Well, good morning everybody out there. Welcome to Hobby Hotline, episode number
two eighty four. And of course you guys know me. I'm king Nascar,
and with me today is Victor the Rookie cart Specialist and Stelle Gum are
good, buddy, Chris? How you guys doing all right? All right?
Right? So I wasn't scheduled to actually be the engineer today. I'm
actually pinch hitting, so bear with me. I will do the best that
I will actually do very well, so everything be great. So I haven't
seen you guys in a while. How was your holiday? Pretty good?
Pretty good? Sect so not good. I did get over a sinus infection,
so yike that it is not good. No, So we've already got
a lot of comments this morning. Let me share a few comments. Mad
City Brew, Good morning. What's every thing the new tops is on?
We're going to talk about that here in a minute. Yep, Frank,
good morning, Frank, Philly Joe, he likes it. That's good,
all right? And Massy Bruce same here. Yeah, a lot of people
are liking it. Good morning, Phil Joe, going down through here.
Heyre's Mark Hall? Hey Mark, I hope you're doing better. Good morning.
We've got TJ and good morning to him and Ziggy. Hey, Ziggy,
what's going on? Man? Happy New Year? And like, I'm
just going through everything here real quick. Bob Boozle well twenty twenty four tops
yield, Rookie card controversies for Victor Dusk to dis act. Yeah, I've
started getting hit last night with dms and questions and it's fun. We'll get
into it, okay, cool man watch socks tile. Hey guys, okay,
cool. So let's just start out with kind of an icebreaker the the
NFL playoffs. What do you guys think with your predictions? What do you
think about the fact that it's on. We've got one game on just strictly
on Peacock. Yeah, that's something different, you know. I'm sorry.
The Kansas City Miami game too is Peacock. Now, if you live in
the Kansas City and Miami areas, it's going to be on over the air
TV. But for the rest of America, yes, you have to sign
up for a five ninety nine a month streaming service to watch it. Look,
I mean this is where TV is going, This is where sports is
going. The Thursday night game is on Amazon Prime now as a soccer fan.
The whole MLS was sold to Apple TV last year. The service is
great by the way, you get every game, no blackouts, But uh,
you know, it's it's where TV sports is going now. And and
what's interesting is that I actually read something about the NBA's media rights are up
at the end of the year and they're in negotiation right now and they're looking
to put some games on streaming. And I and I and I know that
the next season NASCAR is going to put some races on Amazon Prime. So
this is where everything's going. It's going to going towards streaming. Yeah,
you know, going forward in the future, your Internet connection is going to
be your you know everything. It's going to be where you where of course,
where you do all your social media. It's going to be all the
streaming. It's gonna be everything. You're not gonna have a you're not gonna
have a cable box per se. You're just going to be using your internet
now to pick and choose what you want to watch. Yeah, it's the
dawn of a new era for sure. With television. I don't have any
vested interest in any of these teams. My beloved bears are definitely not in
it. Right. We do have the Packers and the Cowboys. That game
really intrigues me, so I'm as a Bears fan, I'm really pulling for
the Cowboys right obviously. And then my surprise team that has really impressed me
this year is the Lions. I was able to watch a couple of games
with them. Their defense looks really, really good, so I'm anticipating watching
that game. But they have Matthew Stafford for the Rams, who is an
ex Detroit Lion, So that's that's a very interesting game as far is the
drama of it all. Who's gonna take it all? I have no idea,
no I have. I have no idea whatsoever either. I have no
horse in this race at all, and I really don't you know, you
know, going back to the streaming part, you know the thing I don't
There's one thing I don't like about it is you know, of course you're
listening to the announcers on there going oh, it's such a great thing and
it's so good and blah blah blah. But you know what they're basically doing,
is there you know, if you really have have an interest in watching
this game and watching Taylor Swift. You they're they're forcing you to to buy
this streaming service, and I don't like that. I don't like being forced
into something like that. So that's that's the problem I have with it.
You know, my wife uses Peacock. She watches Days of our Lives on
Peacock and that's the only reason she's got it. And uh, I guess
we could probably use her account to do it, but I still don't like
that idea of being having it, you know, ram down my throat,
so to speak. I'm wondering, if you purchased the NFL package at the
beginning of the season, I'm sure you get all the games. I'm assuming,
I think, so, yeah, yeah yeah, But then they're pushing
you, forcing you to get the package. Yeah yeah, sure are so
yeah, you're going to have to get if you really want to watch it,
you gotta get it, fortunate, right, right, So I guess
with that being said, let's let's switch topics real quick. There's a lot
of buzz right now about the twenty twenty three Top Series one baseball design.
I actually have a picture here of that somewhere, and I will put that
up here on the screen real quick. So there it is. That's what
it looks like. I actually grab this off of I think Blowouts page.
So what do you guys think? It's Uh, it's different. It's uh.
