Hey folks - Joe here - welcome to Edition #59 of The SEG3 Report.

Before we dive in, a quick heads up that today marks just four weeks to go until the marketing & tech innovators in media, entertainment, gaming and sports join us for SEG3 London. I look forward to seeing many of you there alongside the likes of:

Back to today’s edition, our spotlighted piece comes from Mark Shannon, Head of Digital Products at DP World Tour, and writer of The Sports Stack (which I highly recommend if sports tech is your thing). Mark delves into whether augmented reality can reignite sports memorabilia, and how the merging of technology and nostalgia can unlock new revenue streams for sports organisations.

I then take a dive into what the worlds most valuable sports IP is + Ninjas in Pyjamas partnership with Socios to expand their fan engagement platform, Dojo.

Enjoy…

Contents: Edition #59

• Is AR Resurrecting Sports Memorabilia?

• What is the Most Valuable Sports IP on the Planet?

• Ninjas in Pyjamas expand fan engagement platform with Socios

Is AR Resurrecting Sports Memorabilia?

Just last week, Eventshop, a Nashville-based company that creates AR-enhanced commemorative tickets and memorabilia for sports teams and events, acquired AR company Interactive Images, an AR technology firm that enables fans to upload personal content into interactive experiences, with strong ties to the music and entertainment industry.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: The pandemic destroyed the concert stub on your bedroom wall. Physical tickets went from universal to nearly extinct in less than three years, but what we lost in nostalgia, AR technology is now bringing back. While most sporting event tickets are now digital, fans are rediscovering the joy of collecting through improved memorabilia that combines the best of both worlds. For teams and artists, it can offer a new commercial, with fan data and sponsor integrations all wrapped into a $15 upsell. And with this being rolled out at the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics, we’ll very soon see if nostalgia is back in fashion.

In full: In 2019, physical tickets still dominated sporting events, but by 2022, they had become practically extinct.

The numbers tell a story of rapid change:

• SeatGeek saw mobile ticket transactions explode from 7% in 2012 to 68% by 2019. 

• U.S. college athletics went from almost zero digital-only teams to hundreds in just months during COVID. 

• The Premier League has mandated 100% digital ticketing for all clubs by the 2026/27 season. 

The benefits were undeniable: lower costs (no printing or postage), enhanced security (rotating barcodes, fraud prevention), valuable data collection for teams, and support for sustainability and zero waste targets. Sports teams and venues saved millions. Fans gained convenience. However, something intangible was lost: the physical thing that proved "I was there."

That's where Eventshop and Interactive Images identified an opportunity. While digital ticketing resolved operational headaches, it also created a void. Fans and concert-goers loved collecting moments and memories from their favourite games or events, and the physical ticket remained the easiest way to achieve this. 

The new player? Commemorative tickets that do more than sit in a drawer. They unlock AR highlights, house personal memories, and transform passive souvenirs into interactive experiences. By the way, they haven’t just brought back ‘tickets’; they’ve created data-rich, sponsor-friendly, infinitely customisable memory platforms that generate a new revenue stream for artists, sports teams, and venues. 

And with the addition of Interactive Images, it will allow fans to upload their content for use within the commemorative ticket experiences. This offers a more personalised and interactive way for fans to commemorate events. 

The Commemorative Ticket Business Model: Multiple Revenue Streams

Teams and artists can now turn a digital ticket into a $15 collectable, unlocking new sponsorship integrations worth millions and creating secondary markets that generate revenue long after the event is over. Fans can reclaim the memorabilia and nostalgia lost with the death of physical tickets, providing a real memory bank that is far superior to all the grainy 15-second videos recorded on their phones.

According to The Street, 16% of US fans surveyed who attend sporting events spend on merchandise. Using this as our baseline for commemorative ticket adoption, the revenue potential becomes clear:

NFL Example:

• Average 2024 attendance: 68,500 per game

• 16% adoption rate: 10,960 fans

• $15 upgrade price: $164,400 per game

• 8 regular season home games: $1.3 million annually per team

This does not include new sponsor activation revenue and is purely direct-to-consumer revenue. Also, this is just the baseline. Premium games (playoffs, rivalries, milestone events) could command upgrades of $25 to $40, with even higher adoption rates.

For a league like the NFL with 32 teams, even conservative adoption translates to $42 million in new annual revenue. That's found money with virtually no additional operational costs. (This is indicative, and not all regular season games will drive demand for the new commemorative ticket upgrade, but you understand the concept.) 

Scaling the Future of Nostalgia

As we approach the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 LA Olympics, Eventshop and Interactive Images are betting that fans not only want to remember the experience of being there but also want to own a piece of the moment that appreciates in value over time.

With major leagues already mandating digital ticketing and younger fans expecting everything to be interactive, AR-enhanced collectables may serve as a bridge between nostalgia and innovation. 

The true test will be whether this model can scale from early adopters to mainstream fans. If they nail the execution at FIFA and the Olympics, we could be looking at a blueprint for how every major event handles memorabilia by 2030.

What is the Most Valuable Sports IP on the Planet?

