SBJ Power Up: Ticketing and experiences a haven for crypto and NFTs

By Jason Wilson

Crypto winter is coming for Binance and Coinbase, but it looks like one sector may not only be surviving but also growing. SBJ's Bret McCormick breaks down how sports leagues and teams are looking at NFTs in a different way.

Today's Power Up looks at:

The Credenza project is one of the blockchain-powered efforts plugging along in the background of the crypto winter and the NFT market's plunge in interest, relevance and value, writes SBJ's Bret McCormick in this week's magazine.

Fan experience-related blockchain efforts centered on universal identity, like Credenza, and blockchain ticketing projects are still of interest to the sports world despite the tech's sudden fade into the background and AI's equally sudden seizure of the zeitgeist. The Professional Fighters League, F1 and SI Tickets have all recently launched NFT ticketing programs on blockchains.

Credenza, which has raised around $2 million total from investors, and its main product is Passport, which serves as connective tissue across all the digital and real-world fan experience touchpoints, like ticketing, concessions, merchandise, sports betting and ingress.

Another project come from True Tickets, which isn't building a new ticketing company powered by blockchain, but rather creating an enforcement engine for rightsholders that can be coded into the ticket at creation and integrated into any ticketing system.

The Nuggets have not earned a championship ring yet, but they’ve earned VR, reports SBJ's Tom Friend from Denver.

By reaching the NBA Finals, the team was able to co-sign on the NBA Cares Finals Legacy Project -- presented by YouTube TV -- and donate a STEM Lab to the Arthur E. Johnson Boys & Girls Club near downtown Denver.

Between Games 1 and 2 of the championship series last week, the team cut the ribbon on a refurbished classroom that now houses an immersive Smart Board allowing students to learn via virtual reality headsets. A Smart Board generally costs between $2,000-$4,000 and enables teachers to interact with students through live TV programming and Oculus headgear.

The educational room was littered with technology, including state-of-the-art laptops and a Dremel DigiLab 3D printer compatible with Chromebooks and iPads. The space was also updated with new flooring, furniture, wall graphics and paint. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Nuggets Vice Chairman Josh Kroenke and Nuggets players DeAndre Jordan, Christian Braun, Ish Smith, Jeff Green and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope all attended the ceremony -- engaging with the approximate 50 children on hand.

CBS Sports formed a strategic collaboration with Hype Sports Innovation to augment its broadcast technology by tapping into Hype's network of startups, reports SBJ's Joe Lemire.

Founded in Israel back in 2015, Hype has a portfolio of more than 250 sports tech companies and counts 100 brands, clubs and federations as partners. CBS Sports will investigate AI, AR, VR and remote broadcasting tools.

Symphony will develop Karate Combat's DAO, a Web3-native decentralized autonomous organization structure that will grant its fans and athletes governance power, reports SBJ's Joe Lemire. It is believed to be the first professional sports league to do so.

The Karate Combat app enables management decisions of the league by fans and fighters. Fans can earn $Karate tokens to vote on upcoming matchups, make rule changes, determine the budget and more.

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