Captured Collectible
First Of It’s Kind — Evolving Collectibles
With GET Protocol’s NFT Ticketing infrastructure, we were keen to explore the storytelling possibilities on offer from post-event NFT collectibles.
One of these features was the ability to update NFT imagery through a mechanism known as a ‘metadata update’.
This allows for an NFT collectible to update depending on certain conditions, whether they be a physical activation or a milestone achieved by the event organiser or artist, the ability to continue the storytelling of an event offers a lot of flexibility.
Naturally, for high octane occasions, evolving collectibles are the perfect canvas to record sporting moments as the NFT collectible itself, going from a static ‘cardback’ to a highlight play.
The 2021–22 Heroes Den Bosch NFT Tickets were the first ever evolving collectibles used at a sporting event, going from static card back, to dynamic play & more..
Hero Worthy Moments
As Heroes went from the Semi Finals with Donar Groningen to the Finals vs Leiden in May, the competition swiftly became fierce.
Heroes took game one with a win of 92–83 on the 21st May, but as they headed into the second game, momentum faltered and Leiden picked up two successive wins, 87–68 & 90–74 to put the series at 1–2.
Heroes crucially needed to win back to back to take victory and facing an uncertain outcome, they dug deep on the 27th May during the fourth game on home turf. A truly back and forth occasion resulted in Heroes evening out the series, winning 61–52 with the roaring fans edging them on to the ultimate game of the series away at Leiden.
Click — Clay Mounce faces off at the bucket and brings home points for Heroes — captured as that game’s collectible.
As the final game took place, Heroes continued to demonstrate their flair under pressure, securing a boisterous 81–74 win over Leiden, taking the series 3–2 to become the ‘Landskampioen’ — Dutch national league winners for the 17th time.
Once an Evolving Collectible, Always an Evolving Collectible
The beauty of evolving collectibles, is that they’re always dynamic & can evolve to reflect the extreme moments on offer from a sport such as Basketball.
With a momentous occasion now sealed in the history books, it was only fitting to give each previously issued collectible from the playoffs a retrospective evolution to showcase Heroes’ championship win.
‘We should gild them’ was the thought passed around the GET Protocol office and with Heroes in firm agreement at the idea, the action was purveyed with every collectible granted a golden gilding.
A Final Distribution To Close The 21–22 Collectible Chapter
In July 2022, just over a month since the championship win, an idea was floated to reward NFT Ticket holders from the national playoffs games with an additional commemorative collectible that could capture the feeling of 17 championship wins.
Thanks to GET Protocol’s infrastructure, creating a ticket shop for such an occasion could be done rather easily provided it was combined with communication to past ticket holders.
Every fan who attended a playoff game had a week to get a free ticket and subsequent collectible.
Onwards to the 22–23 Season
With the next season kicking off in October and a full playoffs worth of experience giving ample fuel for brainstorming, the 22–23 season provides the opportunity to extend the post-event utility to allow Heroes to engage with those that claim their digital collectible.
At GET Protocol, we want to provide as open, permissionless and flexible a post-event utility strategy as possible for event organisers and ticketing partners. Thanks to Web3, the ability to ‘plug and play’ post-event NFT Tickets into countless platforms is always on the table, so we remain incredibly excited to see what the next season will bring for the fan — creator connection at Heroes matches!
If you’re interested in checking out Heroes Den Bosch further and attending a match to see the flow in person and experience the atmosphere at the Maaspoort, head to the Heroes website:
As always, you can stay up to date with us at GET Protocol on our Twitter and here on Medium. We look forward to showcasing the lasting connection on offer with NFT Tickets through further examples in the near future.
