Skip to content

Product Operations Data

DATA | DERIVED | Updated 2026-04-08 | Owner: Data Science

Seasonal patterns, drop cadence, revenue mechanics, reactivation signals, and metric definitions.


NFL Seasonality: 5-8x Revenue Swing (F008)

NFL All Day exhibits the most extreme seasonal pattern of any product:

Month Revenue Context
Jan 2024 (Playoffs) $2.48M Peak
Jul 2024 (Off-season) $371K -85% from peak
Sep 2024 (Season opens) $2.31M Recovery
Jan 2025 (Playoffs) $1.92M -23% YoY
Jul 2025 (Off-season) $294K -85% from peak
Sep 2025 (Season opens) $1.56M Recovery
Jan 2026 (Playoffs) $1.32M -31% YoY
Mar 2026 (Off-season starts) $306K -77% from peak

Two problems compound:

  1. The seasonal swing itself: 5-8x between peak and trough
  2. The peaks are declining YoY: $2.48M → $1.92M → $1.32M

Off-Season Population Drain

Segment Nov 2025 (In-Season) Mar 2026 (Off-Season) Loss
NFL L tier 479 281 -41%
NFL XL tier 114 70 -39%

The off-season is where the product contracts permanently. Each cycle loses whales that don't fully return when the season restarts.

Marketing Spend Implication

In-season joiners spend 5x more and stay 2.3x longer than off-season joiners. Marketing spend should concentrate September-February. Off-season spend should focus on whale retention (challenges, deposit matches, IRL events), not acquisition.


Monthly Drop Cadence: 2.3x Revenue (F017)

NBA Top Shot shifted from weekly to monthly tent-pole drops during the 2025-26 season:

Metric Weekly Cadence Monthly Cadence Improvement
Revenue per drop Baseline 2.3x More than doubled
Returning buyer revenue Baseline +131% Existing collectors engage harder
Revenue variance Baseline 2.4x reduction More predictable

Why It Works

Fewer drops with lower mint counts and higher per-drop stakes produce better outcomes across every dimension. The weekly spray model diluted each drop's significance and trained collectors to wait rather than buy.

Combined with the legendary cap at 75/season, the monthly cadence reversed the oversupply damage from 2021-2023.

Apply Cross-Product

Only NBA executed this cadence in the 2025-26 season. NFL and Disney should adopt the same model: one tent-pole per IP per month, staggered across weeks. This is a structural product decision, not a marketing tactic.


Buyback Revenue Distortion (F019)

Buybacks consumed 70.1% of Q2 2025 gross marketplace revenue.

Buybacks consumed 70.1% of Q2 2025 gross marketplace revenue. Specific dollar amounts are shared in team-specific channels with context.

Always Use Net Revenue

Any internal analysis using gross revenue numbers is misleading by potentially 2-3x. Every ROI calculation, every spend decision, every revenue comparison must use net.

Three Revenue Definitions

Term Definition Use
GMV Total buyer spend Marketplace health metric
Gross Dapper take before fees Internal tracking
Net After processing fees, before buybacks Financial planning

None of these subtract buybacks. When someone cites "$22.2M FY26 revenue," that is NET (after processing fees, before buybacks). After buybacks, the true bottom line is significantly lower.


Lapsed User Reactivation Signals (F020)

19,631 lapsed users (90+ day purchase gap) reactivated on NBA Top Shot in 2025.

What They Did Before Returning (7-Day Pre-Reactivation Activity)

Activity Users % of Reactivators
Viewed pack drop page 12,562 64%
Searched 6,692 34%
Viewed moments 5,702 29%
Checked marketplace 5,180 26%
Viewed challenges 1,293 7%

How They Returned

  • 83% bought a pack on return ($19.80 avg)
  • 22% bought on marketplace ($14.90 avg)
  • Pack drops are the natural reactivation trigger

The Lapsed Whale Pool

9,676 lapsed $1K+ NBA users still log in. They hold 2.4M Commons, 77K Rares, 102K Fandoms. They browse pack drops and window-shop LeBron OG editions.

Intervention Window

Browsing behavior precedes reactivation by 7 days. This is the intervention window. Time reactivation outreach (emails, deposit match offers) to drop announcements — 64% of reactivators were already looking at pack pages.


Seasonal Calendar: When Revenue Peaks

Month NBA NFL Disney
Jan Playoffs (peak) Playoffs (peak) Steady
Feb All-Star Off-season starts Valentine's content
Mar March Madness Off-season Spring drops
Apr Playoffs R1 Draft May 4th (Star Wars)
May Playoffs cont. Off-season D23 prep
Jun Finals (peak) Off-season (trough) Summer drops
Jul Off-season starts Off-season (trough) Steady
Aug Off-season Preseason D23
Sep Season opener (recovery) Season opener (recovery) Fall drops
Oct In-season In-season Halloween
Nov In-season In-season Holiday prep
Dec Christmas drops Playoffs buildup Holiday (peak)

Portfolio Effect

Individual products have dead months, but the portfolio doesn't. NFL whales migrate to NBA during the off-season (F009: $2.1M spent on NBATS in July by NFLAD whales). The portfolio design works — the challenge is preventing permanent whale downgrade during product-level off-seasons.


Key Metric Definitions

Metric Definition Where to Find
W0 Conversion Signup → first purchase within 7 days clientmetric_w0_conversion_rate
S/M/L/XL segments Spending-based user tiers, measured weekly user_spend_segmentation_history
Active buyers Users who made a purchase in the measurement period Transaction table
Net depositor User whose total deposits exceed total withdrawals userprofile_transactions_by_buyer_seller_daily_rollup
Pipeline transition rate Weekly probability of moving between segments user_spend_segmentation_history weekly snapshots
Marketplace discovery User's first marketplace purchase (not just browsing) Transaction table (marketplace source)
Reactivation First purchase after 90+ day gap Transaction table with gap analysis

All data lives in BigQuery production_sem_open.* tables.