In Brief:
- David Lane, CEO of Sports Illustrated Tickets, said “multiple Premier League stadiums” will go fully onchain in 2027, according to a post from Avalanche.
- SI Tickets holds 12-year deals with Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa, but both are built around hospitality and branding rather than primary ticketing.
- Its Box Office platform runs on Avalanche and took over ticketing for all events at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, starting with the 2026 season.
Sports Illustrated Tickets plans to move several English top-flight venues onto Avalanche, with chief executive David Lane saying “multiple Premier League stadiums” will go fully onchain in 2027, according to a post from Avalanche.
Neither the company nor the clubs have named the stadiums. There is no published timeline, and no Premier League club has confirmed that its primary ticketing will move to the Box Office platform.
BREAKING: Several new stadiums will be going onchain with @si_tickets_.
David Lane, CEO of Sports Illustrated Tickets, teased that "multiple Premier League stadiums" will go fully onchain in 2027.@AvalancheView on X ↗
What SI Tickets does have in England are two long contracts, both signed before any ticketing commitment.
What the club deals actually cover
Tottenham Hotspur signed a 12-year agreement on Sept. 25, 2025, making SI Tickets the club’s official fan experience partner and the first member of Tottenham’s “The Collective” sponsorship programme. The deal covers digital content and reworked hospitality spaces at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, including Club SI and The Cover Club.
Lane called the agreement “among the most significant milestones for Sports Illustrated Tickets to date.”
Aston Villa followed in May 2026 with its own 12-year partnership, starting with the 2026-27 season. It includes naming rights to the Sports Illustrated Warehouse at Villa Park, a 3,500-capacity hospitality and events space next to the ground, plus a hospitality pavilion branded Club SI and a matchday fan hub called the Sports Illustrated Tickets Plaza.
Lane said the Villa deal combines “premium hospitality and Sports Illustrated’s iconic storytelling,” and described it as a step in the company’s growth across the UK and European market.
Neither contract has been announced as a primary ticketing takeover. The 2027 target would be the first time SI Tickets pushed the onchain layer into an English stadium’s core ticket operation.
The New Jersey test case
The company’s proof point sits in Harrison, New Jersey. In December 2024 the New York Red Bulls and SI Tickets announced a 13-year partnership that renamed Red Bull Arena as Sports Illustrated Stadium, the first stadium naming rights deal in Sports Illustrated’s 70-year history.
Beginning with the 2026 season, Box Office handles ticketing for every event at the venue: Red Bulls and Gotham FC home matches, international soccer, youth events, concerts and watch parties. SI Tickets and Ava Labs have said that makes it the first major venue running all of its ticketing onchain.
Lane said Avalanche was picked for speed and scalability, and because custom subnets give the operator control over ticketing data.
The company’s framing has stayed consistent since: fans aren’t meant to notice the chain. Lane has argued the technology improves “security, transferability, and validation, and it creates additional capabilities for rightsholders.”
From Polygon to Avalanche
Box Office launched in May 2023 as a self-service event management and primary ticketing product built with ConsenSys and running on Polygon.
SI Tickets switched to Avalanche on Feb. 20, 2024, about 10 months later. Ava Labs bought a stake in the company as part of becoming its chain provider. At the time of the move, SI Tickets said roughly 300,000 tickets had been distributed through Box Office since launch.
The timing of the English push lines up with a rule change. Premier League clubs agreed at their June annual general meeting to phase in digital ticketing, making it mandatory across the league from the 2026-27 season.
That mandate says nothing about blockchains. It does force every club to rebuild how tickets are issued and transferred, which is the window SI Tickets is aiming at.
“Avalanche will help us continue to give our partner venues and events the ability to transform the ticket into dynamic content to further engage guests,” Lane said.
