SQL Server has introduced a JSON data type. While you could previously store JSON in the database using the NVARCHAR(MAX) data type, it was an incomplete solution.

With SQL Server 2016, it now makes sense to store JSON objects in your database (even though there’s no JSON datatype). ... For that you’ll use the T-SQL JSON_VALUE function, passing a JSON path ...

Saving the event as JSON is an option possible on any version of SQL Server, but reading JSON effectively, when large numbers of events are in store, might be unsustainable. With the native JSON ...