After making waves in the music, art, gaming and fashion industries, NFTs are growing in popularity throughout the entertainment industry.

Arguably the biggest success for NFTs in 2023 so far has been the hugely successful minting of Reddit’s official super bowl LVII NFT avatars.

The platform offered free super bowl avatars to all Reddit users, who were able to mint one of four different styles based on the teams playing in the final.

According to blockchain data collected by Dune, users have minted roughly 10 million of these collectable avatars, and despite the value for them on the secondary market being very very low, the more important point is that millions of people who might not have heard of Web3 or NFTs before are being introduced to the technology in a highly accessible manner.

On the topic of the Superbowl, another huge piece of news in 2023, halftime performer Rihanna has released her first music NFT (MFT). The hit single “B**** Better Have My Money”, originally released in 2015, has been offered through start-up “anotherblock”.

Holders will be allowed a percentage of the streaming royalties generated by the song. The song has around a billion streams across all platforms, and buyers looking to purchase one of the fractionalized NFTs can pay $210 per piece for 0.0033% of the streaming royalties.

The holders would have received their first payout on the 16th of Feb and then every six months after that. Although the collection sold out in a matter of minutes, opensea has halted secondary sales of the NFTs.

They reportedly flagged the project and delisted it from the site without notifying the team, with one of the team members at another block stating that opensea does not allow the listing of NFTs that appear to be promising fractional ownership and future profit based on that ownership.

This could one day be a lucrative market, depending on future regulations and growth of the technology.

Another significant use for NFTs within the entertainment industry could be the use of POAP technology to streamline ticketing services for live events.

POAPS (Proof of Attendance Protocol), are a type of digital token that can be used to verify attendance at an event.

This could eliminate the need for physical tickets, and help prevent fraudulent tickets from being sold, which would massively streamline the ticketing process and reduce any lost profits.

They could also be used as collectables for fans. Like merchandise, fans could collect the POAPs of all of the events they’ve been to, trading their collectables with other fans, creating a sense of community amongst audiences.

And finally, they could be used as reward incentives, an artist could offer benefits such as early access to ticket sales, exclusive access to unreleased music or discounts to merch to fans that can prove they have been in attendance at their events using POAPs.

NFTs and the entertainment industry are going in an exciting direction and will grow in ways we can’t even imagine at present. This is going to be a wild ride.