Speaker 1: Welcome fellow hobbyists to episode three hundred and eighty one
of Hobby Hotline. We have got another great show planned
for today. Joining me John the three D Eighties Kid
as your host, I have Doctor Jim Beckett and Chris Carlin.
How's it going today? Doctor Beckett going great? How about you?
Speaker 2: Chris doing awesome.
Speaker 3: I was just up in Burbank this week working at
Burbank Sports Cards, the Submission Center up there, and it's
that shop is so vibrant. There's so much energy and
people from all over the world coming in there. It
really gets you all fired up about the hobby. It's
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Well, it's got a crazy volume the stuff blowing through
that building, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see those what monthly reports from gem right
and it's insane. Of course many of it is Pokemon
these days, but yeah, for sure. But yeah, let's say
hello to the chat this morning. People are starting to
come in. I know it's early, especially for folks like
me on the West Coast, but we have got Scott Stukes, Welcome,
Peter b Philly, Joe, Mad City Brew, good Morning, Jayhawker,
Vintage cards from Kansas, Saber geek. We have got baseball
curmudgeon Confluence sports Cards. Our friend Ruben Snyder is so
welcome everybody. For our first topic of the day, we
are going to talk about the fact that now THEO
ball card license has been added to the gauntlet that
is owned by Fanatics, so they basically have a stranglehold
on the licenses for all three major sports moving for
the foreseeable future. You know, what are we going to
see as a result of this is this? Are we
going to see good things? I mean, the ten X
scene hasn't quite happened yet. What do you guys foresee
moving forward on this subject?
Speaker 4: You heard it here first, this will be the biggest
year in the history of football cards because Fanatics has
figured out a way to get a double year. I
think this twenty twenty six year is going to be
spectacular for football. Yeah, okay, on the others too, but
I think the football is really going to emerge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I don't know. I think strangleholds a tough
way to put it. You know, they put up and
worked in a way to acquire the license. But I
think collectors, you know, oftentimes we're active on X and
we're active on Facebook and these other instagram of course,
but I think it's really interesting seeing what I'm hearing
from and seeing from LinkedIn, in particular from tops people
that work there and the excitement and energy around it,
and some of the people I know in the industry
who are really solid at building products are already talking
about some.
Speaker 2: Of the things that they're going to be able to
do with that.
Speaker 3: And I mean some of the innovations, although maybe you know,
not accessible to everyone, are pretty darn cool and compelling.
If if TOPS can bring things like debut patches to football,
that's that's pretty darn compelling. So I'm cautiously optimistic. I
know there's going to be some uh not everything is
going to be very wallet friendly, which is which is tough,
but uh it's it's gonna be It's gonna be something
to watch, for sure, and there will definitely be things
that have not been done before that I think will
be pretty compelling. And I I'll say this, I'm not
sure that we're gonna see the end of Penninian football.
You know, they've been able to do some things that
are are are pretty compelling and from an artistic standpoint,
with both downtown and some of the manga things that
they've been doing that that aren't bad for an unlicensed
type of product, like It's wouldn't distract you when you've
got all these other things happening on the card to
not see a logo. So it'll be interesting to see
how they do too. And I know that's a subject
for a little later, but I'm cautiously optimistic. You know,
we're heading into the TOPS conference Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
of this week. I know that what they're doing with NFL,
we're gonna start hearing things about their plans right off
the bat. So from what I understand, this TOPS Conference
Industry conference is going to be one of their biggest
in the history of their company. I believe they have
over eight hundred attendees coming. And just to help you
understand how big that is, you know, I just did
the upper Deck conference in January and they had one
of their biggest conferences with about four hundred attendees. So
this is going to be a big week, I think,
in terms of news that we have about what their
plans are, and we'll just have to buckle up and
see how it goes.
Speaker 1: As collectors, well, a lot of people you know, over
the years have not liked what Panini did with like
relic material just being completely unconnected to an actual game
and things like that. I mean, it's fanatics having better
access on that front kind of bring back the quality
of those kinds of items. I mean, what what what
should we see on that frant I think.
