Sports Illustrated Tickets was launched in 2021 during the global pandemic, a moment when the live events industry was facing unprecedented disruption. Recognizing both the challenge and the opportunity, the leadership team, together with Authentic Brands Group, the owner of Sports Illustrated, identified a clear gap in the ticketing market that the SI brand was uniquely positioned to address.

At the time, fan loyalty toward any single ticketing platform was virtually nonexistent. Purchasing decisions were largely driven by price, while public sentiment toward ticketing companies remained overwhelmingly negative. This landscape opened the door for a trusted, iconic and globally recognized brand to rethink and elevate the ticket-buy­ing experience, positioning Sports Illustrated Tickets as a platform built on credibility, transparency and a deeper connection with fans.

SI Tickets is led by CEO David Lane, who helped launch the marketplace to modernize how fans buy and sell event tickets. Its core services center on providing a global marketplace for sports, concerts and theater tickets, offering access to tens of millions of tickets across hundreds of thousands of live events. In addition to the secondary ticket marketplace, the platform provides event management and primary ticketing solutions through its “Box Office” system, which enables organizers to create, manage and promote events while using blockchain-based digital tickets that can include rewards, collectibles and fan engagement features.

In this exclusive interview with Business Fortune, David Lane shares insights into how Sports Illustrated Tickets is redefining the ticketing ecosystem through blockchain-powered solutions, global marketplace scale and immersive fan experiences. He also discusses the company’s strategy for balancing primary and secondary ticketing while expanding into new markets and live event partnerships.

Interview Highlights

What are the core products and offerings SI Tickets provides to fans and event organizers? How do these differ from competitors in the ticket marketplace space?

Sports Illustrated Tickets has built a highly diversified ticketing ecosystem designed to serve both fans and rightsholders across the global live events industry. At its foundation is a comprehensive platform that supports the entire live event value chain.

A key component is its global secondary marketplace, which features more than $2.5 billion in live inventory and over 50 million tickets across sports, concerts and theater, all available on SITickets.com. This marketplace provides fans with broad access to events while giving sellers the scale, liquidity and reach needed to connect with audiences worldwide. SI Tickets also includes Box Office, a leading primary event management software solution built on the Avalanche blockchain. This technology enables efficient event management while introducing transparency and security into ticket distribution.

In addition, Sports Illustrated Tickets operates as one of the largest asset traders in the ticketing space, treating tickets as a dynamic asset class. This capability allows us to help partners intelligently buy, sell and optimize inventory across major global marketplaces with exceptional precision and market insight.

What further distinguishes Sports Illustrated Tickets is its focus on fan experience, engagement and premium hospitality. Through initiatives such as SI Fan Covers, fans receive instant commemorative digital covers featuring their photo from the game. SI Defining Moments draws on more than 70 years of Sports Illustrated editorial history to create curated exhibits that celebrate team legacies. Faces in the Crowd captures fans’ reactions during key moments using strategically placed 4K cameras, turning those memories into personalized keepsakes.

We elevate in-venue hospitality from premium Club SI experiences (Formula 1, Kentucky Derby, Super Bowl, Sports Illustrated Stadium) to custom-branded spaces like the Sports Illustrated Pavilion at Gillette Stadium and the Cover Club at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. With curated culinary offerings, immersive activations and exclusive perks, every moment is crafted in a way only SI can.

How does Sports Illustrated Tickets balance its role as both a secondary marketplace and a primary ticketing platform while managing a massive global inventory of tickets across sports, concerts and theater?

Operating across both primary and secondary ticketing gives us a unique position in the market. With our Box Office solution on the primary side and our global secondary marketplace, we sit alongside companies like Ticketmaster and SeatGeek in terms of our ability to support partners across the full ticketing ecosystem. At the same time, this structure provides a strong competitive advantage over pure secondary marketplaces such as StubHub. By offering both services, we can support partners on either side of the market while expanding our ability to compete across the broader ticketing landscape.

Further, managing more than $2.5 billion in ticket inventory across sports, concerts and theater requires a platform built for scale and efficiency. One advantage we had from the beginning was the absence of legacy systems that often create operational challenges. Without outdated infrastructure to work around, we were able to design our ecosystem with flexibility and growth in mind. Our development strategy has focused on learning from competitors, adopting proven best practices and avoiding many of the mistakes that have historically slowed innovation in the ticketing industry. This approach allowed us to build a platform capable of organizing and maintaining a massive global marketplace while delivering accurate, reliable access for fans around the world.

What technical or logistical challenges have you faced in integrating blockchain technology and NFT ticketing into your Box Office platform?

Integrating blockchain technology and NFT ticketing into our Box Office platform came with both technical and logistical challenges but they were challenges we deliberately chose to solve in service of a better fan experience.

From a technical standpoint, the primary hurdle was building blockchain functionality that operates seamlessly behind the scenes. Fans don’t want to “learn blockchain” to attend an event, so we focused on abstracting the complexity ensuring wallet creation, ticket transfers and gate scanning feel just as fast and intuitive as traditional ticketing. Scalability and reliability at venue level were also critical, which is why we partnered with best-in-class Avalanche blockchain to support high transaction volumes, low latency and real-time performance on event days.

Logistically, the biggest challenge was industry readiness. Venues, promoters and access-control providers are deeply entrenched in legacy systems. We invested heavily in integrations that allow blockchain tickets to coexist with existing infrastructure so venues can adopt the technology without disrupting operations, retraining staff or replacing hardware.

Ultimately, by prioritizing fan simplicity, venue compatibility and enterprise-grade reliability, we’ve been able to deploy blockchain ticketing in a way that enhances, not complicates, the live-event experience.

With access to over 50 million tickets globally, what markets or event categories are you prioritizing next?

Over the next 24 months, Sports Illustrated Tickets plans to expand its presence across sports and live entertainment by securing new primary ticketing partnerships and hosting major concerts and events at Sports Illustrated Stadium in June and July.  During the eight-week World Cup window, the company will collaborate with NVRDUL Events, Red Bull New York, Sports Illustrated, and the New York New Jersey Host Committee to stage fan events, featuring headline concerts, live match viewings, immersive fan experiences, dynamic corporate activations, premium hospitality, cultural programming and community events. At the same time, deeper integration with the Sports Illustrated brand will enhance the fan journey from discovery to event day.

On the technology front, new features will include expanded blockchain ticketing, improved mobile experiences and fan rewards programs that link ticket purchases with exclusive SI content and hospitality access.

Internationally, the company is entering selected markets where the SI brand is strong. It has also expanded its NFL collaboration to include the league’s first game in Madrid and major watch parties in Madrid and London, while exploring partnerships with European football clubs.

“Fans don’t want to learn blockchain to attend an event so we focused on making the technology work seamlessly behind the scenes.”