Building Community Through Arcade Basketball | Nick Gonzales from Pop-A-Shot

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Welcome to today’s special episode of Pathmonk Presents. Let’s talk about today’s guest. Today we are joined by Nick Gonzalez, VP Marketing at Pop-A-Shot, and Mr. Pop himself. Welcome to the show.

Nick Gonzales: Thanks for having us. Excited to be here.

Rick: Of course. I’ll let you guys introduce yourselves. We have a special guest today, Nick. Don’t get me wrong. But unfortunately, I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about Mr. Pop.

Nick Gonzales: Sure. I get that a lot. So for folks who don’t know him, this is Mr. Pop. Just a little bit of background, I suppose. So he has been coaching basketball, involved in the basketball game for 50 years at least.

Mr. Pop: Say a number of years. Come on now.

Nick Gonzales: Let’s let him think I’m young. Apologies. During that coaching time is actually when he first crossed paths with Ken Cochran—his picture’s behind me—who’s the founder of Pop-A-Shot. They actually coached together at Kansas Wesleyan for a number of years. So Mr. Pop has been a part of the Pop-A-Shot family for a long time, but we’ve started using him a lot more on the marketing side lately, just because he brings a unique tone of voice, helps us stand out with our creative, and helps us bring community. So that’s why he is here today, just to round out our conversation on all things Pop-A-Shot marketing.

Mr. Pop: Wow. Thanks, Nick. And Nick, he leads our marketing efforts on the team, and he’s an integral part. One of his most important jobs is to make me look good. And that’s not easy to do. I don’t make it easy on him, but he creates content. He runs our whole team. He’s invaluable. He hasn’t been here as long as I have, but I’d say he’s even more crucial—if that’s possible.

Nick Gonzales: If that’s possible. Thank you. That’s very kind.

Rick: That’s awesome. I’m glad to have you both. Tell us a little bit about Pop-A-Shot. Describe for us, what’s the company about, its mission. Tell us a little bit about it.

Mr. Pop: The company was founded in 1981 by my good friend, Coach Cochran. He was generous enough to bring me on board, and it’s all about community and teamwork. It’s a solo game for the most part, or it’s competitive, but it’s all about having fun together. Having a blast, bettering your skills. Everything’s a high score chase. So that’s what we are on the company side. In terms of the actual gameplay and community and things like that, I’m sure Nick could speak more to our company goals on a larger scale, but that’s it for me. I’m all about the hoops and the basketball themselves.

Nick Gonzales: Yeah, we all love basketball here. Like Mr. Pop said, the company was founded in 1981. It actually came under new ownership about 10 years ago. Some of the bigger initiatives since that time have been—well, the company today is 100% D2C, Amazon and our own website. And the entire product line, just until a couple months ago (which we’ll talk about a little bit more later), was for home products, right? So a two-hoop game, or a one-hoop game that families enjoy in their basement, in their garage, in their living room. We’re based in Peoria, Illinois, and we’re just doing our thing.

Rick: Awesome. I’m curious, ’cause obviously you guys have been around for a while, right? Tell us a little bit about how your audience finds you. Are there certain types of businesses or industries where you feel your product really shines? You were talking about arcades and whatnot earlier, but yeah, if you can expand on that, would be great.

Nick Gonzales: Is it okay if I start this one, Mr. Pop?

Mr. Pop: Absolutely. You know better than I do.

Nick Gonzales: Sure. So I think what makes us a little unique from some of the others—and what we hear a lot when we talk to customers who have already purchased—is their story usually starts with, “My son came home from a sleepover and they had Pop-A-Shot in the basement,” or “I was at a movie theater and we were 10 minutes late for the movie because we got hung up playing the arcade basketball game out in the lobby.” There are a lot of these arcade basketball games out there in the wild. We’re very lucky because we’re the original arcade basketball game, and so now Pop-A-Shot—the brand name—is synonymous with the category.

So when we look at where our traffic’s coming from, a lot of it is direct. A lot of it is organic search—just people seeking out the games. And usually we’re the number one kind of destination when that search begins.

And now, one cool thing that’s happening this year as we’re trying to now be a more active player in generating that out-of-home interaction is the launch of our new Elite product. And Mr. Pop, I think you know a little bit more than I do about this one. Why don’t you fill ‘em in on what Elite’s all about?

Mr. Pop: Yeah, absolutely. Elite’s all about the actual competition. This is the real deal. We’ve been in the home market for a long time. This one’s going out in public. I’m sure a lot of listeners would know that you’re not always super gentle on things that are out at the movie theater, out at the bar, that kind of stuff. So this is the game that’s meant to last, and it can take the abuse. It’s for the real-deal players. It’s the biggest game we’ve ever built.

And we get ’em out there. We’ve got community leaderboards. We interact online. We see people posting videos with the new game as it’s been hitting out in the wild. And the most important thing is it’s the standard for our new competition series. For the first time in over 30 years, we’re getting a competitive circuit going. We had a national championship last year. This year it’s even more legit. We’ve got better players than ever. They’ve been playing on the new Elite game. You know, this is Pop-A-Shot going forward. This is what people will have to get used to playing on if they want to be the very best in the world.