I think I'm growing to like it. With the Neon It's it's definitely
different. I also like the black and white gradient board. It's kind of
a I don't know, nineteen eighty six is comment it looks like a seventies
adult video Neon box kind of does. Not that I would know anything about
that, Bob says, But I'm one thing I'm hearing is that there are
a lot of folks that looked at this and said, oh god, it's
black borders. It's not gonna jam. Who cares. I mean, if
you're really concerned that tops bas cards are, why are you even submitting tops
bas cards anyway? I mean, come on, yeah, it's too expensive
to do bas cards anymore. Well, a lot I get that controversy,
but I'm on the side of, you know, if a player pops,
if let's just say Evan Carter here pops and he does starting something spectacular,
these bass rookies are going to hold value in the secondary mark it. But
to but it's you know, we got. We gotta be smart about sending
in the right. It's not anything and everything. But maybe when a player
does pop, when he does something that is, you know, worthy,
then then I would say, yeah, why not. I don't think it's
a big deal to grade those types of cards. I don't think so either.
I have a lot of black border cards that you know, there's a
lot embracing, and I get those graded, you know, all the time.
There's you know, like the eighty seven. But the complaints were that
because it's black bordered, it won't get a ten. Well, okay,
that true. Who cares. I mean, it's gonna be more. Yeah,
it's going to be challenging right to to kind of not chip those or
that sort of thing. But I don't you'll have some that gem. I
mean, I love the design personally, I thought of I call it the
Jay Lee sports card design from Sports Cards Lives. Kind of just reminded me
of He's logo has that neon thing, and I did, like, I
don't know, I was kind of confused with a couple of things. The
first one is the original photo that was released seemed to have like a really
big border around it, But then other photos and I don't know if they've
been photoshopped or what seemed to have like a thinner border around it. So
I don't know what's up with that. Yeah, this seems to be like
a more standard border, right, but but yeah, the original photo released
by TOPS had a much wider border. And you're talking about the Eli Dela
Cruise. Yeah, yeah, so well I have a slightly thicker broil.
We'll see. Another thing that was going around was right above the team emblem.
There appeared to be what is called a first card and the and the
photo that I saw was with the El Dela Cruz right above the team logo,
there was a first card designation. What the heck is that about?
That? You didn't see that? Yeah? Yeah, I don't know if
it's like a you got you gotta determine the source. Where is this photo
coming from? Right now? I'm I'm looking at back at right man when
I don't see a first Yeah, he was going anywhere on the dal La
Cruz card. It was going around on Twitter last night. I got into
some discussions about that. I just I don't know what that means. I
wish TOPS would maybe uh share that information with us. What is up with
that? Why are we having rookie cards now with the Rookie card logo and
a first card designation? And I looked at Beckett database. Eli de la
Cruz has almost two thousand cards already released of him. Yeah, and he
should have had his Rookie card in last year, last year's product. Thank
you, thank you, Chris. Oh yeah, yay. People killing me,
But I guess we'll uh well, I gotta determine is that even real
or and what is up with that? I'm assuming it's like the first edition
release that they did last year. I'm assuming that's what this is, but
I don't know. Maybe somebody in the chat nos Well, when I look
at it, I'm thinking of hot doughnuts now, so that's what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking Krispy Kreme. But I like it, honestly. I think
it's a great design. I think they did a good job with it.
I mean it's original. You know, we haven't seen a Neon border like
this before. So I'll tip my cap to mister Fullerton and the gang in
charge of a flagship. As for the rest of the product, apparently we're
getting another nineteen eighties reprint. This hundred card nineteen eighty nine insert who cares
we are blaster boxes will no longer have a Manu relic, but what they
will have is more parallels, because apparently tops needed more parallels, and apparently
these are springtime parallels. So there's going to be let me see egg parallels,
rabbit parallels, flower parallels, umbrella parallels. Yeah, it's like if
the one thing that this product didn't need is more you know, I kind
of feel like you remember the more cowbells skit from Saturday Night Live, right,
Will Ferrell hitting the cowbell? Christopher Walking says I got a FEVA and
the only prescription are more parallels. And the thing is is that you know,
and those of us that go to card shows, we kind of know
this. Now. Most of these parallels nobody really even wants, am I
right? Yeah, I don't because I'm on school. Do you want a
parallel of a rabbit of even if it's a one in fifty six pack hit
rabbits in the background, that's kind of weird, I hear, yet,
I mean that's the case. How about peanuts, crackerjacks hot, let's give
let's not give them any ideas? Okay, all right, all right.
Yeah. I do like the fact that the base sets back to three hundred
and fifty cards as opposed to three thirty, So they're making it bigger.
Huh, A little bit bigger, Okay, not as big as I think
it should be. Yeah. You know, if we could get a seven
hundred and ninety two cards set in the eighties, why isn't it seven hundred
ninety two now? Yeah? Yeah, pork rol parallels. Don't please,
don't give them any ideas as you know they're going to do that. You
guys don't get pork roll where you live, do you? No? No,
no, Yeah, It's kind of like a Philadelphia, Jersey thing.
