The NFL Is Giving NFTs to Fans Attending Super Bowl LVI
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Fans buying a ticket to next weekend’s Super Bowl will get more than just a seat to the Big Game in Los Angeles: they’ll receive their very own non-fungible token, too.
The NFL announced this week that it is providing Super Bowl attendees with customized NFTs, in the form of virtual tickets featuring their section, row and seat number. The league, in partnership with Ticketmaster, will also release a series of “historic commemorative” NFTs each day in the week leading up to the game on Feb. 13, while gameday itself will bring the release of an NFT featuring the Super Bowl LVI ticket artwork, designed by a local Southern California-based artist.
The two Super Bowl finalists—the hometown Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals—have also had specific NFTs minted in their honor for the occasion. The winner of the contest will see their own championship-commemorating NFT released later this month, the NFL said.
This isn’t the NFL’s first experiment with the booming digital assets. The league began offering “virtual commemorative ticket NFTs” during the regular season and “witnessed great success” with the effort, it said. This year’s Super Bowl will only feature mobile ticketing, granting the NFL another opportunity to experiment with NFTs.
“Offering customized Super Bowl NFTs allows us to enhance the gameday experience, while also enabling us to further evaluate the NFT space for future ticketing and event engagement opportunities,” Bobby Gallo, the NFL’s senior vice president for club business development, said in a statement.
NFTs are digital assets verified by blockchain technology, giving their owners proof of authenticity and ownership. Entertainment companies in the music, movie and gaming industries have been quick to sell NFTs—even if the jury is still out on whether they’re just a fad or a multibillion-dollar industry in the making. The sports world has joined the NFT craze, too, with L.A.-area startups raising millions of dollars to merge sports with crypto.
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Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
