Accreditation and access managers in our biggest sports clubs and venues are locking onto the potential of tokenisation. So what is it and how can our major sports properties leverage it?
Tokenisation’s origins sit with the banking industry. In finance, digital tokens act as trusted contracts that enable fast, secure financial transactions. If you’ve ever used your mobile to transfer money from one bank to another, the secure transaction was probably managed using tokenisation. The value of the transaction, quantity, denomination, sender, recipient and so on were all stored in a digital token to create a secure, fraud-proof contract between you and the receiving party. It’s the most trusted way of managing mobile transactions today, and it’s applications are expanding.
In sports stadium management, the current focus for tokenisation is on ticketing. Using the secure processes established within the mobile payments industry, sports properties are able to offer fans the most trusted form of mobile ticketing available today. This is a far cry from the mobile ticketing processes already used by many. Tokens are not simply QR codes or images forwarded to the fans’ mobile phones.
Delivering great experiences fans can trust
“Between May and October 2017, ticket fraud cost fans £1.6 million. Nearly 4,000 fans lost an average of £195 each during this period. These numbers hardly inspire fan trust,” says TeamCard’s Randal McLister.
“We’re at the start of a new era in access management and control, and all roads lead towards a safer, more enriched experience for the fan. By taking full advantage of the secure tokenisation tech that TeamCard offers, major stadiums and venues are signalling their intent to ensure real fans get the genuine experience they deserve in a venue they know they can trust.”
Tokenisation and TeamCard
Tokenisation in the TeamCard context is the process of converting a standard entitlement (ticket) purchased from a conventional ticketing provider into a secure contract. This token is then delivered to the customer and used for event access. The tokenised data is not mathematically reversible unless you have the original key used to create it, so it’s extremely secure.
Once a ticket has been “tokenised”, it can be forwarded to an end user’s mobile phone (Apple or Google
On attending the event, the customer doesn’t even have to search in their mobile wallet or present the token – “Pass Auto-selection” will find their token automatically for validation by the reader as they enter the venue. The entire customer journey, from purchasing a ticket to attending an event, is simple, seamless and super secure.
More: Learn how TeamCard3 delivers the power of tokenization to sports properties and venues