Let's see what else can we complain about in series one? Yeah, eighty
nine inserts who cares? All Tops Team okay, greatest hits Okay. There's
a twenty four card tribute to Ken Griffy Junior, which I think they did
three or four years ago, but we're doing it again. Grand gamers whatever.
They are heavy lumber, which I guess are the super scarce home field
advantages back yay. Stars of MLB are in retail packs, so look for
them to be clogging up fifty cent boxes everywhere. For the next couple of
years. Nothing really special. I mean about SSPs, Chris, Well,
they they're doing what they did last year and essentially making it a full parallel
and identifying it on the back in big bold letters. This is a short
print. So I guess you could justify not collecting them by treating them as
a parallel. So now, at first I heard rumblings that they were going
to have sps for the entire for the entire set. Yeah, that's what
they did last year. Yeah, but I guess now they've retracted from that.
They're not going to do that in twenty twenty four. That's not what
I heard. I think they're back only I think that they are, Yeah,
Michael, Michael Monahan. I think the guy that works for fanatics,
he ended up squashing the rumors on the SSPs, and yeah, that's that's
that's just what I heard. Okay, I guess we'll have to wait and
see. Yeah, yeah, you have to be What do you think of
the SSP concept? Do you like it? Chris? They're dumb, you
know, like it? I mean I think the cops used to do it.
I think they have ligship, they have better pictures on them. I
like the photo images on them. Well, why do there have to be
two different cards of the same player? Yeah? And and why do why
did I have to And look, they did take care of this problem,
But why do I have to like turn the card over, break out a
magnifying night, right, and decipher some kind of cryptic code right in order
to figure out what card that I have? Right? Right? I think?
And what is that also say about the product that you feel the need
that you have to have this in the set in order for people like us
to be able to collect it? Yeah, I think they're trying to spice
it up because of the print run is so large, well with short prints,
right, does it really need it? Chris is dress like missus roper
today? Really? What's just keep your shirt on? Christal Acts actually a
Philadelphia Union Jersey. So I want to go to a comment that John made
this comment right here, ten X the hobby means ten X dumbing down the
hobby. This is something I've actually had on my mind before we started the
show today. I want to pose the question, you guys, you know
we're hearing that, you know, I hear it from everywhere that ten X
and the Hobby is a good thing. I don't think so. I think
that ten X and the Hobby is going to make there's gonna be more hobby
greed. You're going to have, you know, higher prices on certain car
because everybody's gonna be going after certain they're going to be artificially inflated. I
don't, in my opinion, ten X and the Hobby is not a good
thing. I mean, what do you guys think. Yeah, I don't
think. I'm not on that bandwagon. I'll be honest with you. I
don't think we're not ready for tennexing in the hobby right now. Uh.
Maybe a goal to strive for, but I think there's just too much,
uh with with everything going on with licensing, with the miscues that we're currently
having, with the printing backlog that we have. I don't. I don't
think we're in a position for ten xing the hobby. I think that's just
more corporate corporate talk, you know, kind of coming in shooting for the
stars, seeing what sticks type of thing. I'm not a big fan of
the of the ten X philosophy. Let's just let's just see what happens.
Well. When we're saying ten X the hobby ten xing. What are we
ten xing the number of collectors or are we ten xing just revenues here?
I mean, either way, if you wanna ten x the hobby, you're
gonna have to You're gonna have to start printing up more products. I mean,
you're gonna have to go to basically junk wax row levels of production on
most products, even premium products, or even super premium products, or even
you know these one hundred five hundred thousand, well maybe not junk wax level
levels of production on mode, but you know a product like Tier one,
you know, three hits in a box, seventy dollars a box. You're
gonna have to make a lot more of that if you're going to ten x
revenues. I do want to give a sneak preview because I kind of do
address this issue in my Hobby News Daily column for January, which I haven't
submitted yet, but I will. I talk about the Tom Brady baseball card
that came out and it got a lot of hype. I like that.
I love that, I love the concept of this card even though it's a
gimmick, and I also love the marketing campaign behind it, especially that video
they made with the Guerrero Pedro Martinez and Larry Walker in a bar in Montreal,
you know, reminiscing about all the World Series titles that their captain,
their catcher, Tom Brady brought. And I imagine, imagine you're not a
card collect but imagine you're a big Tom Brady fan, right, and you
see this ad and you have to have that card. You don't ordinarily collect
cards, but you need this one. So you buy a box of cards.
And these card boxes aren't cheap. I mean, the lowest price I
found for Bowman Draft is like five hundred and sixty dollars of David Adams,
right, So you send off your five hundred and sixty dollars to David Adams,
You get the box, you rip open the packs, you get a
bunch of players that you've never heard before because you know it's Bowman Draft.
You don't understand how some of the cards have different border colors, and some
of the cards are printed on regular paper stock, and some of the cards
are printed on this shiny metal stock. But at the end of the day,
you don't get your Brady card. So okay, fine, I'll send
another five hundred and sixty dollars to DNA. I'll get another box. Surely
I have to get a Tom braid and you don't. And now you're eleven
hundred bucks in the hole. You do not have a Tom Brady card.
