On Wednesday, February 2, I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with NBA Top Shot’s Marketing Manager, Matt Schorr, who is the creator of Top Shot’s newest craze: The Flash Challenge. Kev Scheitrum, who is the Head of Content Marketing at NBA Top Shot, was also there for the interview, and I thought we had a fascinating conversation.
Matt, who was a partner at a law firm before joining the Top Shot team in July, not only has a brilliant mind when it comes to setting up these Flash Challenges, but he’s also been playing fantasy sports his entire life – back in the days when folks use to print out spreadsheets and tally the totals themselves. I think that fantasy background has really come through with the Flash Challenge craze, as there’s a massive overlap between watching for specific stats to win your matchup/completing a Flash Challenge, which is why I’ve been such a big fan.
But it’s not just me, the entire Top Shot community has gone wild for these Flash Challenges, with the market seeing an all-time high of 1.83 million in transactions through January. These purchases were made by 64.5K unique buyers, with an average sale of $32.28 and total sales a little north over $59 million, marking their best month in terms of total sales since April.
So, without further ado, let’s get into the interview with Matt and Kev.
Can you tell me when the first official Flash Challenge was and what was the genesis behind the concept?
Matt: The first Flash Challenge was on November 17, which was the first official Flash Challenge. This was something that was spoken about in some degree, not really in the way that it’s being presented at this point, but there was this idea of creating daily engagement Challenges. Challenges are one of the most fun aspects of Top Shot, so we thought how could we leverage that to make it more daily/weekly engagement?
I was tasked with figuring out how to do this. I had a lot of trust put in me by Kev and many others, and there’s an amazing team behind Flash Challenges. We’re putting them together 2-3 weeks ahead of time to make sure we have the right prizing – make sure we’re hitting the right players, the right games – and making sure that it’s fun for everybody involved.
Kev: If you remember during last year’s Finals, we did a few things that were like proto-Flash Challenges. It was a couple of tiptoes into that, and we noticed how our whole community watched the game. That’s what makes the Top Shot community so special, people come together around a stat here and a stat there, and it was cool to see. When these first began it was a test to see what happens when we base the Challenges around multiple games in one night, and with what Matt and the team have done, it’s generally inspiring to see. One of my absolute favorite parts of Top Shot right now is seeing the way the community comes together around this.
Clearly, they have taken off, and you put so much thought into these, I’m just curious if you’ve mapped out how many different types of Flash Challenges you can do, based on the different Moments/different stats to draw attention to, etc.?
Matt: The answer is technically infinite. There are so many permutations that we can do, and we’re always working on ways to improve and have more different things we can do – so there will definitely be more interesting and new stuff coming in the future – we’re not even close to done yet with the creativity of Flash Challenges. I have a subscription to National Statistics, I have all sorts of deep basketball stats where I can go in and look and say: ‘okay, on a slate with this many games, what will be a fun statistic to follow?’ This is where free throw attempts come in sometimes.
When you look at “The First To 15*,” when I came up with that Challenge I thought: ‘okay, I love the Elam Ending – how can I emulate the Elam Ending in a Flash Challenge.’ That was “The First to 15.” It was an exciting endpoint that everyone was tracking. There’s obviously a lot more that goes into it that I see, where teams are playing, making sure there’s an even number of teams. I know there was some uproar earlier about the Raptors not getting any love early on, that’s been completely corrected at this point. So, obviously, there are a lot of factors – the number of games, the players playing – all that sort of stuff that needs to be taken into account to make sure it’s as fun and engaging as it can be each night.
Kev: I’m amazed every single time that Matt comes with a new iteration. If you see the way it comes to light, you see the way a night changes where it might be a total score vs. game by game, it’s just really cool and amazing how a small statistical tweak can have a whole night feel different.
*The First to 15 Flash Challenge involved collecting Moments from the players who were the first to reach 15 points in each game on a 10-game night
I can see how much thought you’re putting into this. With these Flash Challenges, I feel like it’s showing the Top Shot community who the real stars are. When collectors see a guy hit a Challenge over and over again, it raises that players’ floor, and also brings attention to positional knowledge of stat sets. I love that. You’re clearly looking at the games and the players available to see how you can make these the most fun, I imagine you’re also trying to steer mint counts for certain players with the Metallic Silver Rewards, which has been another fun way to introduce Moments into the marketplace.
Matt: We definitely go into every Challenge with a completion number in mind. Obviously, you don’t want to destroy a rookie’s available mint count and things like that. But, I think one of the beauties of Flash Challenges is, we can set it up any way we want to, but you know, the Basketball Gods sort of dictate how a Challenge is going to work out.
There are a couple of great examples of this that I love referring to. One was the “Let it fly Challenge” with LaMelo Ball Metallic Silver Moment as the Reward for the Hard Mode, and collectors needed to assemble a showcase using Reward Moments from the top-5 players who attempted the most 3-pointers that night. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was threatening to enter the Challenge, which was a problem because KCP only has one Reward Moment, and it was a Legendary from Series 1 with an Edition Size of 33 and only about two on the market, so the entire community was rooting against KCP to make the final five – and luckily – he didn’t. That was one of the most-hyped MSLE Moments.
The other one was the “Flashback Challenge,” where you needed a historic Moment from the team that won the game that night, and I picked that day because the betting lines on those games were all fairly close. So, every game was going to be exciting. And it came down to the Kings vs. the Cavaliers, and everyone in the Top Shot community was rooting for the Kings, because no one wanted to shell out money for a LeBron James Run It Back or Archive Set Moment. So, stuff like that, that naturally brings the community together is just so cool to me and it just happens so naturally. We build it in a way that it can happen, but the fact that it does happen is just so much fun to watch.
End of interview
You’ll notice that I bolded some of the most important nuggets that Matt dropped:
1) They map out these Challenges weeks in advance
2) We haven’t even scratched the surface of the creativity behind these Flash Challenges
3) Games played and the players playing in those games will steer Challenges
4) Top Shot does have a completion rate they are shooting for certain Metallic Silver Moments
5) Betting lines are sometimes used as a tool to construct fun Flash Challenges
If there’s one word I would use to describe the rollout of Series 3, it would be “meticulous,” so it didn’t surprise me to find out that these Challenges are mapped out weeks in advance – but I do admire that sort of preparation. I’m excited to see what’s coming on the creativity front, and I was pleased to discover that they are cautious about not flooding the market with high mint counts on star players. As Matt said, ultimately, the Basketball Gods decide who makes a Flash Challenge, but there are still a lot of things you can do to avoid disastrous outcomes – and thus far – they have. I’ll say it again, Matt has a brilliant mind, and I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that the popularity of these Flash Challenges has coincided with Top Shot setting records.
One final point I’d like to make is this: before Matt was the Marketing Manager at Top Shot, he was a collector himself (this, of course, in addition to being partner at a law firm), and he’s not the first person from the Top Shot community who has worked his way to an inside role with the company. I think this is a brilliant strategy from Top Shot – to hire from within the community of collectors – as it keeps them attuned to the needs of their audience. Top Shot certainly made their fair share of mistakes through Series 1 and 2, but it’s only been getting better and better through Series 3, and after meeting Matt, I couldn’t be any more bullish on NBA Top Shot’s future.
