- Sports Illustrated has migrated its NFT tickets platform from Polygon to Avalanche
- The move came after the two entered a partnership that will see Sports Illustrated’s ticketing arm mint its own collectibles
- Sports Illustrated’s NFT ticketing platform had spent roughly 10 months on Polygon
Sports Illustrated (SI) has announced that it is moving its NFT ticketing platform Box Office from the Ethereum layer 2 network Polygon to layer 1 blockchain Avalanche. The migration comes after the two entities signed a partnership that will see the birth of Box Office-based NFTs and the creation of engaging content for Box Office users. David Lane, the CEO of Sports Illustrated’s subsidiary that manages Box Office, SI Tickets, noted that moving to Avalanche will help popularize NFT tickets among the web3 community, a belief that may bear fruits considering the proliferation of digital tickets for both physical and virtual events.
New Dimensions of Value
According to Ava Labs’ business development executive John Nahas, the partnership comes at a time when event organizers are gravitating towards “Avalanche-powered NFT” tickets, adding that they’re capable of revealing new “dimensions of value by engaging fans in new ways.”
Announcing the partnership, Ava Labs presented Avalanche as a blockchain that has “very low transaction fees,” near-instant finality and high throughput, making it ideal for projects like Box Office that have “a high volume of attendees.”
Ava Labs noted that its partnership with Sports Illustrated reflects Avalanche’s growing interest in the blockchain ticketing space and its reliability as a web3 network.
NFTs for Free and Paid Events
When launching Box Office in May last year, SI Tickets described the platform as an event management platform that supports the creation and selling of tickets for both paid and free events.
Introducing Box Office, the all-new event management platform from Sports Illustrated Tickets 🎟️
Create and sell tickets for your own free or paid event on our site. Partner with us for an easy event set-up and lower fees than our competitors. #sitickets #sportsillustrated pic.twitter.com/84ASQkZUYg
— SI Tickets (@si_tickets_) May 2, 2023
The migration from Polygon to Avalanche comes at a time when Polygon is working to usher in Polygon 2.0 in its quest to become the value layer of the internet. It also comes five days after Citibank tapped Avalanche for tokenized securities.
Although Sports Illustrated didn’t indicate why it’s leaving Polygon, it’s likely Ava Labs is offering more benefits that fit into Box Office’s present and future plans.
