Why Reebok’s First Pitch Program is a big win for sneakerheads everywhere

This is pretty dope.

At its core, being a sneakerhead is all about finding shoes that you love and wearing the heck out of them. Simple, right?

That used to be what the game was all about. Now, it’s changed. There are always challenges that come with all that.

Of course, there’s shortened stock that always gets in the way. Of course, there are the bots. And then, last but certainly not least, the pricing. Sometimes, you’re just not willing to pay that much for a shoe.

Reebok is giving sneakerheads everywhere a unique way around those very problems and they’re doing it in the most simple way.

Instead of creating a shoe, limiting its stock and then shipping it out to the masses for it to sell out in 0.5 seconds, they’re handing over the reigns of control to the people who actually want the shoes they create through their new First Pitch platform.

Through it, sneakerheads have more say than ever in the shoes Reebok drops and even how much they want to pay for it.

Wait, First Pitch? What’s that?

First Pitch is a digital platform Reebok is launching on August 10. They’ll produce a bunch of new concepts and sketches, post them on the platform and allow people to tell them if they want to buy them or not.

So what makes this different?

Instead of actually just producing the shoe and throwing it on a site, they’re including the people in their process.

They produce these concepts and allow users to commit to buying the actual shoe. Each sneaker’s price starts at $1 and each commitment they get from different users increases the price of the shoe by $1. They keep going until they get a commitment from enough users to sell 500 pairs of the shoe.

Wait, wouldn’t that mean they’d be selling $500 shoes? That’s a lot of money, Sykes

It would be a lot of money and that’s why they’re absolutely not doing that.

Instead, they have a set retail price goal for each shoe they produce. And once that goal is hit, the price of the shoe stops going up.

Here’s an example. Let’s say they have a shoe with a retail goal of $90. It’ll start at $1. With each commitment from a person to buy the shoe, that price goes up by $1. Once it hits $90, it won’t go over that retail goal anymore. And once they hit 500 pairs, they sell the shoes to each person who committed to buying a pair for $90.

Whoa, that’s pretty cool

Yup! It is. Guaranteed pairs. No abnormally outrageous prices. And lots of choice. It’s a great situation.

And the best part is that it restricts them from creating shoes that’ll just sit on shelves. Instead of creating something people don’t like and having it sit, they’ll just make a shoe people have already committed to buying.

That means less wasted material and a more efficient development process.

So when can I try this out?

It all drops on August 10, so in just over a week you’ll be able to give it a shot.

What is the first shoe dropping?

It’s the Classic Leather “Bee Keeper” and it looks pretty sick.

Ohhhh this is dope

Yup! Like I said, big W’s all around.

[jwplayer ozpeFbYe-q2aasYxh]