You kind of feel like you've been had a little bit. You kind of
feel like a bit of a chump making potential custom And I hope someone at
Fanatics is listening to this. If you want a ted X the Hobby,
well forget about ten X. If you want to two X the hobby,
do not make potential customers look like chumps. That's a good point because you
know, I remember back during the when Billy Ripkin the Billy Ripkin Err came
out back in the day, and I didn't even know anything about it until
my boss at the computer center runs back to the shop and hence this USA
Today article about it, and he goes, I want one, you know,
so he was all excited. It's it's kind of the same kind of
but uh, you know, all I think that ten X in the Hobby
is going to do is trying to ten x Fanatics executives pocket and that that's
that's how I look at it. To me as a collector, I don't
think ten xing is a good thing. I think that now the cards that
I'm looking for, the Grail cards, are gonna be harder because I've got
other people wanting And this may sound greedy, but I've got other collectors,
you know, looking for the same card. I may not be able to
get this card. It's kind of like what you were talking about, Chris,
I may not be able to get that card that I really really want
because there's so many people out there, and I just I just think,
I just don't think it's a good thing. Honestly. I think the cost
of product today and least seeing it even with the prison basketball that iss soon
to release, I think it came out at what nine a box. Don't
don't quote me on that, but that's outrageous, right, And it almost
seems like they are curtailing to the collector that has deep pockets, right,
and it seems like the silent majority who can't afford that type of price for
a box are being kind of left behind. But I think what they're doing
is more like they're trying to absorb the secondary market, the profit that's left
on the table from the secondary market. So it's kind of like a two
edged sword there, because if they list them for three point fifty and the
secondary market immediately goes at a thousand dollars a box, well, they're leaving
that money on the table, and they're I think it's more of a you
know, trying to absorb that that profit for themselves instead of giving it to
the secondary market. But I don't know who can afford, you know,
those types of boxes accept a distinct few in the hobby and that have those
types of deep pockets. I think the rest of us, I don't know
if if you know, settle on retail boxes. I don't know, don't.
I don't really get into the new product too much. But the majority
of the silent majority, they're they're gonna be stuck either buying singles at the
secondary market or just settling for retail product, which is not gonna be as
fruitful as the first off the line product. Right But it's to me,
it's it's crazy, but it's it's it's kind of the reality of things right
now. I think that there's gonna be a lot more product agree I'm not
in favor of, and we'll probably head to eventually it'll be a junk Wax
two point zero era. You know, that's kind of the way it's going
to go. I think if you text the hobby and you know, I
want folks to get into the hobby for the right reason, not the get
rich quick reasons, and not the flipper slash hype beast mentality. I don't
like that. I honestly do not like that. Of course, again,
I've been collecting since nineteen seventy one, so you know, I'm just a
collector. You know, people ask me all the time, hey man,
we think your collection is worth I'm like, I have no idea. I
collect because I love it, and it's fine. Yeah, So as long
as people get into it for the right reasons, you know, I guess
I have less of a problem with it. But I think what you're going
to find out is, you know, like this, like this Tom Brady
card, you know that's all over the places, like what Chris said,
everybody's going to want to try to chase it, and then again when they
don't get it, they're going to be upset and they're going to leave the
hobby and feel like they got burned. Yeah, exactly, spending all this
money on these boxes. You know, I can remember when I was a
kid buying you know, seventy two tops, you know, buying a box
of seventy two tops. I could buy a box of seventy two tops for
what two dollars and forty cents or whatever. I think there were twenty four
packs and ten cents. I mean you could. You could earn that kind
of money by doing chores around the neighborhood. But you can't. You can't
buy boxes now by doing chores around the neighborhood. It's just not you just
can't do it. So I failed to mention this, but the Brady card
is like a one in every twenty seven hundred pack. Hit wow. So
and you only get twelve packs at a box for your five hundred and fifty
bucks. So yeah, Ted X of the Hobby, Baby, Yeah X
baby. Yeah again, I said, we'll see what happens. I don't
think it's achievable. I don't think you're going to get enough people in here
to sustain that kind of level. I think the collectors that you have now,
you know it's gonna it's kind of like doctor Beckett says, you want
to see a gradual increase you don't want to see this quick jump from now
to next year having ten times the collectors, because if you do, you
know, you know, nine x of them are going to leave, you
know, or whatever. So I just I just don't think it's feasible.
