NBA on TNT launching digital fan rewards program

Contained in the NBA followers can earn digital tokens for appropriately answering trivia questions that may be redeemed for NFT video highlights or different real-world prizes and merchandise.Courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports activities

Warner Bros. Discovery Sports activities is launching B/R Watch 2 Earn, a brand new blockchain-based trivia and fan rewards program that can debut throughout tonight’s Contained in the NBA on TNT broadcast. Viewers will obtain digital tokens for appropriately answering trivia questions that may be redeemed for NFT video highlights from Contained in the NBA or different real-world prizes and merchandise equivalent to T-shirts, hoodies, and props from the studio present.

NFT gaming firm Immutable X has partnered with WBD Sports activities to develop B/R W2E tokens, which bridges linear tv with Web3 collectibles. Beginning with tonight’s Contained in the NBA broadcast at 7:30 p.m. ET, viewers will see 5 on-screen trivia questions. Questions will give attention to basketball and features associated to Contained in the NBA that ardent followers would know, equivalent to particulars associated to hosts Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. Followers can go to BRW2E.com to reply the questions. A QR code will seem throughout broadcasts for followers to scan with their smartphone to ship them to the trivia net web page as effectively.

“With blockchain and digital collectibles, followers have a novel strategy to be engaged with the present and take part within the present in fascinating methods,” says Yang Adija, SVP of Digital League Enterprise Operations, Progress & Innovation at WBD Sports activities. “We wish to get to a spot the place you acquire tokens and you can impression what you may even see on air. So the extra that you just take part, the extra you may get concerned.”

Just like how Dapper Labs’ NBA High Shot as soon as popularized amassing NFTs of video highlights from NBA gamers and video games, WBD Sports activities will flip signature TV moments from Contained in the NBA into digital collectibles. “Shaq getting pushed [by Kenny Smith] by means of that Christmas tree, I believe that will be a pleasant one to have. There shall be moments within the present each present in addition to historic that we’ll have accessible as collectibles,” Adija says.

WBD Sports activities plans to proceed the trivia integrations for all Contained in the NBA broadcasts at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays in addition to TNT’s NBA postgame protection. If it proves to achieve success, the community hopes to increase B/R Watch 2 Earn to different programming. WBD’s Bleacher Report plans to launch a centralized B/R Market later this yr for followers to bid and purchase collectibles and redeem prizes primarily based on tiers of engagement. NBA on TNT character Adam Lefkoe will host a Twitter House to advertise the trivia-connected digital collectibles, with the community’s Discord and Twitter channels additionally advertising and marketing the activations.

“I believe our avid followers are going to be those that can take part,” Adija provides. “We’re hoping this may even skew to that youthful viewers that is accepting of know-how and the evolution of it. However we additionally assume that the simplicity of trivia and redeeming tokens or tickets is acquainted to everybody. We expect that it’s going to resonate with our complete fan base.”

Chiliz, the mother or father firm of crypto fan token agency Socios, has partnerships with LiveLike and FanFest which can be equally centered on bringing “watch to earn” blockchain-backed collectibles to broadcasters and media companions. Bleacher Report’s first NFT assortment launched with OpenSea in March 2021 as a digital artwork collaboration with rappers 2 Chainz, Jack Harlow, Lil Child, and Quavo across the 2021 NBA All-Star Weekend. Within the close to two years since, valuations within the cryptocurrency and NFT markets have been marred by the financial collapses of companies equivalent to FTX, Voyager, and Terra.

“I believe with the downturn, it allowed us to actually give attention to the worth proposition of why we’re doing this,” Adija says. “On the peak of the NFT and crypto-mania, folks had been valuation of tokens, and that is by no means been our focus — it is actually on fan worth, fan engagement. This market and calmer surroundings I believe is appropriate for us to do this now. This isn’t a buying and selling foreign money […] for us it is actually a redemption in order that followers can have interaction with the collectibles and redeem prizing.”