Speaker 4: The photo matching stuff is getting better and better, but
people are looking closer and closer, and it seems like
to me it's watering down the verbiage on the back
of the cards. They're afraid to say that this was
used in this exact game at this moment. But I
don't think that, you know, there ought to be truth
in packaging, and I think there is. It's just sometimes
I think some of the companies occasionally have understated. They
don't want to overpromise that this is exactly that because
I think they've been burned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's one of the tricky things, doctor Jim
is you know, I was working at a p deck
back in the heyday when when a deck had all
the licenses, and it's when you have so many things
going on, it's it's very easy internally to get distracted
or to have things get missed because there's there's so
many people involved in making the product at that point,
and there's so many different things happening that you have
things go out that aren't quite right. And especially you
know you mentioned we haven't ten x the hobby, Well
since they coined that phrase, we've at least three x
or four x the hobby. When I started at PSA
four years ago, we could grade forty thousand cards a day.
Now we're grading ninety to one hundred thousand cards a day,
and we still can't keep up with what people are
trying to submit. And really, what I believe has happened
is a globalization of the hobby. You know, having been
to Japan twice in the last year for hobby events
and Macau and things like that, the hobby has grown
internationally over the last few years like I've never seen
in my thirty years in the hobby. So I think
that with baseball being a global sport for sure, basketball
being a global sport, football, you know, it's definitely American sport.
But I think that this is just going to take
it to another level for them. But I do believe,
I do believe that we're going to see some growing
pains with this where you know, maybe some one of
the ones get out that aren't numbered, or there's two
versions of the one of ones. You know, there's those
types of things that are definitely growing pains that happen
when you scale up like this.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I would kind of argue the multiplication
to this point of the hobby has more to do
with the fact that COVID got people back into this
hobby for something to do, and many of them stayed
and now they're sharing it with their kids and and
things like that. And you know, that stage brought in
all the shoe flipper kind of guys that have now
left because it's not as quite as hot.
Speaker 3: But well, I got to give credit to Tops on
on keeping people in with some of the things that
they have done, especially with regard to their rip night events.
You know, coordinating an athlete appearance is a nightmare. There's
I've athletes steel limos, you know, and you know it's
it's not show and all sorts of nonsense that can
happen with that, and and they execute eighty appearances and
in one night, and it's it's wild. So and then
you know you have a lot of the mainstream things.
You can say what you want about Michael Rubin, but
people look at them, people see them and some of
the relationships he has. When you've got Tom Brady opening
up card shops, this is probably a good thing, you know.
It's it's showing that the mainstream appeal of what we've
always loved. And it reminds me a lot of when
I was a kid. I really loved indie bands, you know,
like the bands that people didn't quite know about, and
then when some of times they would get really big,
like Plink one eighty two in the beginning was a
band I just loved, and then they started selling out,
you know, stadiums, and it felt a little weird to
me that my little, my little thing had gotten so big.
And that's really how I kind of feel about the
hobbies sometimes, is you know, this was it's just a
small community that you know, everyone knew each other's names,
like a cheers, and now it's become this big entity,
this big brew house.
Speaker 4: So to say, hey, giant one thing, Yeah, COVID certainly
is part of the story. But if you go back
in those days, you have a couple of giant, well,
one giant entrant is you can look at the history
of the hobby before fanatics and then post fanatics, fanatics
buying tops. I think that's a big part of the
growth story. The other thing is PSA was, back in
my BGS days, was always a very worthy, fierce competitor
who actually, we're winning. We're beating us in volume, certainly,
but that's that's nothing compared to what they've become under
Matt Turner Collectors over arching brand. They've become just an
absolute giant. It wasn't a sleeping giant that gottken up,
but if you look at the market cap of of
PSA and collectors over this time period, it's more than
ten xt And so a lot of this growth in
the hobby has been because of some of these new
entrants who really think big and so there's there already
is a thought. You know, we turned inward with COVID
and thought, oh, what are we going to do and
all that stuff. But when we came out, we said, hey,
what's out there? And all of a sudden there were
these two very large entities that weren't there before, who
thought really big and who would have thought were you know,
a million cards a month? There are one hundred thousand
cards a day getting graded. It's it would be even
mind boggling to Joe Orlando previous regime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is Joe like once a week. Yeah, and
think about Tops.
