A full deck
In a year where everything has gone digital, traditional sports cards are surging
We aren’t meeting in person.
We aren’t going to games in person. (Not many of us, anyway.)
Much of day-to-day life has been uploaded—or off-loaded—to the internet. And yet amidst all this digitalization cardboard has taken on a powerful role in the sports world.
Yes, good old cardboard.
In stadiums, cardboard avatars sit in the seats where we once cheered and chugged beers.
And cardboard sports cards are in a renaissance. Huge money is pouring into sports cards and memorabilia, and the market is back in a big way:
The rise of eBay, Amazon and newer marketplaces like StockX gave birth to huge secondary markets and fierce global competition for sports' most coveted stars, which in turn sent prices skyrocketing.
We’ve been here before. In the 1980s and early 90s, baseball card values exploded. That market was driven by local card shops and weekend conventions. Now, hobbyists and big-time investors have taken their money online:
In 2019, eBay reported more than $600 million in card sales, which have risen 40% overall since 2016. Executives from Upper Deck, Panini America, Topps and Leaf all say the past three to five years have been the industry's best ever.
eBay understands this, and put together this video designed to punch former collectors like me right between the eyes with a right-hook of nostalgia:
The market moves on current events, just like the stock market. This spring’s Michael Jordan documentary, “The Last Dance,” created a frenzy around Jordan memorabilia:
Why sports cards?
Are we instantly nostalgic for the time we could actually go to games? Maybe, but the market expansion is at least four years in the making. There’s more to it than coronavirus. John List, expert collector and econ professor at the University of Chicago, sums it up:
"The sports card market [does] well because it's part nostalgic, part art and part investment potential. That combination is what's magical."
Two economies
Today’s sports memorabilia market is a microcosm of the American economy. At the top, enormous sums of money fuel a vibrant marketplace and drive prices ever higher for the most elite items. Gary Vaynerchuk, internet entrepreneur and proponent of card collecting, believes institutional investors—hedge funds—are about to enter the market and make enormous investments. Like any market, sports cards will fluctuate. But the space may be gaining permanent acceptance as a viable component of a well-rounded investment strategy. But underneath this explosion of cash, others play a different game—just like our current economy. Shut out of high-end items, more frugal collectors watch videos of people who pool money together and buy the expensive boxes. These packages can contain the rare edition, big money cards:
The sports memorabilia market is thriving, but not all collectors are playing the same game.
And yet, that doesn’t necessarily matter. Even if I could make big-money investments in cards right now, none would hold the personal value of the book of baseball cards I’ve managed to hold onto since the 1980s, or the signed Kirk Gibson helmet on my shelf.
Unlike the stock market, sports memorabilia has personal meaning. And that means it can be a fun and useful hobby for any sports fan.