I don't think it's good for the hobby, honestly. I like re Rex
makes a couple of good comments there, if you want to highlight those logan
coming from a card shop owner himself, a guy who's in the front lines,
right, So those opinions are typically carry some weight with me right around
the ten right here, Yeah, Rex, Yeah, Rex says that ten
x is not achievable in his opinion. In his circle of friends and family,
almost all of them are sports fans of some sort, some even game
on sports, but only a small percentage have interest in collecting. And that's
true. I mean, I know a lot of sports fans that you know,
they you know, I'll mention collecting to them and they're like, I
don't give a you know, I don't care about that. That's not what
I want to do. I mean, I think you have to have that
collecting gene, like doctor Beckett says, is Chris Chris muted I think I
was kicked off for just a brief set. Yeah I heard it, Yeah,
I heard the little thing. So what else? What else do you
guys want to talk about real quick? Well, we got a couple of
contract announcements, some big names switching things up. Oh yeah, we got
what Tiger Woods and we've got what Lebron and little Little Brownie. Yeah yeah,
So what y'all think about that dual autograph card with Lebron and Bronnie.
Well, most of us are never going to be able to collect that card
because it's a one of one gimmick. I'm pretty sure that they're going to
be much more attainable parallels of that card. But you know, this is
kind of big because, you know, Lebron James has been exclusive to Upper
Deck for really since the beginning of his career, and now, for the
first time, he's going to be signing for another company. Now, granted,
this company doesn't have the NBA license yet, not until I believe twenty
twenty six Fanatics gets the license back, but I think we can expect to
see Lebron James autographs, not just in basketball products with his son, but
you know, I think we'll see a lot of Lebron James cards and a
lot of the base ball sets this year. I think he's a shoe in
for Allen and Ginter. I think a few other high end products you might
see him in, like maybe a Triple Threads or maybe a Tier one or
even a tran might even be a Transcendent autograph. Granted he won't be in
his clea in his NBA uniform. I believe that the dual autograph with his
son depicts him in his high school uniform. I'm sure that high School is
making out pretty well with the licensing, but you know, it's kind of
a changing of the guard. I mean, Upper Deck has had lost the
NBA license what in twenty ten, and what have they done with Lebron over
the last dozen or so years. I mean, really, the only Lebron
autographs you can find we're in products like Goodwin Champions or or Gouty. So
yeah, they'll probably put him on an F one release as well. It
there'll be some kind of deal where he's in an F one race or something.
Yeah, we'll have an F one with all the other celebrities that show
up and walk the pit walk the paddock and take a picture, and I
think it's uh. I think it's a big signing too, It really is.
It's huge. I think he's following his son, and I love the
I love that story, right, He's kind of like bringing his son along
kind of thing. I love that's that's but I do think this is more
like it. It's a gimmick, this this dual card, right, and
it seems like the pattern that Fanatics is using is have that big card,
that real big chase, and that's going to generate the cell of the product.
Except the problem is is when you pull the big card on the first
day of release. Yeah, that plan kind of backfires out of here,
right, but now it leads It begs the question what about Jordan's I don't
think Jordans. Jordan is kind of committed to his brands and Nike and Upper
Deck have been his Yeah, I don't see him moving. I hope he
does, don't get me wrong. It would be awesome, but at least
for the immediate I don't see it happening either. Yeah. And of course
you know Michael Jordans, he co owns a NASCAR Cup team as well with
Denny Handling, and they just built this really nice new state of the art
shop. It's you should see pictures of it. It's it's quite impressive.
So I would love to see, you know, more cards, but they're
not going to be able to do anything. Panini won't be able to do
anything with that license of Michael Jordan's, so we won't we won't have any
Michael Jordan cards in NASCAR. It would be cool. So what about Tiger
Woods switching or leaving Nike? Did he leave voluntarily or was this a you
know, some something that Nike said bye bye? I mean, I don't
know. Did they sign his son? Did Nike sign his son? I
mean, I don't know. I don't see how they would let this guy
walk away. It had to be something that he wanted because he's still active
in golf. His son is an up and coming to the to the league.
Why would they let him go? I don't I don't know. There's
more to that story, I believe, you know is was Nike really getting
its money's worth though? With Tiger Woods? I mean I read that over
the twenty seven years that Tiger was part of Nike, they paid him almost
five hundred million dollars. Wow, how much? How many golf shoes did
they sell? Or red shirts? How many golf balls and drivers did Nike
sell during that period? I mean, I don't. I think Nike was
in before Tiger, but all they made were shoes and apparel, but they
didn't make equipment. And I think years ago Tiger stopped using Nike equipment.
You know, I don't even think Nike even makes clubs anymore. So,
so the return on investment is just not there for Tiger. Yeah, because
the marketing stuff doesn't really sell too much with golf. Yeah, you don't
see people wearing you know, air Tiger ones or whatever. That's a great
point. That's a great point. Yeah, catching up on some of these
comments, I'm way behind on some of them. I'm gonna go back to
a comment that I saw. That's all I had started. But looking at
some of these comments, John says, I would think Nike paid Tiger more
than five hundred million. I would too. I think it's probably more than
that, because you know, I remember a time when they were talking about
Tiger Woods being the first billionaire. Not only that, the liability of of
what Tiger has been the last you know, decade or so, the fires
that Nikes have had to put out all of his personal stuff, right,
very true. He really hasn't played much over the last decade either. Yeah,
yeah, like that. Nike stopped making clubs in twenty sixteen, seventeens.