Speaker 4: Not under the umbrella of Fanatics. What Tops was doing.
Tops was was doing fine, But there's a whole another
gear that they're in now.
Speaker 3: Well, doctor Jim, don't you think that when Michael Eisner,
former head of Disney, buys Tops, Like this is what
I think. What we're seeing now with Tops and Fanatics
is kind of what we all believed might happen with
Michael Eisner owning Tops, and now we're seeing it with
with Michael Rubin.
Speaker 4: So Okay, here's the way I would say it is
that Michael Eisner came from Disney. Hey we're Disney. We're
Disney that goes to Tops. Hey, we're Tops, we're Tops,
We're we're at the Tops. Fanatics comes in buys Tops
and they say, we're Fanatics, we're taking over. We're going
to the Top and come with us. Yeah, that's a
different mindset there. Yeah, because because it's it's it's a
it's in hyperdrive now compared to what it was five
or ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Well, if anyone wants to take part in any of
this conversation, the chat or the link is in the chat.
And what about the perspective that many folks have here
hoops hobby hangout. Seems like Fanatics is using the gambling
and lottery ticket aspect of the hobby to keep people
in and attract new people. Not sure that's necessarily good,
And I would say even along with that, it feels
like a lot of the product is more geared towards
just selling the breakers. I mean, it has gambling just
too pervasive now in this whole space.
Speaker 4: It is an aspect of the hobby. It's not the
whole hobby. If it was the whole hobby, we'd be
in a lot of trouble and we'd be regulated, We
really would be regulated. But it's a part of the hobby,
and I hope it's not too big of a part
of the hobby. But the growth path for Fanatics, the company,
the entities that they are goes through gambling. And so
I've said there's a gamblification of the hobby and of
the industry, and I think the hobby needs to be
somewhat resistant that there's got to be other ways to
enjoy the hobby besides you know the hits in the
in the you know, strikeout or home run.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I like opening products with my kids.
This is a recent product from Tops. Star Wars Move
was outpost and it is kind of geared towards a breaker.
You know, you've got this breaker piece on top so
you can kind of disguise what's coming next. But I
will say I wasn't getting that type of product from
old Tops. This is a very compelling product, a little
higher end, a lot of exciting content and it's sketch cards, autographs.
The access Tops has gotten through fanatics with regard to
signers is incredible. You know, we're seeing Pedro Pascal autographs
and for Fantastic four and Mandalorian and the list of
Marvel signers they've got since they acquired that license is incredible.
You know, at Upper Deck, we we had Marvel for
a while and we were able to get some okay names,
but we weren't getting Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds and
dual autograph cards to those guys. The access they have
is making content better, even if you know you're not
going to get one out of any box for collectors
a lot of time, it's that thrill of at least
having the opportunity, the chance, And I know that it
walks a very fine line on gambling. Not gambling, but
the excitement that you can get and the memories that
you can create when you pull something exciting with a
family member. It's every time that happens. I see it
in my kid's eyes, where seeds are being planted that
you know. I know they're going to kind of put
the hobby on the side when they find out about girls,
and but when they come back later, I know that
they'll they'll be really excited about what it's become.
Speaker 2: And some of the cards that they have in their collection.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe not. Maybe people don't leave anymore for girls.
Maybe they bring their girlfriends along with them and they're
the cool kids. It's cool because they've got your side.
Gig is amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right. It used to be that way. And
now with with Instagram in particular, I'm seeing a lot
of male teens sticking around and flexing more than than
they used to. When they would be like, all right,
this is this is a nerd fest. Now they see
it as something cool and you know, when you have
white pages being created that say trading cards are cool again,
it's true.
