What Sport Breakers can learn from Pokemon Breakers
TCG and more specifically Pokemon streams on Whatnot are just different.?
Bigger Pokemon streamers on Whatnot tend to have 3-5x the size of viewers vs the most popular sports card breakers. I wanted to know why if it’s just the interest is larger and accounts for it? The volume of cards being submitted for grading would indicate that where the number of TCG (mostly Pokemon) being submitted for grading is as large as Basketball, Soccer, Football and baseball combined on a given month.?
But once you go into the streams, you will se a very big difference vs. the sports breakers.
Sport breakers, while the breaks are done differently, which could account for it, but the viewers and chat have a very different vibe — its for solitary in that folks are generally hoping they get the hot card or spot and silently hoping everyone else misses.?
Contrast that to Pokemon streams you have a vibe of community and communal positivity. Nearly everyone is sending luck emojis on a break or congratulating nice hits or welcoming new entrants to the stream.?
But while I do think there is an element of the TCG community that is inherently more inclusive, I think a lot has to be attributed to the breaker and their tactics. For one, you will notice a big part of their streams contains three key elements:
That results is a highly active stream that is a mixture of purchases, gives aways, and content creation driven by the viewers. But perhaps the biggest pull for viewers is that viewers are trained that by viewing a stream and staying around for hours, one has a chance to win and get a big hit. So it hits on the classic dichotomy of Too much time, too little money vs having money, but little time. The TCG breakers are either directly or indirectly deploying systems to drive their viewership and what likely be a core KPI for streaming collectibles — Revenue / minute & Engagement actions / minute.?
I feel this is going to be a key vector for collectibles broadly — the role of community as the “hub” to harness the viewers to perform tasks, thus creating the content to drive further engagement and spend. The Pokemon breakers have found systems that appear to be functioning, in my view, that incentives both spenders and non spenders to work together and reward one another. I feel much more should go into building community creation tools and giving rewards to encourage both cohorts, which will result in higher viewers and ultimately spend.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this!
The Pokémon Company Whatnot Fanatics #collectors #fanaticslive #krakenhits #Collectibles #community