Introduction and methods

Dapper Labs announced a major partnership with the NBA and NBPA in late July 2019. In the main news, it was explained that the NBA brings a natural product fit for the blockchain space though. NBA fans are already avid collectors. NBA basketball, the on-court product, is already spectacular and dynamic. The NBA’s fanbase is already global.

For this reason, the partnership was created and an NFT collection surged from that. NBA Top Shot is an NFT marketplace where sports fans can buy, sell and trade basketball video clips.

Top Shots are the most epic highlights in the NBA, past and present, as three-dimensional, dynamic blocks of on-court action. These collectibles are a new kind of ticket for basketball fans to enter a world of NBA experiences and participate in the basketball economy.

In mid April it was the start of the NBA playoff and in mid May the NBA Conference Finals. The idea of this analysis is to determine if it had an impact on Flow transactions and/or in NBA Top Shots NFT collection. To do that, we will explore the following metrics:

• Daily Flow transaction volume over time by NBA period
• Daily NBA Top Shot sales over time by NBA period
• Daily NBA Top Shot sales volume over time by NBA period
• Daily NBA Top Shot sellers over time by NBA period

The NBA period was determined basing on the main NBA events. In this case, for the evaluated period, the main period are:

• NBA Playoffs: from April 20th to May 16th
• NBA Conference Finals: from May 17th to May 29th
• NBA Finals: from May 30th to June 19th

Results

In terms of global Flow transactions, it seems like it has increased over time considering a period of time from the beginning of the NBA playoff until now. We can see how during the playoff event, the amount of daily transactions passed from around 0.5M to around 0.7M. During the NBA Conference Finals, the daily amount remained constant even in some days, the amount increaed cosniderably to more than 0.8M. But the highest increase on activity was registered during this few past days when the NBA Finals took place, reaching values higher than 1.5M FLOW.

In terms of NBA Top Shot activity, it can be seen how it decreased over time. While during the first days after the start of the NBA playoff, the activity increased from around 50k daily sales to more than 100k. However, after the highest peak on May 6th, the numbers returned to practically the previous 50k but remained constant during all the Playoff event. However, during the starting days of the NBA Conference Finals, the activity resurged and the volume sold increased during that period of time. The sales remained constant but didn’t decrease. During the finals, the sales decreased again as well as the number of sellers and the volume remained at a constant levels.

In terms of volume something similar occurs. It has decreased in a constant manner over time, reaching the lowest activity just after the final of the NBA Playoff, but as said before, it resurged during the NBA Conference Finals event.

Finally, in terms of NFT sellers, the activity is more clear. During the first days of the NBA Playoff, the daily amount of sellers increased from 8k to 14k. However, it started to decrease in mid May during the NBA Conference Finals and reached its lowest values during the NBA Finals.

Conclusions and insights

In this dashboard we have explore the impact of the NBA Playoff to not only the NBA Top Shot NFT collection but also on the entire Flow blockchain network. We have considered basically the trasnaction activity and the volume in case of the NFT collection.

The main insights extracted from the analysis have been the following:

• The Flow transactions has increased over the NBA Conference Finals.
• The Flow volume remained practically constant during the NBA Conference Finals.
• The NBA Top Shot sales and sellers activity decreased over time. While the volume sold increased and had heavy spikes during the NBA Conference Finals.
• The activity of Conference Finals Teams remained constant over time since the start of the NBA Playoff.
• The number of sales and volume by team, the Golden State Warriors is the top team in both metrics.

Finally, regarding the evolution of sales by NBA Conference Team finalist, it can be seen how the number remained constant over time since the start of the NBA Playoff. However, it can be seem some peaks just after the start of a new event. For example, the top increased in sales for all the four teams are registered during the NBA Conference Finals launch and the NBA Finals launch as well.

In terms of volume, it seems like the situation is different. In this case, it seems like during the NBA Conference Finals the volume increased and had a peak in May 22nd. Then, during the NBA Finals, the volume increased again to highest levels.

Looking at the number of sales and volume by team, the Golden State Warriors is the top team in both metrics.