Speaker 2: You know, there is a cool factor to it.
Speaker 4: So you're you're a sixteen year old girl and you
what are you gonna say? My boyfriend works at McDonald's
or my boyfriend does cards on the weekend and we
can go to any concert, any restaurant, any activity that
we want to.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean now it's like one of the many
avenues of like the money side, hostle cool things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I know my wife totally thinks I'm
cooler because of what's behind me.
Speaker 4: There you go, okay, no, my wife is downstairs rolling
around thicking to my story.
Speaker 2: All right, what else we got?
Speaker 1: Social Media's exploded our hobby where once you were happy
with your friends, neighborhoods, lcs and meaning others through nearby shows.
The exposure has more than Brazilian quadruple. That is the truth,
there isn't it.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: One thing I have loved about social media is some
of the Facebook groups because I collect some obscure things
and to be able to find ten twenty hundreds of
like minded people, and some of these Facebook groups that
are very niche, whether it be you know, aerror card
collectors or Star Wars collectors, think along those lines.
Speaker 2: It's finding your tribe. It's a sense of belonging and
a sense of excitement about other people are are pulling
that that have become your Facebook friends, you know.
Speaker 3: So I've I've stopped using Facebook for my personal seeing
how friends are, what they're up to, to really my
hobby now because it's a very effective tool that way. So, yes,
there's a there's a flexing and self glossing that goes
on on social media, but there's also a very vibrant community.
Speaker 1: All right, absolutely. So oh, we have a caller, Welcome
to Hobby Hotline. Joey, Hi, how's it going, Thanks doing well?
What brings you on screen?
Speaker 5: I like the idea of allowing everyone and welcoming everyone on,
so I thought, if I have a few minutes before
my kids wake up and start hounding me, I'll try
to jump.
Speaker 1: On any thoughts on the particular subject or any questions
for the panel.
Speaker 5: I just think that one thing I kind of thank
you guys for saying in the last couple of minutes,
as I was turning on my computer and stuff is
I think that what everything has shifted towards, Like since
COVID and fanatics taking over and everything, there's just that
shift towards focus on money, whether it's in breaking. I
mean when I in twenty ten, i joined breaks, and
breaks were like ten or twenty dollars a team so
that we can share the cost of a box.
Speaker 6: And hopefully get piece of cards.
Speaker 5: Right now, breaking is about optimizing the income for the breaker,
while others can take a lottery ticket to try to
get a big card.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So, I think whether it's flipping or breaking or whatever aspect,
it's just very money focused. And I think that's the
one observation I've.
Speaker 3: Had, Well, it's never been a cheap hobby, right. Money
has always been an aspect of it for sure. But yeah,
that is the side that it's tough to kind of
deal with, I would say, is how expensive can get.
And especially you know when you see collectors that are
affected by you know, when you see collectors saying that, hey,
I'm selling off my collection.
Speaker 2: I can't do it anymore. You know that type of thing.
Speaker 3: It's it's sad and it's it's one of those things
where you know, you see gambling hotlines or things along
those lines. I think the collecting community right now does
a really good job of saying, you know, take a break,
take a break, come back, we love having you here,
what have you. But I think the industry probably kind
a job of that. Manufacturers could you know, in some
in some gambling sites they have a cool off button
or a button that you can hit where you know
you're not allowed to place a bed for twenty four
hours or whatever it may be. And for things like
EPAC or blockchain or even you know, buying stuff off
off the websites, that might be a good idea for
for manufacturers to take, but to date they haven't haven't
wanted to.
Speaker 4: Hey, question for you, Joey, what's to stop you from
getting thirty one friends or a group of friends, one
for each team and setting up a breaker co op
where I mean, the little man is cut out, you're
kind of sharing the cost and you're agreeing. I'm gonna
get it's tricky to figure out how you're gonna allocate
costs unless you want to just randomize it. But what's
to stop that? Because the breakers are providing a service
and for that they're taking a fee. But people, people
want to pay them. So what's stopping you from, you know,
lowering the cost by getting thirty one like minded friends.
