SWOOPS 101: BUYING AND SELLING PLAYERS

There's a reason the Golden State Warriors were comofortable going over the luxury tax during their reign. You gotta spend money to make money. The Warriors chose to spend in the form of player salaries, which led to multiple championships and arguably the greatest team in NBA history (don't @ us).

The same dynamic can hold true in the virtual basketball league that is Swoops (though certainly not guaranteed). Like any professional franchise, if you want to bring in the top talent, you're going to need to invest. Within Swoops, there are two avenues from which a team can build their roster, one more remeniscent of the NBA Draft, and one more closely resembling NBA Free Agency.

Let's break each down.

In technical terms, "minting" means creating a unique token on the blockchain. Yes, we know that's a foreign concept to many. In basic Swoops terms, "minting" means we've created a brand new, never before seen player (what we call a Swoopster) and added them to the already existing population of Swoopsters.

HOW DOES MINTING A PLAYER WORK?

At different points throughout a season, we will be releasing a new batch of unrevealed Swoopsters for purchase, during an event we call a "mint." Again, that simply means we've created a new batch of 100% unique, never before seen or played Swoopsters that our owners can then purchase during the sales event.

Those new players range from 1-star players (the lowest level of talent and potential) to 5-star players (the highest level of talent and potential). Those players can be guards, forwards, centers, or a combination of guard/forward and forward/center. And finally, those players can range in age, with some coming into their first season of existance, to those Swoopsters with multiple seasons under their belts.

Because of the unknowns that come with a mint, this event most resembles the NBA Draft. While you may discover that you landed a 5-star on Player Reveal Day, you won't know how good that Swoopster is until you put them into a series of games and start seeing how they perform.  

When you mint a Swoopster, your player will be hidden behind our mint packaging shown above. All players from a mint will reveal on the same day, during an event we appropriately call: Player Reveal Day.

Similar to buying a pack of sports cards, the pack itself costs the same for everyone upon release, however what's inside could be worth much, much more. In our case, mints have traditionally cost 0.05ETH or around $90. To give you context as to the potential within each mint, we've had top level players resell for well over 1ETH, which equates to over $2,000. Not a bad return.

For more information on Swoopsters and how they work, click the button below.

While minting is one of the most exciting events in the world of digital sports ownership, it is not your only avenue for bringing in new players. In fact, as we eluded to above, there are always players available for purchase by owners via our preferred secondary sales partner: OpenSea.

On OpenSea you can easily sort by skills, price, and more. For example, if your team is desperately in need of a defensive enforcer in the paint, you can sort by 'Interior Defense,' along with 'Price' to find players currently available with that given skill set and within your budget range.

CAN I SELL A PLAYER ON OPENSEA?

Absolutely. One of the ways our owners make a profit, often a profit that gets reinvested into their teams, is by selling a player on OpenSea. In the same way that you can buy a player, you can just as easily list a player for a specific price or set up an auction and wait for the highest bidder.

Swoops is taking virtual team ownership to a level that doesn't exist today. Y0u truly are the owner of your own basketball franchise, from which you can earn a profit through buying, selling, and performing on the court.