Wow, so it's been a while now. So the handwriting was on
the wall back then much. Yeah, there's a limited schedule. Nike's not
getting much exposure if he doesn't play. That's very true. Yeah, because
he always wore wear that Nike shirt, Nike hat. I'm sure he's got
Nike underwear. And what other golfers wear Nike gear? You know, I
don't. I don't watch golf enough to know. So where where did he
go? Where? What was the shoe company? Did he that? Tiger
went to a different I think he started playing tailor made club, but as
far as apparel and shoes, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if
Fanatics goes and pursues Tiger Woods. He's still a big name, he's still
a goat. But he's also upper deck exclusive the body of work. Oh,
he's also upper deck exclusive. That's right, that's right. He's wearing
foot Joys. So you know, with all of these with you know,
Lebron and everything leaving upper deck and everything. Do you guys think that this
is also a play by Fanatics to kind of, you know, put the
herd on upper deck? I mean, what are your thoughts on that?
Go ahead, Victor, I don't know, man. Possibly, possibly,
yeah, because they're playing some hardball. So you don't think that Fanatics wouldn't
want the trading card rights to Tiger Woods. I really would everything. I
mean, listen, Tiger Woods, the portfolio. Let let's throw enough money
at at Michael Jordan's see if he if he budges you know who knows.
It seems like it seems like there's a lot of money being thrown around to
get these elite athletes to to sign with Fanatics. Yeah. I mean,
Fanatics wants to be the end all be all. They want to be the
Amazon dot Com for sports, and they're winning for now. For now.
I just don't see that. I don't know how that trend can continue,
but you know, we'll we will see. See. I wonder if I
wonder if Rolex has dropped Tiger yet. I do not know, as anybody
heard, you guys know that it's a good question. What are Tiger Wood's
well, he's got a lot of high dollar sponsors. So so Chris is
googling. We'll move on. Yeah, he's wearing foot Joy's shoes. That's
it. Thanks, Frank, appreciate that Kayles's shoes. Like see, he
has a lucrative deal with Monster in Chris froze. Is his internet connection not
not doing so well? This is I think an episode of The Matrix Tailor
Made Clubs got you? Yeah you you you froze up there for a second.
Chris am back now, yeah you're back man. So Tiger has deals
with Monster Energy, Rolex bridgetone Tires, Upper Deck, and two K Sports
according to the According to the Sun, I feel kind of bad reading the
Sun, but that was the only one that came up. But anyway,
Yeah, I like this comment, and I should just just focus on putting
out, putting out the many fires that in the production market and in the
marketing departments. Yeah, there's there's been a lot of issues, a lot
of a lot of stuff being back doored somehow with people getting out with some
of these cards. That's that's that's bad for the hobby. And you know,
let me a quick story back in the back in the eighties, of
course, Donris manufactured here in Memphis, and I was at one of the
l c s's and this lady walks in asking the shop owner if he bought
cards. He said, yeah, it just depends on what you got.
She literally reaches into her braut these autographed cal Ripken junior cards, stock of
them, and uh, the owner goes, I'm sorry, I'm not interested.
But apparently this this woman had worked at uh Donras downtown and just hey,
here's here's a stack of cal Riptan junior autograph cards. I'm gonna stick
these down here and see what I can do with them, because I heard
they're valuable. So that kind of thing has been going on for for quite
some time, and you know, it's it's sometimes it's very hard to control
because you can't you there's only so many body places you can I think you
can search. Yeah, these days you can't. You just can't go in
and you know, invade somebody's space. So, you know, but what
do y'all think about all these production problems that are going on right now as
far as production and then you know, things getting getting back doored and people
showing up on eBay with all these one of ones that it would take you
thousands of cases to hit. I think they need to get a handle on
it immediately. They need to do I mean, the thing that that I
don't understand is if you're fencing a lot of these backdoor ones of one,
why would you put them all on eBay at the same time, like a
week before the product's released. I and you're basically that's just not smart.
I mean, you put a little bit of out every if not that I
would know anything about stealing, about trafficking and stolen cards on eBay or anything,
but if I, if I did, I'd be smart enough to not,
you know, put them all out at once. Well, nobody said
that these people were smart that are stealing things. So and that, and
that's usually the case. We've got some of the dumbest criminals here in this
city. So we see it every night on the news. So you know,
generally, if if you're dumb enough to steal, then you're gonna be
dumb enough to to expose yourself. I think so, and that's what's going
on. Some of these people are just that stupid. But I don't like
it. I think it's it's a bad look for the hobby. Again,
it shows more hobby greed in my opinion, because people think, oh,
these cards are worth this, and so I better see if I can steal
them and and sell them and make some money, you know, and and
and that that kind of goes back to the tenexting thing. You know,
people people in the hobby for the wrong reason, and that's that's that's that's
that's bad. Yeah, And unfortunately we have a history of you know,
when when bad actors get caught like that, it's just like a you know,
a slap on the hand and go away like it's no big deal.
