Yahoo! Sports (04/12/21)
SeatGeek hopes to deploy a non-fungible token (NFT) prototype in time for the start of the 2021 National Football League (NFL) season and/or the 2021-2022 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. However, SeatGeek Chief Product Officer Eric Waller cautions that user experience constraints and fluid crypto prices complicate teams' transition to a full blockchain-based ticketing system. Also necessary is technological advancement and price stabilizatiion, though Waller believes the latter is on the way. "Innovation is happening in terms of new blockchains and new ways of using them that can help decrease and stabilize these costs," he said. Both technical limits and general skepticism about consumer NFT use cases have prompted SeatGeek to take a multi-year, three-phase approach to blockchain ticketing. The first phase involves minting NFTs as collectibles; the second employs blockchain to enable the fractional ownership of seats and suites; and the third phase would put tickets on a blockchain, where "literally, the thing fans are bringing to the gate on game day is an NFT," according to Waller. SeatGeek is in discussions with NFL and NBA teams — and with the leagues — to mint NFT collectibles this year, and Waller anticipates a September or October rollout.
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