Speaker 6: I think just ultimately the cost of wax.
Speaker 5: I mean, even if you split it against thirty across
thirty one people, you're still I mostly collect basketball, where
it maybe wax is more expensive than it is in
other sports, but still spending thirty dollars a person to
open a box of ten cards, I mean it is
still it's still cost prohibitive.
Speaker 6: And the increased in the.
Speaker 5: Cost of wax, I mean, it has a lot of factors,
but I think a lot of it has to do
with the increased exposure through COVID. It's a more popular obviously,
the hobby and collecting or cards in general, whatever angle
people are taking is more popular than it has been
in the past, and that's increased the cost of wax.
And I think the reason that that the market can
withstand that increased cost of wax is because of, like
you said, trying to.
Speaker 6: Split up that cost.
Speaker 5: But I still think that for me, if I went
to thirty people and said, hey, let's split up a
nine hundred dollars box of top chrome and sapphire basketball
or whatever, and we might be lucky to get it
at that price, it's still not it still doesn't make
sense to open.
Speaker 4: So your problem is more with the manufacturer than it
is with the breaker. They're just putting out oh, I
mean product, and that it has to be fractionalized, it
has to be broken and so, but it's still overpriced
compared to five years ago, for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I have I
don't know that I've identified a single individual. I don't
know that I even have a problem with any of it.
It's just I think, like Chris mentioned, the industry aspect
of the hobby is gotten really money hungry, where which
is understandable. They're all businesses. I'm not saying that it's
necessarily a bad thing. It's just there's a shift where
where that's what a lot of the focus is. And
I think if you know, you can tailor your hobby
experience so that's not the focus, and you can interact
with collectors and tailor your social media and your YouTube
and whatever where you're focused and you're getting fed kind
of the collecting aspect of things, or maybe those who
are more focused on the cards and the love of
the cards and building their collection. But I think it's
just kind of a product of that, and unfortunately for
those who enjoy opening boxes, that's just one part of
the hobby that's no longer accessible to you. If that's
if you don't care, if you're not part of the
breaking culture or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've seen a shift to obvious like you
buying older product or just buying singles, you know, and honestly,
buying singles is the safest way, you know. NBA is
a really tricky segment of our category because if you
think about it, for baseball, you have a thirty man roster,
right so, and on the podres my team I collect.
You know, I've got a lot of stars. I could chase,
I got Manny Machado, I got Fernando Tattoos Junior. I've
got pitchers, Mason Miller. So there's a lot of stars
that have good value. In In football, you know, you've
got running backs, quarterbacks, wide receivers, a larger team where
there's a couple of stars on each team. And in
hockey you have three lines of players and usually a
couple of superstars on each team. In basketball you usually
have one. You have five guys that are out there.
You know, in the draft, you only have two rounds
of a draft compared to these other leagues that have
you know, fifteen, So you have a smaller stamp, you
have a smaller selection of players, and a smaller selection
of players that can value out. And to make matters worse,
you don't have Michael Jordan because he's locked up by
every deck. And even worse than that, Lebron James hates
signing and is only doing these one of one cards
and I don't know. I just saw a super fractor
with his new signature. It's it's a crown and a line.
So I think it's a tough time to be an
MBA collector man if it was me, and I do
collect a little NBA. But I'm buying singles, I'm not
buying boxes.
Speaker 4: But you can't buy singles unless somebody breaks it in
the right.
Speaker 2: No, but I'd rather pay.
Speaker 3: I'd rather pay one thousand dollars for a cool card
than a thousand dollars for three boxes where I get
forty dollars worth of cards on it.
Speaker 4: But you can't get that. You can't get that card
unless somebody buys the box breaks it and all that.