Two Circles has launched the Sports Revenue League to measure and rank the commercial performance of sports organisations globally. The report focuses on the total revenue generated by 200 of the world’s top rights holders and clubs, and aims to establish a long-term benchmark for the commercial value of sports IP.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: The data reinforces what we already know, live media rights still dominates, but it highlights the growing importance of diversifying revenue. From gaming to merch and licensing, IP owners are and need to continue looking for growth beyond the broadcast model, and the organisations that are strategic about how they can grow their IP will have the best chance of long-term success and relevance.

In full: The Sports Revenue League is a new initiative from Two Circles that benchmarks how well sports organisations are monetising their IP.

And in Sports, IP can mean a lot of things: everything from club crests, broadcast rights and player images to gaming licenses, merchandise and more. In short, if it can be bought, sold or licensed under the banner of a sports organisation, it counts.

Traditionally, monetisation of that IP has centred on three pillars: media, matchday and sponsorship. Together, those still account for more than 85% of revenue across the top 200 sports rights holders. Live media rights alone generate over $52 billion annually. But as we have discussed before, the model is beginning to stretch (just look at DAZN & Ligue 1’s breakup), so for long-term growth, rights holders need to think beyond the traditional playbook.

And the three areas highlighted in the report as the new growth levers?

Licensing, gaming and D2C products.

Despite these categories still being relatively small in comparison to the more established streams (at only $4.6 billion combined revenue), it’s where most of the green shoots are appearing, with growth in this bracket outpacing the more established categories.

So whilst in the near future, media rights will still underpin everything for premium IP owners, the ceiling is becoming clearer by the day, so finding new ways to monetise IP, whether through be D2C products/platforms or licensing into other areas of culture etc, is a necessity to future-proof the brand.

The biggest example of that? The US Polo Association - who are bringing in $2.5b a year, with the majority of that coming through merchandise and licensing. Absolutely incredible numbers.

It’s an outlier, but it goes to show the power that sports brands can have when they branch out and operate in wider culture - in fashion, gaming, music and entertainment. That cross-category relevance creates commercial value, and increasingly, could become far more important to the business model as media rights plateau.

So for rights holders, I think the report is a reminder that there is so much more to do with your brand, and IP is more than just a rights package to be sold every few years.

Ninja’s in Pyjamas & Socios partner for Fan Engagement platform, Dojo

Ninjas in Pyjamas has partnered with Socios to integrate fan rewards and engagement into their Dojo platform.

Why should you care?

TL;DR: The esports ecosystem is largely digital, so a digital rewards and engagement program that tracks fans interactions and behaviours is much easier to roll out than in traditional sports. As esports teams look for new ways to convert their global audiences into revenue, loyalty and rewards program will likely play a key role in giving NiP more data, more commercial insight and more control of their future away from talent & tournament success.

In full: Dojo is NiP’s fan engagement platform, originally launched in partnership with Zilliqa and XBorg in 2024 to consolidate fan activity into one place. Whether it’s watching content, attending events or sharing on social, the platform turns actions into points, and points as we all know, equals prizes.

This new partnership with Socios seems to add another layer to that system introducing trackable, tokenised interactions that offers fans more ways to engage, whilst giving NiP better visibility on who their most active supporters are.

It’s worth noting that this doesn’t seem to be Chiliz replacing Zilliqa as the chain that Dojo runs on - just Socios complementing and adding new fan engagement tools to complement what has already been built. Given Zilliqa and Socios (and by extension, Chiliz) would be seen as competitive, it’ll be interesting to follow along to see the how NiP manage the narrative & dynamic of two partners in the same category.

Hicham Chahine, NIP Group Founder and Co-CEO said:

Although esports is evolving, its digital-first roots means its well-positioned for loyalty innovation. Every touch points across their ecosystem already exists online, so they can track every click, view and interaction. That new insight makes it much easier to surface superfans.

And that’s incredibly important as D2C revenues will likely play a big part in stabilising esports teams’ commercial models.

So the ideal scenario for NiP is that the enhancement to Dojo helps NiP grow its D2C revenues, capture better data on new fans joining through their expansion into new titles and surfaces richer insights they can use to fuel more targeted sponsorships.

In other news this week…

• OfCom release Media Use & Attitudes report: read here.

• Logitech to feature in NASCAR iRacing: read here.

• Benfica partner with Feenix to launch kit into Roblox: read here.

• Epic Games to give 20% rewards for spend across ecosystem: read here.

• Rovio announces Angry Birds Slingshot Series: read here.

• Fenty Beauty announces WNBA partnership: read here.

• Wolves partner with Chinese sports broadcaster, Migu: read here.

• EBU and Karta launch Eurovision Roblox experience: read here.

• New York increases Film & TV tax credits to $800m: read here.

• Team Liquid acquires Team Gullit: read here.

• Tripledot buys Applovin for $800m: read here.

• San Antonio Spurs use of ChatGPT: read here.

• Premiership Rugby signs long-term deal with TNT Sports: read here.

• Ubisoft & VISA announce 3-year strategic partnership: read here.

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now folks - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report and if you found it of interest, do consider sharing with a friend!