Even in taking the route of justice, it's you know what a year probation
is what they get, you know. But I do believe we've had some
more serious offenses here in the last year or so that have actually led to
prison sentences. And I think that's gonna be when when that that has to
be when the consequences match the crime, right, that's that's when things going
to change. But until we agree, when all we do is slap on
a hand in six months probation, it doesn't doesn't move the needle. Well,
you know, of course, I keep going back to living here in
Memphis, but that's that's exactly what's going on here. Uh with the criminals.
You know, they get caught and they know that all they have to
do is post bail or whatever, they're going to be out the next day.
So what there there's there's nothing to stop them, no deterrent, no
anything to stop them from going out and just continually doing these bad things.
And you're right. The hobby is, you know, has a very short
term memory, you know, and is also very forgiving, and people forget
real quick about all these controversies and all these people, you know, doing
these bad things and stuff. So you know, like you're right. Until
there's some some consequences for your actions, it's gonna keep happening because, like
I said, we we have that we have that problem with crime here right
now, and until we can get a handle on it in the hobby,
it's it's never going to change, unfortunately. And I think most of the
schemes and most of the theft it's all happening with amongst collectors. They it's
collectors that have gone bad, right, they kind of know what to go
for, they kind of know how to move it and and I don't know,
it's it's it's crazy. It's the allure of easy money. It is
the allure of easy money. And you know, and that goes back to
a lot of hype, you know, because you see on the news somebody
has, you know, got this card that's worth X number of dollars and
they got it out of a new pack and things, and people are going,
oh, I can get rich quick. Oh I want to go do
this, And it's you know, I hate that because I the hobby for
me has never been motivated by money. It's always been motivated by fun for
me, ever since I started opening my very first pack of cards. So
that's I think again. I think, you know, if you're going to
be, if you're a collector, you've got the collecting gene already in you.
You know. I think I got it from my grandma because my grandma
was a collector. And so that that's kind of where I stand with that.
Let's see catch up. Let's catch up real quick on some comments.
See TJ says all major track pools of late advertise on top of social media,
Yeah, have all been Breaker related. Yeah, And that's that's another
crazy thing that's going right on right now with these breakers. I think buys
the bulk of these products. You know, Oh, I know, not
collectors, it's breakers. Yeah, but you know, the collectors are supporting
the breaker, so quit supporting these breakers. We'll we'll, you know,
they're doing these bad things, and and maybe we'll have some good stuff going
on in the hobby because you know, there's unfortunately there's a lot of shady
stuff going on there, which could be a whole episode of Hobby Hotline there
by itself. See yeah, talking about vintage, you know up here,
Joseph says, vintage collecting the only way to go in the hobby. Now.
I'm you know, I'm a vintage guy. I don't collect a lot
of baseball, but I do have some vintage baseball cards and I and I
used to collect baseball cards until I sold them back a long time ago and
uh went to went to do a NASCAR But uh, yeah, I'm a
vintage kind of guy. You know. I love I love vintage. I
think that can't go wrong with it. I'm really torn on this idea.
I really struggle, and I guess I'm kind of on the fence. I
mean, I have vintage collector of vintage, but at the same time,
I also like collecting rookie cards of hot players today. You know, I
love guys who are in the five to ten year range that are headed.
They're not in the Hall of Fame, but they're headed towards the Hall of
Fame, you know what I mean. I enjoy collecting the cards of players
that I enjoy watching today. So it's kind of that's a struggle for me
to be like pro vintage only I believe in being pro vintage, but I
also like the the modern day players too. I guess, well, there's
there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, you know, because being a NASCAR collector,
that's all I have is newer stuff. So that's that's the way I
have to roll. But I enjoy it. Unfortunately, it seems like we
haven't had as many issues lately to try to collect. I think that's going
to change in twenty twenty four, so that'll be that'll be a good thing
to look forward to see. White Sox. Tom says flippers grew in the
hobby. I will say that, you know, flippers may be a necessary
evil from the hobby because they find the stuff that the collectors buy. So
that's kind of kind of the way that I think that goes. Let's see
here, TJ says, Amen, Victor, I'm one hundred percent of vintage,
but by modern. Allen and Ginter with his son, they love opening
packs together. That's a that's a cool thing. You know. That's my
son. He's thirty two years old and he came over here for Christmas Christmas
morning and I had packs of cards in his stocking and we opened up his
cards. So that was fun. That's that's always a good thing. It
is. See, Yeah, Boozle says, flippers don't bother him. Scammers
do, yes, Well, yeah, scammers are. They're they're bad for
the hobby day. We've had him forever. It just seems like with social
media they get they get highlighted more now. But it's unfortunate. Will you
guys think about all that about about the scammers in the hobby real quick scammers
and everything. You know, you just gotta just gotta be smart. Something's
too good to be true. It probably is that that is so true,
you know. I'll always I see a lot of fake Dale Earnhardt senior autographs
on eBay and people are always asking me or Val, you know, is
this real or not? And of course we you know, we look at
we can tell pretty quick if it's real or not. So yeah, there's
a lot of people trying to make a quick bug by scamming. For sure,
real quick, I've got the official Boston Terrier of Hobby hotline just showed
up. Say how bella there you go? All right, all right,
I guess one of the things I do have. It's kind of a personal
thing with me and Val on our show on Nascard Radio. We're kind of
taking a cue from Victor on his baseball card Hall of Fame. We're doing
a racing card Hall of Fame, and I'll show you the q R code
we've got real quick, I'll talk about it. We're currently doing a racing
card Hall of Fame. We've got forty cards on the ballot and you can
vote for your top ten cards. We had. We took, We took
all the nominees that were submitted by all of our listeners and watchers from NASCAR
Radio. But anyway, if you want to go out there and vote,
check it out. It's uh B I T dot L Y slash r C
h O F ballot and it's going to ask you for a password, and
the password is our c h o F and all cats. So go out
there check it out. If you guys like racing and like, uh,
like racing cards, Uh, we'd appreciate you guys voting for the Racing Card
Hall of Fame. That would be be really really cool. Now, is
this exclusively just NASCAR cards? You're not gonna have like Formula one or No,
that's a good question. No, it's no, it's it's all.