But the other point I was going to make is
that the card companies are configuring their products to cater
to breakers. Breakers. Maybe you're I don't know if they're
up to fifty percent of the product that gets out
there is opened by breakers, but it's it's I bet
it's approaching that, and certainly with the higher end products
it's it probably is even more than that. So somebody's
got to buy it, and then they've got to open it,
and they've got to release it into the hobby. The
industry is about the you know, the products the hobbies,
about the cards that we love. So I'm I share
your concern, Joey. It's just that we're going against the
grain of what a profit seeking company is doing. They're
giving their best customers, which they're best customers, I think
are the people that want the cards for their collection,
but they think their best customer is the breaker who's
taking that product from them and then breaking it and
having a lot of fun with it and getting it
into the hands of people who then churn it and
transact it and eventually get it in the hands.
Speaker 3: Of Chris Well For the manufacturers, Doctor Jim, you know,
I would always fight for the hobby shop. I think
that they're really special that happens in hobby shops. And
again being at Burbank sports Cars the last couple of days,
seeing that it's it's it's a special place. But for manufacturers,
using breakers is the easy button. It's their easy way
to all right. I don't have to worry about this.
We don't have to fight with this guy on his
allocation or what have you. You know, here's this chunk,
was make it a segment and that's our easy button.
And it feels like that's how that's been going.
Speaker 4: Well, it's not just easy. It's probably good business. You know,
if somebody looked at it from afar, they'd say, do
you want to sell things slow for lower prices or
you want to sell things fast for higher prices?
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's also you have to look at
the quality of the individuals representing your brand. And one
thing I really enjoyed about working upper Deck is you know,
if there was a breaker that's drunk on, you know,
and breaking or using profanity or things along those lines,
they cut them off. They wouldn't want that type of
person representing their brand. And I think some of the
other manufacturers haven't been that strict with regard to enforcement,
and it makes for a poor experience for our hobby.
You know, our industry has had enough negativity with regard
to people doing the wrong things, or people taking advantage
of each other, or counterfeitters or things along those lines
that it doesn't need another wave of negativity from breakers
who aren't focused on running it as a business or
running it as a fun thing to do on a
Friday night.
Speaker 4: I agree with you, and that was absolutely the twentieth
century sentiment. But in the twenty first century, nobody's blaming
the phone company for profanity over the phone lines or
and you can get away with stuff on the various
social media platforms because they don't represent the platform. And yeah,
they ought to kick them out, but if they kick
them out, they just come back under a different name.
So I will say this, Uh, profanity, I'd like to
see that eliminated in any other kinds of kind of
illegal activities. But drunk on camera, good luck with that. People.
I'm convinced they've got a stick. And whether they're drunk
on their on on some substance, or just living life large,
that's part of the part of the angle that they
have and they move product. But yeah, I would draw
the line. And like I said, especially if it's one
of your bigger breakers. Wow, they had to clean up
their act or move on.
Speaker 2: So Joey, do you how old are your kids?
Speaker 6: Five and a half, three and a half and ten months?
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man? Do you so? Do you? Obviously do
you ever open with them?
Speaker 6: Very little?
Speaker 5: But yeah, And what I've got myself deciding to open
are are essentially retail of sets that I want to build,
base sets I want to build.
Speaker 6: Where I like the look of the cards.
Speaker 5: And if we end up getting nothing but a good
chunk of a base set out of a retail box,
it's a cheap way to open with them.
Speaker 6: And that's it.
Speaker 2: Man, you agreed to that's awesome.
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 1: All right, I think maybe it's time to move on
to the next topic. Can a company without licenses actually
stay viable in long term? I mean, is Panini at
this point on life support?