Nick Gonzales: Yeah, we launched this Elite game specifically for commercial use. And so right now we’re really focused on bars and arcades. It’s just starting to get out there into market. We have about 40 units out there into market. And as Mr. Pop said, we’re using it as a foundational product for our competition series, which so far has been three qualifiers around the US. We’ve got three more planned, and they’ll culminate in our national championship on August 1st, which is gonna be broadcast live on the O Show.

Fingers are crossed. Mr. Pop was a sideline reporter on last year’s broadcast. We’re hoping—I’m hoping—maybe he’ll be the color commentator this year, but I don’t know.

Mr. Pop: We’ll have to see. I got in a little hot water. I was maybe a little off color with some of my remarks last year. You put me on live TV. I’m a little bit of a loose cannon.

Rick: We’re working on it. I can only imagine. Look, I’m in for that. If you’re commentating, Mr. Pop, I’m in. All right? Doesn’t matter if I have to wake up in the middle of the night. I’m in Europe right now, so I don’t care. I’m tuning in. But I love it—big goals, big aspiration, and big moves with the Elite game.

Rick: So let’s talk about the website. You mentioned that earlier. What role does it play in customer acquisition and the experience overall? Anything you’re doing that’s working well?

Nick Gonzales: Yeah, so our website is one of our two main sales channels. So it’s Amazon and our website. We try to give folks a reason to choose our website over Amazon. One way we do that is by offering exclusive products—so we have limited edition games that are only available on our website.

But another reason to go there is just the experience. It’s more immersive. You can read about the brand story, you can learn about the history of Pop-A-Shot, you can see all the different games and accessories. And we’ve been really lucky over the last few years. We have a good relationship with our dev agency, and we’re always looking to optimize the experience and test new features. And then, you know, of course, we have to be on top of technical issues too. Our team is always checking that things are functioning well, especially around high-traffic moments like the holidays.

Mr. Pop: The website’s got a lot of good photos of me too, just saying. I bring the looks.

Rick: I believe that. Sounds like you do it all—model, commentator, spokesperson. Amazing. So, let’s talk a little bit about your day-to-day. Nick, you mentioned you’re leading the team now. Can you walk us through a typical day?

Nick Gonzales: Sure. So I think the biggest change in my day-to-day over the last couple of years is, when I started, we were a very small team. I was doing everything—paid search, organic social, email campaigns, Amazon listings—everything. Now we’ve grown. I have a great team. We have folks handling different areas, and I spend more time on strategy, performance tracking, and cross-functional planning. We’re also starting to lean more into partnerships and community engagement, especially with the competition series and Elite game.

And then there’s a lot of time spent on content—video, UGC, Mr. Pop scripts—things like that. We’ve learned that when we include Mr. Pop in a campaign, it tends to outperform. So that’s been a fun evolution.

Rick: That’s super cool. I imagine it’s fun to get creative too. And what about learning and staying ahead? There’s so much out there—how do you keep up?

Nick Gonzales: I try to balance the sources. I read a lot—newsletters, Substacks, LinkedIn posts from other marketers. I also consume a lot as a user. I buy things online, I look at what grabs my attention. I think that’s the best teacher sometimes. And then I look at data, always—what’s working, what’s not.

Mr. Pop: I read the data too. I just read it with my glasses off.

Rick: Ha! I love that. Okay, let’s do a quick rapid fire. You guys ready?

Nick Gonzales: Let’s do it.

Rick: Watching or reading?

Nick Gonzales: Watching.

Mr. Pop: Reading. Got to keep the mind sharp.

Rick: All right. What’s the last book you read or show you watched that stuck with you?

Nick Gonzales: I rewatched “The Last Dance.” It always inspires me. MJ is relentless.

Mr. Pop: I read a biography on John Wooden. Man was a genius.

Rick: Love it. If you could wave a magic wand and fix one marketing frustration, what would it be?

Nick Gonzales: Attribution. Always. Give me one dashboard that tells the truth.

Mr. Pop: I want all comments on social media to be nice. I’m sensitive.

Rick: One repetitive task you’d love to automate forever?

Nick Gonzales: Naming files. I hate naming files.

Mr. Pop: Folding T-shirts for merch. I always mess it up.

Rick: If you could give yourself a pep talk at the beginning of your career, what would you say?

Nick Gonzales: Trust your instincts, but ask for feedback early.

Mr. Pop: Speak louder. Literally. I mumble.

Rick: All right. Last one. If people forget everything we talked about today, what’s the one thing they should remember about Pop-A-Shot?

Nick Gonzales: We bring joy. It’s a game that makes people smile.

Mr. Pop: That’s right. It’s more than a game. It’s connection, community, and fun.

Rick: Beautifully said. Thank you both for being on the show. I had a blast.

Mr. Pop: Thanks for having us.

Nick Gonzales: Yeah, this was a ton of fun. Thanks so much.

Rick: All right, everyone, thanks for tuning in. Until next time!