It's all. It's all racing. It could be cards from even airplane racing.
There were no nominated. But we've got Formula one, we've got drag
racing, We've got NASCAR on there. So it's it's the racing car it's
not the NASCAR Card Hall of Fame. It's the Racing Card Hall of Fame.
But again we like I said, we took a cue from Victor on
doing that. Well yeah, no, and it's the it's the Sports Card
Hall of Fame network. It was actually started by Ray Fonio. But I'd
love the concept. I wish you would have said something. We would have
loved to partner with you in this endeavor and we could have. Really I
just found out about it here recently, but keep that in mind in the
future. But I love the concept because I always am intrigued with getting certain
cards, like racing for instance. I don't have any, to be honest
with you, but I wouldn't mind dabbling in if I just only knew what
to get, right, I would love to pick up a card and add
it to my PC. And I think this avenue, this is why I'm
really looking forward to the result, because it's it's what the hobby says,
right, It's what the hobby has deemed as the best cards for this for
this genre, and I would I'm really looking forward to that so I can
go out and pick up a couple of cards. So yeah, with that
being said, we've had the the racing car community completely involved with this ever
since the inception of it. We took nominations from everybody, and then we
have a five panel crew that we went through and we took all the nominations
and like if there were certain cars that did everybody nominated and there were certain
cars that very few got nominated, So we went we actually went by the
vote totals and the nomination totals of how many cars were nominated. Then that's
how we made our list. Of forty because we I think we had a
list of like eighty three cards total, but we narrowed it down to the
forty. And then of course now we're going to narrow it down to the
ten with the first class in twenty twenty four of the Racing Card Hall of
Fame. So so it's gonna be fun. It's and again we used your
idea with the Google docs that worked out very very well. There you go,
There you go. So I like that, you know, like I
said, I kind of stole a lot of it from you, guys.
Imitation is to the highest form of flattery, right, We appreciate you guys
doing the hard work on the front end and we just kind of copied it.
Good luck to you and thanks. Well, it looks like we're getting
close to the end here, guys. We've had a great show. You
guys, have any party comments, anything, you know where people can find
you on social media that kind of thing. Go ahead, Victor, I'll
let you go first. Yeah, Victor, I can be found anywhere at
True Underscore RCS, any any social media platform. Glad to be on today.
Thank you everybody. The chat was just on fire today and have a
great weekend. Everybody happy football watching right, kind of happy. We were
able to squeeze out an hour running shorthanded. So yeah. Hopefully my column
for Hobby News Daily will be out this week. It's a little late because
I've been sick in the holidays. I got nothing, nothing else. Call
me at stalegum on whatever Elon's calling it now, baseballcardpedia dot com for all
your baseball card reference needs, fabulous website. Keep on rocket in the free
world. And I think I'm on in three weeks. First week of February,
I'll be back on Hobby Hotline. Who do we have on next week?
I am not sure. I have not looked at the schedule. Look
it up. Hold on, Chris is going to look it up. And
while he's looking that up, I want to thank everybody in the chat,
everybody for watching today. I appreciate all you guys. We all do.
Uh. You can find me. I'm at King Nascar on Twitter. Mostly
you can't find me on Facebook, but I don't talk about much of the
hobby on Facebook. All my hobby stuff's on Twitter. And we also do
Nascard Radio with val mars In myself, so check that out. And also
check out the Racing Card Hall of Fame. And one week from today we'll
have Danny Black, Mike moynihan, and Adam from Heroes for Sale. Pretty
good, yeah, good lineup. All right, all right, guys,
I thanks, thank you guys for really helping me out today with all this
engineering and everything that I was doing. And with that, we will check
you folks later, all right, good birds,