Just a few days ago, popular boxing champions, Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather and ‘Dangerous’ Don Moore confirmed an exhibition bout for the month of May. While this is good news for boxing lovers, the latest announcement has also sparked interest in a new trend in the cryptocurrency space.
According to the official statement released on Wednesday by the ‘Global Titans Fight Series’, the exhibition match between Mayweather and Don Moore will be held on the 14th of May, and will include an exclusive livestream pay-per-view for NFT ticket holders. Wait, did we just say ‘NFT ticket holders’? You’re absolutely correct.
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The exhibition bout will be hosted in Dubai at Burj al-Arab’s helipad, and the event organizer has made provisions for hybrid audience attendance. As a result, people can either walk into Burj al-Arab’s helipad to watch the match in person, or they can live-stream the event from anywhere in the world.
However, taking a step back from the typical method of streaming live events, the organizers of the exhibition bout are taking an unprecedented approach.
In what has now been tagged as the world’s first-ever NFT sports event, the match’s virtual stream will only be available to NFT ticket holders. As a result, spectators who are not physically present will be able to benefit from exclusive access to a pay-per-view stream via NFT tickets.
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Interestingly, this is not Mayweather’s first pay-per-view exhibition since his retirement back in August 2017. He has previously made headlines for a number of such exhibition fights, including those with Tennshin Nasukawa and Logan Paul in December 2018 and June 2021 respectively.
Regardless, the upcoming display marks the first of its kind to be backed by NFT technology, which makes it a truly sensational fight to look forward to for next month.
Considering that this will be the first NFT pay-per-view for a sports event, all interested viewers will be required to purchase tickets from ‘Rarible’ to enjoy exclusive access to the event.
What to Expect from the Merge of NFTs and Sports
Without a doubt, the virtual streaming of sports events is not a new initiative, and has been an age-long practice. However, it can’t be denied that the current methods employed for streaming sports events are not without their flaws.
The current dominant model of generating revenue via streaming services is not at its best, especially for organizers, who often have to sign a partnership deal with host streaming services for exclusive rights, thus hampering their audiences, and therefore revenue streams. For lack of a better explanation, people have to subscribe to services like DSTV, Hulu, ESPN, and so on to even have a chance to access some of these sports events.
While this practice is highly profitable for streaming services, it might not be the same experience for the organizers themselves, who largely have to wait to receive a portion of the streaming revenue.
However, all that is about to change with the integration of NFTs with sports, which introduces a new streaming and ticketing approach. To cut a long story short, NFT ticketing will foster the airing of exclusive content beyond the traditional method embraced by streaming services.
By combining NFTs and PPV, organizers can make revenue directly from the sale of NFT tickets, while airing the live show at a dedicated landing site. Though in the beginning this might not generate as much attention or buzz as the conventional methods might, it will certainly help organizers to maximize their revenue potential as time goes on.
In terms of the viewers, people can enjoy the luxury of exclusivity as they can brag about acquiring unique NFT access to a sports event, such as the upcoming exhibition bout between Mayweather and Don Moore.
In addition to bragging rights, NFT ticketing ensures that the number of screen views and the number of tickets sold is exactly the same. In comparison, most traditional streaming services offer multiple screen views, which means that a single subscription can provide access to up to five additional viewers, depending on the streaming service; and that’s not to mention viewing parties and get-togethers.
Lastly, the new ticketing approach eliminates some of the existing setbacks inherited by the traditional ticketing system, including black market sales which ultimately lead to a lack of trust among buyers who find it hard to identify the difference between a fake or genuine source.
The lack of true exchange protocols has also been a continual drawback to the traditional ticketing system, considering that it is nigh impossible to track customers, or exchange data beyond the boundaries of a supplier.
For instance, when an event is sold out, people often resort to secondary purchases. Sadly, when a ticket is sold again on the secondary market, it no longer belongs to the original buyer, whose details the event organizer has. Therefore, event organizers find it hard to track who is at their event. Likewise, it becomes hard to change the name on a ticket, let alone control how many times a ticket will change hands.
Ultimately, while the NFT use case is still in its infancy, it absolutely has the potential to disrupt the ticketing industry.