Speaker 4: Is up? Or Deck on life support? No? Is Leaf
on night life support?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: They need to write size and their costs just went down, guys,
so they have less costs and if they're smart about
how they did and like Chris was saying, is it
possible that they were so smart at Panini that they
developed kabooms in downtowns and color blasts in advance of
when they would need them, because they are cars that
can stand without licensing and the case hits that people
salivate over. So, yeah, they're going to be around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know a few people over there. They're they're
they're tenacious, man, They're of all the manufacturers, I think
Kanini has a lot of the people who are the
most passionate collectors in that work there, you know. So
I think they're gonna keep fighting tooth or nail, and
they're fighters, you know. So I remember not not being
a big fan of them coming in. I kind of
felt like they were an Italian company take an American hobby,
you know, and and uh, but you again, I think
it's really interesting to have a hobby linked in UH
and follow some people at at some of these companies,
because you hear some things that you wouldn't hear otherwise,
just about things that they're working on or things that
they're personally excited about.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 3: And and they do not stop signing licensing agreements, you know,
and some of the things may seem very fringe or
very out there, you know, like the Winston Cup truck
series they just signed to deal with, But there's there's
going to be collectors for that, and and it does
expand the universe of our hobby, which which isn't a
bad thing at all. So yeah, I think it'll be
interesting to kind of watch.
Speaker 2: What do you think, join.
Speaker 6: I don't I agree with kind of both of you.
Speaker 5: I don't think that Pinnin's on life support at all,
at least in the again basketball perspective. The I think
what the advantage to them is that they've established brands
that basketball collectors like, things like down Rusk, things like Noir.
I mean, they've they announced their Unlicensed Noir.
Speaker 6: I don't know what.
Speaker 5: It'll end up looking like and if people end up
wanting to collect those cards, but at least from the previews, they've.
Speaker 6: Done a good job. Tops When they were doing unlicensed
Basketball a year or two ago, it looked bad.
Speaker 5: I mean it was really obviously airbrushed, jopped. It looks
like Panini's done a good job in their previews of
choosing photos.
Speaker 6: That it doesn't make it doesn't.
Speaker 5: Make it where it's really obvious that they're they're photoshopping
out the team logo or whatever. And they again, those
certain brands they have like Flawless and Prism.
Speaker 6: And Noir are well loved in the basketball card world.
Speaker 5: And I think that as long as they design it
well and as long as they can get people in.
Speaker 6: Their cards, on card and whatever, I think they'll they'll
have a market for it.
Speaker 3: Well, there's another aspect we haven't talked about, and that's
the rapid expansion of AI and with regard to design
and an other functionality that it brings.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I had this old photograph of my father in law
and his dad in Vietnam, and it's grainy and just
it's cool.
Speaker 2: But the quality sucks.
Speaker 3: I was talking to someone about restoring it professionally and
they wanted four hundred bucks and I was like, I'll
do it later. And then I started munking around with
Grock and I put that photo in there and said
restore it for clarity and sharpness, and it came back
and now I have the best Father's Day gift in
the world. The clarity is incredible. And instead of having
to do a birthday flyer for my wife that I
just did a year ago, I would have done it
on Canva and spent four hours on it. Now I'm
pumping it into chat GPT and telling it what I
need and a beautifully designed flyer comes out. Now, think
about what that's going to do for card manufacturers. And
also there's a lot of cool things that can happen
with tops with regard to older imagery and imagery that
might have been damaged and they haven't been able to
use yet, because we get a lot of images that
have been used before, and there's things that I can do. Also,
where my son's not smiling at a photo, I could
say make him smile, and big bang, boom, he's smiling.
So the same Joe DiMaggio photo where we may have
seen it before where he's mad, you know, now he's
smiling at the plant. You know, there's there's so much
that is coming for us as collectors. You know, for
manufacturers it takes about nine months to a year for
products to flush out and get to the market. And
I think what we're going to see is a higher
quality of imagery and a higher quality of design over
the next few years that might be able to mask
some of that non licenseduff.
Speaker 4: Joy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think that if you look at
certain unlicensed things, I know that. I mean, Tyson Beck
does his collaborations with athletes, and he sells those cards
for a lot of money.
Speaker 6: People want those cards.
