Digital Live Atlas · September 2026

What sells after the encore and after the final whistle

Digital products that exist or have been sold around concerts and sports events: from Pearl Jam's official bootleg available days after the show to the token that gives you the right to buy a World Cup ticket. With 2026 status, key figures and a source for every case.

Key findings

Six conclusions that hold across the whole catalogue.

Show recordings

The «official bootleg» works, but in a very specific niche

It pays off for artists with changing setlists and fans who follow the tour: Pearl Jam, Phish, Springsteen, Metallica, Billy Strings. Almost all of it now runs through nugs.net, which adds full-show video on demand. Physical sales at the venue exit (Instant Live, USB wristbands) have all but disappeared, replaced by downloads.

Livestream

Paid streaming only holds up with a global fandom and an owned platform

K-pop proves it: BTS grossed $230.7M across in-person and streamed Permission to Dance On Stage shows and in 2026 still sells streams on Weverse. In the West the live stream is given away with sponsorship (Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound × Amazon), while Mandolin shut down and Moment ended up inside Patreon.

Sports streaming

Pay-per-view is dissolving into subscriptions

UFC moves to Paramount+ in the US for $7.7bn over seven years and drops PPV. Canelo–Crawford aired on Netflix at no extra cost (41.4M viewers) and DAZN folded boxing into its Ultimate plan. Against the current, leagues are launching their own platforms: Ligue 1+ passed one million subscribers in its first month.

NFTs and tokens

Speculative collectibles fell; tokens that grant access survive

Top Shot went from over $200M in sales to layoffs and a legal settlement; Coachella's lifetime NFT passes were locked when FTX went bankrupt; Sorare cut 35% of its staff. What holds up: FIFA's Right-to-Buy, affinity presales (Spotify Reserved) and Socios fan tokens, whose European platform obtained a MiCA licence.

Personalised

What grows is sold to each attendee, one by one

The clearest case is Topps NOW cards, on sale for only 24 hours: the Ohtani 50-50 card sold 653,000 copies. The same model drives finish-line photos and videos at marathons and IRONMAN, and AI cameras on padel courts and youth pitches. Amateur sport already charges for each person's moment; concerts and pro sport barely do.

Immersive

Immersive wins as a venue, not as a headset

Sphere Entertainment took in more than $1.2bn in 2025 (including MSG Networks), ABBA Voyage grossed £104.3M in 2024 and Cosm has deals with the NFL, NBA and UFC. Not everything works: Elvis Evolution closed in 2026. Home VR remains mostly a showcase driven by the platforms themselves (Metallica or the Lakers on Apple Vision Pro).

Map by product type

Each row is a product family. Click a case to see it in the catalogue, or «See all» to filter by family.

FamilyConcerts and festivalsSports events

What worked and what didn't

Patterns that repeat across music and sport.

Works

  • Scarcity tied to a real moment, with an expiry date. Topps NOW (24 h), recordings of each tour date, the finisher video. The value lies in «I was there».
  • Digital that unlocks something physical. The right to buy a ticket (FIFA RTB), presales based on listening history (Spotify Reserved) or fan-club membership (Pearl Jam Ten Club).
  • An owned platform with a global fandom. Weverse (12M monthly users in 2025 and now profitable) and league OTTs with a strong brand (Ligue 1+).
  • Giving the live stream away to gain reach. DAZN streamed the Club World Cup free, which reached a 2.7bn cumulative audience across all broadcasters; Coachella streams on YouTube; and the Kings League, with 85% of its audience under 34, has been profitable from day one.
  • Ticketed immersive venues. Sphere, ABBA Voyage, Cosm and UFC 306 at Sphere, with a gate of about $22M. They demand execution: Elvis Evolution closed in 2026 when its producer went under.

Failed

  • Post-pandemic paid-livestream startups. Mandolin shut down after spending about $17M; Moment was absorbed by Patreon; Tomorrowland's virtual festival struggled to turn a profit and did not continue after 2021.
  • NFTs sold as investments. Coachella's lifetime passes (locked with FTX), Dibbs (closed in 2023), Top Shot's decline, Candy Digital (sold to Futureverse) and Sound.xyz (in maintenance mode).
  • Dependence on a licence. F1 Delta Time closed in 2022 when its licence was not renewed; NFL All Day stopped issuing new NFTs in 2026, although Dapper signed a new deal with the league.
  • A financial «lever» dressed up as a product. Barça Vision: Libero never paid the €40M it committed, the club cut its claim to €15M and there are cross-lawsuits. The value was accounting, not product.
  • Standalone league add-ons. MLS Season Pass was scrapped in 2026 and folded into Apple TV. Nor did the NBA's 2018-19 trial of buying individual quarters take hold.

