Digital sports memorabilia promised fans a collectible that never fades, never needs a frame and can be resold in seconds. The business model rests on two revenue streams: the first sale of a pack and a fee on every later trade. Whether that is a collectibles market or a price chart with a team logo depends on how the numbers behaved.
The same people who follow NBA betting odds or browse a bitcoin casino between games are the audience these platforms chase, since sports, digital wallets and online communities overlap. That overlap explains the speed of the boom, and it also explains how quickly attention left.
NBA Top Shot: From Boom to Quiet
CryptoSlam data cited by Decrypt put secondary sales of NBA Top Shot at about 224 million dollars at the early 2021 peak, while sources differ on whether that was February or March. By October 2022 the monthly figure was just under 2.7 million, the lowest since December 2020. That is about 1.2 percent of the peak, or a fall of roughly 99 percent.
Figure. NBA Top Shot secondary sales in selected months, million dollars. Sources: Decrypt and The Block, citing CryptoSlam.
Buyers thinned as well. CNBC reported 13,462 unique buyers in October 2022 against 65,769 a year earlier, a drop of about 80 percent, while sales fell 94 percent from 40.9 million dollars. Spread across buyers, that is roughly 200 dollars each in 2022 against about 620 in 2021.
Where the Money Went
- Dapper Labs takes a 5 percent fee on Top Shot secondary sales, so a 2.7 million month yields roughly 135,000 dollars before costs.
- The average sale price was just over 14 dollars in October 2022, the lowest since the closed beta of September 2020.
- Dapper cut 22 percent of its staff in November 2022, after a valuation of 7.6 billion dollars in September 2021.
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Example. A seller lists a moment at the October 2022 average of just over 14 dollars. The 5 percent platform fee takes about 70 cents, leaving roughly 13.30, and the buyer’s 14 dollars is worth the same only if the next buyer agrees. |
One Month Across the Whole Market
Decrypt’s October 2022 review shows the slump was not limited to one product. Overall NFT trading volume fell about 25 percent from September, and the Flow blockchain that hosts these collections dropped from nearly 39 million dollars to 15.6 million, a fall of 60 percent.
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Measure, October 2022 |
Change |
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NBA Top Shot secondary sales |
43 percent below September |
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NFL All Day secondary sales |
53 percent below September |
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Flow blockchain volume |
60 percent below September |
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All NFT trading |
about 25 percent below September |
American Football: A Weaker Echo
The NFL’s All Day, built by the same company, tried to repeat the formula for american football. The Block reported that its best month was September 2022, at 14.3 million dollars, and that by January 2023 it was down to 3.5 million, a fall of more than 75 percent. Sources also said revenue fell short of what Dapper had promised its licensing partner, and that nearly all buyers already owned Top Shot, so the audience hardly grew.
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Expert tip. Before calling an item a collectible, three numbers are worth checking: the count of separate buyers per month, the direction of the average sale price, and the creator’s income when no new packs are on sale. |
Trading intensity points the same way. Divide the roughly 189,000 moments sold in October 2022 by the 13,500 or fewer buyers and each one bought at least 14 items in 31 days, about one every two days. Hobbyists filling a shelf rarely behave like that. Nielsen had forecast 5 billion dollars of sports crypto sponsorship by 2026, a figure CNBC set beside a Top Shot market then selling 2.7 million dollars a month.
Collectible or Speculation: A Fair Reading
Lifetime Top Shot secondary sales passed 1.03 billion dollars, so real money changed hands, and some licences and fan communities may outlast the price cycle. Yet the numbers above fit a speculative pattern better than a memorabilia one: sales, buyers and prices fell together. This article is informational and does not recommend buying collectibles.
