.png)
The pandemic and quarantine brought a resurgence back to the collection of sports cards. All over social media, you may have noticed astronomical numbers of old collectible cards of some of sports biggest stars. Even prior to COVID, sports cards have been on the surprise. The NBA took notice and wanted to take it to the next level.
Welcome to the world of digital trading. NBA Top Shot is a fully licensed NBA experience, where collectors and gamers can own a piece of NBA media highlights. Instead of trading cards, you now have "moments". These are video highlights from different players. The highlight could be anything; a flashy pass, a deep three, a posterizing dunk, or even as simple as a layup. You're probably wondering how much these moments cost? Well, depending on the highlight and the star level of the player, it varies. The NBA is betting that this is the future, and people are buying into the hype.
A common pack or a normal highlight could cost you a couple of bucks, but some of the more "rare" moments have topped at over six figures. A LeBron James dunk in the finals last year costs nearly $250,000. Insanity. The demand for Top Shot is remarkable. In the past 30 days, they’ve generated $30M of sales and are on pace to be the fastest-growing marketplace ever. For a common pack drop this week, over 20,000 individuals stood in a virtual line to try to get involved in the madness. This reminded me of people who wait for sneaker drops, hoping they can score the new Yeezy's but are stuck behind thousands of people.
NBA Top Shot is a combination of sports card trading, digital marketplace buying, and the stock market. The idea has been in the works for quite some time and was officially announced back in 2019 when the partnership was established with the NBA and Dapper Labs. They are the company that maintains all the technology behind the blockchain platform, in order for collectors to buy, sell, and trade the video content. Now in 2021, the platform is catching eyes and it has become its own phenomena. With the rise of cryptocurrency and the digital marketplace, this could be the future of sports memorabilia trading. If you need more explaining, their infographic video does a good job explaining it.
Comments