Event Ticketing is Broken: Web3 is Here to Fix it.

The first in our series of Guest Articles on Web3 in Sports is written by James Mooney of Jeike, a UK based Mobile ticketing platform built on the blockchain

More than a Buzzword

Many people think of Web3 as the same as the metaverse, blockchain and NFTs. In some conversations, the terms become interchangeable. But the metaverse, blockchain, and NFTs are all parts of the broader Web3 landscape.

The purpose of Web3 is simple: To offer a decentralized internet, allowing people to own digital assets. It is why so many industries, not just sports, are trying to implement Web3 principles into their operations.

Web3 movements have already found their place in supply chains, healthcare and car production, with decentralized technology quickly evolving to becoming fully functional.

One of the areas of the web3 landscape that has gathered attention is NFTs. What started as digital artwork becoming a social media profile picture has become a source of value to the end users. For sports brands, this means the utility where fans and event organizers benefit.

NFT Ticketing for live events is quickly becoming an important way of offering utility while fixing a broken industry.

Why is Event Ticketing Broken?

Ticketing has been in the firing line of criticism for many years. And rightfully so. Bad experiences have burned many a sports fan and team.

• Scalpers & Black Markets: Buying tickets in bulk and resale on secondary markets at inflated prices has become commonplace for high-profile events. In some cases, inflated prices are as high as 5x the original face value. Accounting for over 20% of event ticket sales globally, the only winners are those selling the tickets. Event organizers do not share any profits, and fans face high prices without guaranteeing ticket authenticity.
• Event and Customer Data: Event organizers rarely have a complete picture of the fan attending their event. Ticketing companies may share some basic demographic or buyer profile information, but granular data of a fan’s behaviour is unavailable. As a result, event organizers cannot offer personalized campaigns and more helpful support.
• Poor Fan Engagement: Live events should be a source of fun and excitement for fans. Unfortunately, the experience is regularly tainted by having up to 40% of event tickets purchased by bots, technology flaws entering a venue or a complicated process for accessing tickets. Fans and event organizers are the end-users but are regularly the ones most pained by the problems of existing solutions and models.

How NFT Ticketing is Fixing a Broken Industry

The online ticketing market is said to reach $68 billion by 2025 without any innovation changing the landscape. However, NFT ticketing, and the perks that make live event fan engagement easier, are beginning to become tangible value-adds for sports brands.

Central to the success of NFT ticketing is the transparency of ownership, secure event access, a controlled secondary ticket marketplace and fan incentives.

• Transparency of Ownership & Authenticity for Fans: By definition, more than one fan can’t have the same NFT ticket because they cannot be duplicated. This means it is near impossible to forge tickets. Alongside that, transparency of ownership helps further eliminate non-authentic tickets from circulation. Fans who wish to attend can easily see a dedicated timeline of who has owned the ticket and when. With transparency, event organizers also know precisely who the attendee is, opening the opportunity for further fan engagement. The Champions League final in Paris is an example, as chaos overran the event with claims that 70% of the tickets sold were fake. Offering NFT tickets could have helped eliminate counterfeit tickets.
• Protection and Upside for Event Organizers: A blockchain based secondary ticket marketplace protects fans and event organizers. There is only one location to purchase tickets, meaning each ticket has a unique registration of ownership providing easier control. In addition, through smart contracts, event organizers can set resale prices and even claim a percentage of any future transaction fee on secondary fan-to-fan sales. A web3 secondary ticket marketplace makes it easier for event organizers to control distribution, increase revenues & enhance engagement. During the 2021 season, the NFL together with Ticketmaster distributed 500k complimentary virtual commemorative tickets as NFTs with more to come in 2022.
• Post event engagement, Fan incentives & POAPs: As the event organizer controls the customer experience, digital incentives, such as memberships or digital assets, can be easily promoted and distributed to the fanbase. In addition, the evolution of tokens and mobile wallets (apps) will continue to offer more utility and opportunity for fan incentives. Coachella used NFT tickets to help fans create digital memories. If you haven’t heard about Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAPs) then you can read more about them here. The idea is simple, based on confirmed participation in an event, the attendees receive additional rewards to drive further engagement. For example, 2021 US Open attendees had exclusive rights to purchase NFTs after the event, thereby potentially increasing the value of their own ticket. The 2022 Superbowl was another high-profile event that rewarded fans with NFTs for attending.

How Easy is it to Adopt NFT Ticketing?

Introducing NFT ticketing itself is fairly straightforward and almost feels like a no-brainer. There are scalable NFT ticketing solutions already available. At the same time, high-profile sports events have implemented the technology as an add-on for hospitality ticketing or as a means for fans to claim a digital certificate of attendance.

With the ease of integration with other ticketing suppliers and technology systems (such as NFC), cost-effectiveness and the easy scalability of NFT ticketing, coupled with the introduction of new utility, mainstream adoption is likely to be quick. NFT tickets are becoming commonplace in the music industry, and the sports market should be next.

Jeike Ticketing is fixing the problem of existing ticketing technology to offer more protection to fans, better control to event organizers, and a mobile engagement platform to onboard more fans onto the web3 space.

Rohn Malhotra is a Co-Founder at Berlin based SportsTechX — Data & insights about SportsTech startups and the surrounding ecosystem. You can get in touch via LinkedIn or email.