Where revenue per attendee grows

The catalogue ordered by when each product gets paid. The «After» and «No ticket» phases expand RPA the most without touching capacity.

Before

Access is the product. It raises the effective price and orders demand.

  • FIFA Right-to-Buy
  • Spotify Reserved
  • Fan clubs with presales
  • Fan tokens with votes
During

A digital layer inside the venue; today almost always sponsored.

  • Gigapixel crowd photo
  • Apps and Wallet tickets
  • Streams with built-in betting
  • Court cameras (padel)
After

The same attendee pays again for their memory. Near-zero marginal cost.

  • Official show bootleg
  • Topps NOW, 24-hour cards
  • Finish-line photo and video
  • Commemorative NFT or ticket
No ticket

Monetises those who can't fit in the venue; scales without capacity limits.

  • Livestream and PPV
  • Cinema and live viewing
  • Immersive (Sphere, Cosm)
  • Docuseries and club OTT

Reading: the best margins sit in «After», where the buyer is already identified (they hold a ticket, a bib number or a listening history) and the content is generated by the event itself. It is also the phase with the least coverage in concerts and professional sport.

Gap identified

Official recording bought at the venue itself

We found no active 2024–2026 cases of same-night QR purchase at Spanish festivals (Primavera Sound, Sónar, Mad Cool). The format lives on nugs.net, but only for English-speaking catalogues.

Gap identified

A personal clip of the fan in the stands

There are partial precedents (15 Seconds of Fame with the Detroit Tigers; Fancam, in photo form), but no established operator sends each attendee their own clip from stadium cameras. AI apps that simulate it are circulating, a sign that demand exists.

Gap identified

A superfan tier for music streaming

Bloomberg reported a Spotify Music Pro plan (up to $5.99/month) that has never launched. Hypebot argues that «the superfan subscription bubble has burst», and the value has shifted to ticket access inside Premium (Reserved).

Gap identified

Taking the amateur model to the pros

Marathons, IRONMAN, padel and youth football already sell the individual moment. In a stadium or at a concert almost nobody sells attendees «their» goal or «their» song.

Method and limits

How it was done. Four parallel research tracks (music recordings and livestreams; sports streaming and content; sports collectibles, tokens and gaming; market and emerging products) using web search, with a cut-off date of September 10, 2026. Every case links to the source that supports its main figure.

Verification level. Figures come from the headlines and URLs of specialist outlets (Billboard, Variety, Music Business Worldwide, SportsPro, Sportico, CNBC, official releases). Not every full article was opened, so re-read the source before quoting a figure in public. Entries with a doubtful status or figure carry the «to verify» tag.

Data still to confirm. Current nugs.net pricing and ownership; FIFA Right-to-Buy prices and resale values; Kalshi and Polymarket sports volumes; EA SPORTS FC Ultimate Team revenue; digital products at Sónar, Mad Cool, ACB or the Mutua Madrid Open; current status of LaLiga Golazos, Beyond LIVE, AmazeVR, Royal.io and Bandsintown Plus; the official Fantasy Premier League team count. For ABBA Voyage, the dollar conversion differs by outlet ($113M or $140M); the pound figure is used here.

Review of September 10, 2026. All 132 cases and the narrative claims were re-checked one by one. Corrections covered changed statuses (Elvis Evolution and LaLiga+ closed, Glastonbury paused in 2026, Napster turned into an AI company, Quarterback renewed), dates (Primavera Sound × Amazon since 2022, Ligue 1+ reaching one million in its first month), figures (Fantasy Premier League, Sphere Entertainment, the $ARG fan token) and sources that did not support their figure. Anything that could not be confirmed carries the «to verify» tag.

No figure does not mean no activity. Many entries have no verifiable public number. They are included anyway because they illustrate a product model.