Walk into any bar with an arcade corner and you’ll find one. The sloped fabric ramp. The undersized basketball. The electronic beep counting down from 60 seconds.
You probably call it a Pop-A-Shot. Even if it isn’t one.
That’s how dominant the brand became in the 1990s. Pop-A-Shot didn’t just popularize arcade basketball. It invented it. The company created the first electronic scoring system, the first infrared sensors, the first steel frames. Every knockoff that followed was chasing what Ken Cochran built in his garage in Salina, Kansas in 1981.
Then the company nearly disappeared.
By 2016, Pop-A-Shot was selling roughly 300 units a year. The founder was ready to retire. Competitors had flooded the arcade market. The brand that once defined a category was fading into nostalgia.
Tony Stucker saw opportunity.
“I was looking online for businesses for sale and up popped Pop-A-Shot,” Stucker told me from his office in San Mateo. “Within its category of arcade basketball games, it was the standard. It had a lot of authenticity and history.”
He and his wife Kelly bought the company that year. What followed is one of the stranger turnaround stories in consumer products.
From Nearly Dead to 60,000 Units a Year
The Stuckers brought advertising backgrounds to a company that had none. Tony spent 25 years in the industry, including roles at LinkedIn and LiveJournal. Kelly handled business development. Their first moves were basic: refresh the logo, rebuild the website, find a manufacturer in China.
By 2020, the company was generating $8 million annually on Amazon.
Then came the insight that changed everything.
“One of the first things I did when I was in the process of buying the company was to go onto Amazon and type in ‘Pop-A-Shot,’” Stucker said. “Up popped a bunch of basketball games, but none from the originators.”
The original Pop-A-Shot only made high-end arcade units. It had never sold direct to consumers on Amazon. Stucker created a home version and listed it for the 2016 holiday season.
It sold out.
By 2020, the company was generating $8 million annually on Amazon. By 2023, Pop-A-Shot had sold more than 60,000 units in a single year. The Peoria, Illinois-based company notched more than $10 million in Amazon sales alone.
The product line now spans from a $60 over-the-door hoop called the Slam to a $229 dual-shot sport model to a $6,999 Elite arcade unit with a 49-inch LCD display and WiFi connectivity.
Then ESPN Called and Everything Changed
In 2024, Pop-A-Shot did something it hadn’t done in 25 years: host a national championship.
The event aired on ESPN8: The Ocho, the annual programming block that celebrates obscure sports. (The concept originated as a joke in the 2004 film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story before ESPN made it real.)
249 competitors showed up to a qualifying tournament at Barstool River North in Chicago on a Wednesday night. Josh Caputo, a 37-year-old father of two, emerged as the inaugural modern-era champion with a 68.9% shooting percentage and an average of 120 points per game.
The 2025 championship got bigger. Qualifiers were held in San Francisco, San Antonio, St. Louis, Chicago, and Las Vegas. The San Francisco event took place at the NBA All-Star Crossover, where over 1,800 players competed on the new Pop-A-Shot Elite. Nearly 3,500 games were played that weekend alone.
The 2025 National Championship aired live from ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando. Viewership hit 47,364 households, more than doubling the prior year’s 18,672. It ranked as the second most-watched event during The Ocho’s slate.
Scott Setzke, a competitor from Detroit who had altered his entire sleep and work schedule to match the late-night broadcast timing, took home the title.
“It’s this joyful little game that’s somehow connected me to old friends, my kids, strangers at bars, and now… this great set of competitors on ESPN,” one competitor said during the broadcast.
In a World Full of Screens, Pop-A-Shot Is Betting on Something You Can Actually Touch
Pop-A-Shot is betting that physical play still matters.
The company declined to share daily active user metrics or detailed sales figures beyond what’s been publicly reported. But Stucker sees the competitive circuit as a way to build community around something tangible.
Pop-A-Shot Lil’ Pop Game
“There’s a growing popularity of basketball around the world,” he said. The company is currently exporting to China, Canada, and Mexico, with plans to expand across Europe and Asia.
The product line includes NBA and NCAA licensed versions for college fans. There’s an app that connects to the Elite model, letting players track scores and compete on global leaderboards. But the core experience remains analog: you, a ball, a hoop, a countdown timer.
In a world saturated with fitness trackers and AI coaches, Pop-A-Shot is offering something simpler. No algorithms. No personalized programming. Just reps.
The 2026 National Championship qualifiers kick off this fall.
