NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers Launch Onchain Loyalty Program

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Cavs Rewards Overview🏀 

The National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers launched Cavs Rewards, a fan engagement program on the Avalanche network.

The program is built in collaboration with Uptop, a fan engagement company, backed by PayPal, who most notably built out the Empire State Building’s loyalty platform, also built on Avalanche. It’s touted by Uptop as a ‘first-of-its-kind’ program in professional sports, perhaps indicating that this is the first ‘onchain’ loyalty program a pro sports team has rolled out.

The program itself (Cav Rewards) is a free-to-join program where fans can earn ‘Cavs points’.

These points can be earned by connecting a debit or credit card of your choice, and using that connected card in the following ways:

• In-Store Purchases: Fans can shop at any participating partner location.

• Online Purchases: Fans can shop online at partner websites.

• Select In-Venue Purchases: Purchases made at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (Cavaliers Home Arena). This includes concessions and bars in the arena and Center Court, the Cavaliers team shop. 

• Specific Products: Fans can earn points by purchasing eligible consumer packaged goods and scanning their receipts through the Cavs Rewards experience. 

Fans can then redeem these points for rewards such as game day tickets, exclusive VIP experiences, team merchandise, memorabilia and digital badges.

Chris Kaiser, EVP & CMO of Cleveland Cavaliers said:

Onboarding & Interface📱 

After signing up with an email and creating a ‘Cavs ID’, the onboarding flow for Cavs Rewards is very straightforward and is seamless on mobile.

1. After clicking ‘Get Started’ users are walked through what they need to do to accrue points.

2. Fans are told they need to connect a card to earn points on purchases at Cavs Rewards locations, and they can also earn additional points by scanning receipts showing proof of purchase of eligible products such as Coca Cola, Michelob Ultra, and more. 

3. Fans are then shown how business owners in the local area can connect with the Cavs Rewards program.

4. Finally, it is outlined how those points can redeemed and what the rewards could be.

After the onboarding process, users are then prompted to connect a debit or credit card.

This is done easily through the fintech company Plaid, and after linking a card, fans are directed to the home screen.

From there, fans can click on ‘Add Points’ (1), ‘Earn Points’ (2), ‘Rewards’ (3) or (4) ‘Join as a Business’.

• (1) Add Points: Allows fans to purchase points with fiat currency.

• (2) Earn Points: Shows fans the different ways in which they can earn points, such as referrals, purchases and challenges.

• (3) Rewards: Showcases the types of rewards fans can redeem.

• (4) Join as a Business: Rerouted to a landing page from Uptop with a form to be filled out by businesses.

Analysis & Concluding Thoughts 🧠

When Starbucks closed its loyalty program, Starbucks Odyssey, many concluded that Web3 loyalty programs simply don't work.

However, I believe this may have been specific to specific industries rather than loyalty programs as a whole.

The biggest opportunity for Web3 loyalty in my view is in sports, where fan loyalty is deeply ingrained.

Rather than forcing customers through a product or digital activation to create loyalty, sports already have that foundation.

At the end of the day, the majority Starbucks customers are not fiercely loyal to a coffee brand and don’t want to see where the beans they just drank were farmed.

But fans of a sports team will clamour at the thought of getting one inch closer to the crest they adore.

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