Top Shot Nation,
2024 has gotten off to a hot start and we’re excited for the ramp-up to the trade deadline and beyond. We’ve gotten a ton of great questions over the last month and are excited to share updates and perspectives. Let’s dive right into it.
One of the most common conversation topics among collectors is how new-user growth is coming along. Are you able to share any new or exciting marketing campaigns on the 23-24 horizon; particularly those that may be focused on attracting new fans to the platform?
Our top priority going into this season was to fortify our game design to stabilize toward a healthy high-end collectible market. While there’s still plenty of work to be done, we’ve made important strides through Burn Leaderboards, Expert Challenges, Offers, and the Packs Marketplace to provide demand at the high end and bring excitement back to Top Shot.
The improved market conditions are leading to improved numbers week over week. More unique collectors are lining up for packs each week and more unique collectors are checking in on their collections each week, including 35,281 unique collectors who’ve checked in on their collection in the last month. We’ve seen it before: momentum can compound in either direction. We’ve learned a lot of lessons over the past couple of years and are looking forward to continuing to prioritize the right mechanics for our product and set the stage for growth.
One area we are focused on improving this season is around making it easier for potential collectors to sign up and immerse themselves in our product. We’ve seen a meaningful uptick in visitor traffic to our product in recent weeks, showing word-of-mouth conversation about Top Shot is picking up a bit. It’s now crucial for us to be able to promote offerings that make it easier to enjoy Top Shot quickly upon signing up, and teach new collectors about the product in a fun, intuitive, and inviting way without overwhelming them with all there is to do.
We saw success in December around Team Packs presenting a compelling place for a new collector to start. We’re going to continue to find new ways to present offers to new collectors that give them an enjoyable first experience faster and more clearly. As we gain confidence in our ability to convert a visitor into an active collector, you’ll start to see us ramp up our efforts to bring new collectors to our product.
How is the new Legendary set, Holo Icon, curated this season? Are there team minimums? (at least one player from each team, etc.)
The Holo Icon set is NBA Top Shot’s picks for the top 50 players in the NBA (excluding rookies). There are no minimums or maximums in terms of representation from teams, and each Moment in packs will be minted to /50. There is also an Expert Challenge throughout the season, with the Expert Challenge Reward being an ultra-scarce Legendary Moment from LeBron James.
Can you share some more details about the Rookie Revelation set? How many Moments are going to be in the set? I read something about Rare Rookie Moments being needed for Burn Leaderboards there, can you explain more?
Yes, we’re glad you asked. We recently shared a deep dive with all there is to know about Rookie Revelation. You can learn more about it here. In addition, the upcoming Rookie Revelation pack drop will feature a chance at Freshman Gems Moments.
Could you please describe exactly how the weighted draws work, what the weights are, and how the draw is done? What is a weighted airdrop exactly?
One of the big updates for the 2023-24 season has been weighted airdrops for collectors on the top of relevant Team and Player Leaderboards for each drop.
These airdrops have provided collectors who’ve locked Moments with consistent opportunities to win rewards every time their favorite players and teams receive new Moments.
The methodology around these weighted airdrops is straightforward. For every Top Shot Score point you have on a given leaderboard, you essentially have a raffle ticket to win the airdrop. The more points you have, the more raffle tickets you have. In recent Leaderboards, we’ve constrained the majority of winners to be of only those in the top 10, 100, 250, etc of the respective board, meaning the total number of points (or raffle tickets) is limited to the total sum of Top Shot Score points locked by the collectors in the respective ranking of that Team or Player Leaderboard.
I understand why you’re setting aside packs for new collectors to come in, but can you please look into ways to ensure the best serials don’t make it into those packs?
Yes, going forward, packs reserved for new collectors will not feature special serials for Rare or Legendary editions.
I keep on missing out on packs. There has to be a way for more people to get packs. It’s not fair that some people have gotten packs for several straight weeks and I keep showing up empty handed.
As we have aggressively scaled back our mint counts and drop sizes for our Rare and Legendary Packs, demand outstripping supply for our premium drops has become a reality on Top Shot. We have leaned into multiple ways to ensure our collectors with high Top Shot Scores do have an edge via Draws and Drops and we will continue to explore ways to use Top Shot Score for pack drops. As an example, a group of our top VIP collectors in Net Spend on NBA Top Shot have unlocked a guaranteed purchase of one (1) Rare or Legendary pack for each drop from those tiers through the end of March.
Will Flash Challenges ever come back?
Now that Fast Break is available via waitlist for collectors with a wider community rollout in the works, we are prioritizing our focus to continue to make Fast Break the best game it can be. We are open to exploring different paths where Flash Challenges could coexist with Fast Break on NBA Top Shot in the future, but we do not have anything to share at this time.
When will Fast Break be available to all?
We are not setting a date for when Fast Break will be rolled out to the wider community. Rather, we have established a series of milestones and metrics internally that will tell us when Fast Break is ready for a full rollout.
As always, if you have any questions that you would like to see in the next NBA Top Shot mailbag, please send them to via email mailbag@nbatopshot.com
