In January, 900,000 visitors attended the Australian Open (AO) tennis event in real life, with remote visitors able to participate via the metaverse. AO expanded its web3 offering in 2023, with the goal of making AO the most accessible sports and entertainment event.

This year, the virtual events consisted of the AO Art Ball 2023 and the metaverse AO. AO Artball linked the NFTs to a 19x19cm chart on the tennis court, and if the winning shot of any Australian Open match hit the spot, the data was recorded in the NFT. The owner then received benefits such as wearables, the winning tennis ball in the event of a championship game, and ground passes for the final week of the tournament in the following year. The AO metaverse involved a virtual hosting of the game along with other virtual events in decentralanda 3D virtual world platform.

The Australian Open company is seen as one of the most successful sports event entries on web3. In an interview during yesterday’s SportsPro Ignition event, Australian Open’s Ridley Plummer discussed the innovations AO has made in this space and shed some light on learnings from their digital strategy.

While the company’s north star was making the sporting event accessible, it was also focused on adding value to product owners, making NFTs more than just a digital collectible. In this case, the NFTs doubled as digital membership for the event. For membership to be valuable to a customer, its benefits must extend over time and provide unique advantages beyond a regular game ticket.

In AO Artball, owning the NFT that scored a Match Point on court AO23 could win two tickets to the equivalent match in AO24. This aspect provided both an advantage and a sticky integration, meaning members would return to the product in successive years. Also, AO aimed to engage fans during the months when other tennis events are happening around the world.

The Initial Financial Conundrum of NFTs

However, considering all of the product’s add-on services, Plummer acknowledges the difficulty of ensuring a consistent revenue stream. While NFTs generate a lot of revenue in the beginning, most of the profits are reinvested in the services provided. To ease the financial pressure, AO aims to bring new members into the community on a constant basis. This is done through new versions of the NFTs every year. For example, in January 2022, you sold 6776 ArtBall NFT. In 2023, he presented Additional benefits and sold 2,454 new NFTs. And he plans to add about the same number each year.

Another part of AO’s strategy was to increase community involvement across the metaverse. This had to be done through services that are not conventionally provided. For example, a live stream of the game is not enough of an incentive for fans to keep visiting the metaverse space. Thus, the metaverse experience provides additional content such as behind-the-scenes footage, access to party events and interactions, activities that would not otherwise be available to a physical event visitor.

To unite these complementary services, the brand also requires reliable partners. For the metaverse experience, AO took advantage of Decentraland. In addition to providing a virtual real estate environment ready to host experiences, it also enabled the brand to sell sponsorship spaces in the metaverse. Given that the metaverse expands the physical experience with new images and engagement events, many brands find value in investing in it.