The PBA and parent company Bowlero today announced the launch of League Bowler Certification (LBC) Awards, which are NFT-based honors to recognize bowling feats that will be airdropped free to the approximately 300,000 participants in Bowlero center leagues.
The โdigital awards,โ as the PBA calls them, cannot be traded or sold once received, making them soulbound tokens. Inย thatย regard, these are not typical Non-Fungibleย Tokenย (NFT) collectiblesโBowlero Chief Strategy Officer Lev Ekster stated the LBC initiative as โa loyalty program on steroids.โ
Atย theย beginning, the program will comprise Non-Fungibleย Tokenย (NFT) awards for achievements such as a league player bowling their 1st 200-score game, a perfect 300 game, a series of 700 or 800 total points, or notching a game with either 50 or 100 points over the playerโs average.
Ekster stated that another organization previously gave out physical awards for certain milestones in bowling leagues, including rings, but that it had stopped at some pointโto the consternation of some dues-paying players. โThey were pretty disappointed about it,โ he stated of league members. Now the PBA is tryingย to fill that void with its LBC program and digital awards.
Bowlero and the PBA collaborated with Layer 3 Labs to launch the initiative. Layer 3 CEO Jonathan Teplitsky stated the startup specializes in bringing Web2 brands into Webย 3.0, but Ekster admitted that the physical sport-centric PBAโs move is more like โWeb1 to Web3โweโre making a pretty giant leap as an organization.โ
The PBA will use a dedicated Avalancheย (AVAX) subnet to handle the digital awards for bowlers, which insulates it from potential congestion or issues with the broader network. Layer 3 worked with the Avalancheย (AVAX) founders and core contributors at Ava Labs on the implementation, and Teplitsky stated that he wanted to choose a network partner that โdoesnโt have reputational risks.โ
Bowlers were already onboarded onto the PBAโs LeaguePals platform to be eligible to receive the digital awards, and they wonโt be must handle digitalย currency to receive the Non-Fungibleย Tokenย (NFTs). Ekster stated that the PBA wonโt use โNFTโ terminology in describing the assets for its user base.
โOur community doesnโt know what an Non-Fungibleย Tokenย (NFT) is,โ he informed Decrypt. โTheyโre not really crypto-native and they donโt understand it, but we call them digital awards.โ
Handing out digital awards is just the 1st phase of the program, though. In theย following phase, the PBA will offer up earnable points that can be redeemed for physical productsโlike bowling balls and equipmentโor even physical trophies for certain achievements. Avalancheย (AVAX) will be used to verify the authenticity of an achievement to determine eligibility for physical perks.
Teplitsky sees potential future extensions of the program, such as theย potential to attract bowlersโ progress and perks into a metaverse game world, or even unlock real-world benefitsโlike getting special lighting on your lane when bowling at a Bowlero center.
And the broader goal is not toย delimit this inย particularย to Bowlero leagues, but to soonerย orย thereafter offer the program to leagues at all bowling alleys across America or potentially the world. Onย theย otherย hand, since itโs a new initiative, Ekster stated that they will keep it internal within Bowlero leagues for now to fine-tune the execution and make sure all goes reportsย by plan.
If it works as intended and expands out broadly, then Teplitsky sees potential for the PBAโs digital awards program to onboard millions of bowlers into Webย 3.0. Thatโs a more exciting premise to him than pushing another Non-Fungibleย Tokenย (NFT) project targeted at high-value traders.
โ Thisย isย why, I like to work with corporations, not โprojects.โ This is the physicalย world, where this is a real business. Bowlero is valued at billions of dollars, and they are integrating Webย 3.0 into a business model. This is the future,โ he stated. โWeโre not bringing in the same old Webย 3.0 people that are trading their Bored Apes.โ
Editorโs note: Thisย post was updated after publication to clarify details around the previous physical bonus given out to bowling league participants.
