For games during the upcoming season, MLB and Candy Digital will release commemorative NFT tickets. The non-fungible tokens will not be used to gain entry to a game, but rather as a digital keepsake for fans in a world without paper tickets.
“As tickets have become more and more of a digital product, fans have lost the ability to collect a ticket stub as a memory of the game they attended or a memorable event that happened in a game,” MLB EVP of business development Kenny Gersh said Tuesday at the league’s midtown Manhattan headquarters. “To represent those tickets, we’re now giving a series of NFTs.”
Sales on Candy Digital of MLB’s Standard Game Ticket NFTs will be limited to fans who bought tickets to attend the game affiliated with that NFT. Gersh expects the commemorative NFTs to be sold for under $10 and include video of a memorable play from that ticket’s game. The NFL and Ticketmaster released commemorative NFT tickets to select regular season and post-season games last season, though those NFTs were limited to static images.
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MLB’s NFT tickets will also feature that ticket’s seat number and mention of a club sponsor in some cases. The New York Mets and San Francisco Giants are among 10 MLB clubs who will additionally gift season-ticket NFTs to their season-ticket holders. The complimentary NFTs will update throughout the season with that team’s record and scores from each game.
MLB’s third NFT ticket offering will be in the form of gameday giveaways. All 30 clubs will be able to offer commemorative NFTs to two games this season that Gersh compared to “the old bobblehead night.” Only fans in attendance at the ballpark will be eligible to receive that game’s themed NFT.
Separate to Candy Digital’s digital trading cards and commemorative ticket NFTs, Gersh also said that MLB is evaluating fan tokens and that the space has “a lot of upside and potential.” Teams in European soccer, the NBA, NHL and NFL have partnered with Chiliz, the Malta-based developer of Socios fan token crypto assets that give fans access to exclusive rewards, polls and other experiences.
“We are taking a hard-look at the fan token area, our marketing team is very focused on it as it relates to fan loyalty, we have a whole task force on it internally,” Gersh said. “I think you’ll see more of that coming this year.”
