WHITEFISH BAY, Wis. — Playing and learning basketball just moved into the 21st century with the help of two brothers and a friend who grew up in Whitefish Bay. They created the first-ever smart basketball called huupe (pronounced like 'hoop').
It can track your makes, misses, shot location, and shot angle trajectory, and records it on a leaderboard with players from around the world that also have huupe. The backboard is also a screen where you can watch instructional videos made by NBA players like Thaddeus Young and Trevor Booker, and trainers like Michael Lancaster and Jordan Lawley.
"It's really a full gym. It's a full basketball training facility right in your home, right in your driveway," Paul Anton, the co-founder of huupe said.
Anton hopes to sell huupe to teams, gyms, youth organizations, and families.
"Kids that want to make the high school team (or) want to go to college, and learn how to do stepbacks, and learn how to do all these types of drills right from their home where they might not be able to get that sort of training. It's for them," Anton said.
Given all the technology associated with the backboard, it comes with an expensive price tag: $4,000. Despite being able to buy hoops for just a few hundred dollars, Anton said that the features of huupe make the cost worth it.
“Spalding has a $4,000 hoop. Goalrilla has hoops that are that price. So we’re the world’s first smart hoop. We offer so much more than them. We’re a whole training gym in your driveway for the same price point as other basketball hoops that people have in their driveways already," Anton said.
Plus, if huupe catches on, Anton said the price could be lowered as they are able to mass manufacture them.
huupe was started in 2019. Anton wanted to find a way to stay in touch with his brother, Frankie, even though they lived in different states.
“We stayed in touch by playing basketball on Snapchat. I’d record a shot on my cell phone and send it to Frankie 1,000 miles away.”
Fast forward four years later and the company is ready to start delivering its first batch of hoops to customers. Anton said they have almost sold 1,000 units, and those will be shipped around October of 2023. There is a special promotion that gives the first 1,000 customers a $1,000 discount.
Basketball runs in the Anton family. Both brothers played at Whitefish Bay High School. Paul won a state championship his senior year in 2011. Their mom also played for Marquette University during her freshman year.
"My mom was sort of the star of the family. I grew up idolizing her," Anton said.
huupe was not just created by brothers from Wisconsin, but Anton said that the company wouldn't have grown or gotten to the point of making sales if it weren't for Wisconsin-based tech incubators like Tundra Angels, gBETA, and Gener8tor.
"We wouldn’t be here without it, so it's pretty good we have to praise it. We really thank everyone in Milwaukee and Wisconsin that’s helped us along the way," Anton said.
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