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:

• A program or schedule of what is happening and when — this sets expectations and trains certain cohorts to tune in or pay attention to the things they are interested in — they also program free giveaways every 5 minutes in the case of the breaker I highlight in the screen shot.

• Giveawys — While this isn’t unique to TCG breakers, but what the giveaways are very different than other category breakers. The big difference is that the giveaways are of value — value where anyone in the stream would consider winning a giveaway as a BIG HIT — so anyone watching in the stream can have a chance at a free giveaway but one that is A HIT and in a similar payoff as anyone purchasing or is a whale — THIS IS KEY

• Allow anyone to purchase a giveaway to give to the community — The key to the last point is that the giveaway is driven by the community and by fellow viewers. I think this is a big differentiator because it allows those who can’t spend or spend at the levels of some bigger spenders to “have a chance” to experience the higher end breaks. For the purchasers, they get shout outs and community recognition. This is often times in the form of two methods: a) Name up on a wall and b) requests by moderators (this is also another key point that I’ll address later) to follow the generous gifted so that they can build a following — I’m sure there is a psychological motivation for this behavior that others can break down, but this is clearly a big driver for whales to buy $25- 3000 product to giveaway.

• Agency for the community / Role of Moderators — The standard is tipping, but there are two differences here vs Sports breaks. In sports breaks its usually done when a person hit big, similar to how its customary to tip your dealer in Vegas when you hit big. The difference here is the community can select ways to tip, and its mostly in buying product for the moderators who are volunteers, They are viewers just like everyone else but have an elevated role in that they have powers and a special icon — they provide a valuable service in helping the breaker answer questions, keep folks in line, reinforcing rules and are part emcee and cheerleader. They are quasi working for the breaker but non-paid, but what is unique is that viewers can buy product for the moderators (see Image below).?

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.?

• They provide a revenue system to allow spenders to buy giveaway product for the community which provides value for those who can spend hours in stream, but rewards the spenders with their name on a wall for the stream to get recognition--and therefore 'remain in the stream' via the wall shout out even though they left the stream.

• For the non spenders, they create viewers for content to be created by spenders and the breakers to engage via moderators to build a fun engagement chat--and rewarded by potential giveaways of product they value.
• The moderators are rewarded by being the glue between these two cohorts by getting the opportunity for free product.

• ?It’s a nice balance that results in bigger viewership and likely higher than sport card breakers Rev/Min or Eng/Min.

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