Sports Illustrated Tickets partners with Premier League clubs as it expands onchain ticketing

Sports Illustrated Tickets is plotting a blockchain-powered expansion into English football, with plans to bring its onchain ticketing system to Premier League stadiums. The company has already locked in long-term partnerships with Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur, and its Avalanche-based Box Office platform is being positioned as the infrastructure for primary ticketing at some of the sport’s most iconic grounds.

The partnerships so far

SI Tickets secured a 12-year partnership with Aston Villa in May 2026, kicking off with the 2026-27 season. The deal includes naming rights for the Sports Illustrated Warehouse at Villa Park, a 3,500-capacity venue that will serve as a hospitality and event space adjacent to the stadium.

Tottenham Hotspur signed a similar 12-year agreement, with that deal set to begin in 2025. Both partnerships focus heavily on branding, fan experience enhancements, and hospitality rather than immediate primary ticketing takeovers.

At Villa Park, the primary ticketing operations will continue to be managed by SeatGeek. The company has stated ambitions to double or triple its business in the coming years through a combination of ticketing and hospitality revenue.

The blockchain backbone

The technology underpinning SI Tickets’ onchain ambitions is its Box Office platform, which runs on the Avalanche blockchain. The platform already supports hundreds of venues and events globally, but the flagship deployment is happening stateside first.

Full adoption of the Avalanche-powered system is targeted for the US-based Sports Illustrated Stadium, previously known as Red Bull Arena, with a goal of completing that transition by 2026, which would make it the first major professional sports venue to fully move its ticketing operations onchain. There are currently no confirmed plans or timelines for Premier League stadiums to adopt similar operations.

CEO David Lane has emphasized that the user experience needs to feel invisible from a blockchain perspective, with the underlying tech making tickets more secure, more easily transferable, and capable of functioning as dynamic digital assets.

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