Speaker 5: I think the fact that there's no team logo, he
just did a Carl Anthony townslan or he just advertised it.
I think Nick's collectors are still going to go after
a card like that.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that, you're thinking we're going to end
up having cards with photos that aren't real photos.
Speaker 3: Absolutely already know that they'll they'll need to get approved
by the leagues in the PA, but yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4: Well, no they will if it's a card that is
ostensibly licensed by the league to play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean we're going to see art and
photos blur.
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose could use it and then get the
logo stuff automatically removed by the AI for them too, So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it won't feel air brushed.
Speaker 5: And there are certainly certain photos that I've seen on
top twenty five twenty six basketball cards where I've questioned
whether they're legitimate photos or generated by AI.
Speaker 3: Now, and the first AI was really wonky, I forget.
I think it was a downtown where the football field
was sideways instead of vertical, and how did that get through?
Speaker 2: Quality assurance? But it's it gets better every day as wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sure you know in the industry, like
that is going to be using the top notch level
that you know, you see thumbnails all over the place
in the internet space that are clearly AI. But yeah,
the once you get to the high level stuff, it's yeah,
no one will be able to tell the difference.
Speaker 4: So, all right.
Speaker 1: About our last topic. Then this one came up in
our chat for hobby Hotline where someone had mentioned that
PSA was coming to the Dallas card Show, which is
I think Rich Klein brought it up because that's local
for him and the So then this became the topic
of grading companies even choosing to go to shows. What
goes into the process where they decide where to go,
when to go. You know, with two folks that you know,
doctor Jim, you know for years you were head of
a grading company and Chris integrated into PSA. There like,
what's the decision making process of winning where they go?
Speaker 2: Chris, you want to go first? Yeah, sure, you know.
Speaker 3: Before Natt took over the company, PSA didn't go a
lot of places. You know, they used dealers and and
uh that was a good way that was that was
kind of the easy button, kind of kind of like
breakers is, well, use dealers and they're they're going to
be at all these shows anyway, we got to focus on. Honestly,
one of the reasons why I was I was brought
here is to get out there and and be a
face for PSA out there, because there's when I came there,
there's just a lot of confusion about how does this
even work? And I still answer those questions every day
at events. How do I do this? I've never grated
anything before. These are all very common questions. And one
of the things that Nat Turner did that was really
smart was invest in technology and and make remove a
lot of the friction for a customer to grade an item.
And now it's I'm not going to do a PSA commercial,
but this stuff is really cool. Where you know, if
I have the p s A app, I can hit
one button, scan a card, it comes up, I have
access to the population reports, what it sells in different grades,
and all I have to do is hit grade, you know,
and then enter my credit card. Information and hand it
to someone. And in the beginning when I started there,
there were awful lines for grading services, like crazy people
would wait four hours at a show just to drop
something off. And I've always been a big believer like
give the show back to collectors. Don't make them wait
in line for your redemptions. Have a more efficient way
if you're a manufacturer of getting people the product. And
we were able to develop a QR code system, so
instead of people having to print up mountains of forms
and bring them to us, now they just scan a
QR code, we take in the item, confirm what it is,
and off they go to enjoy the show. So for PSA,
and I know for a lot of other grading manufacturers
as well, or grading companies as well, getting in front
of the customer is a really important thing and to
be able to explain the service and walk them through it.
And for me, I get such enjoyment out of seeing
the light go on people's eyes when they're like, oh,
I get it, or yeah, I just got the email
that you received it here. So I think that a
smart company in this day and age when everything is
moving to chatbots and here's a kiosk that you deal with,
you know, for collecting. People want to talk to a
human being. People want to talk to someone who collects themselves.
People want to talk to people who are passionate about
the industry and who can walk them and guide them
on the right journey for what they want to get done.
And what I tell my staff all the time is
you're going to have to if we're going to be
successful at this, You're going to have to tell people
know some time. You know, when I look at a
card through a loop, I'm not a greater. I always
tell people I'm not a greater, but if I can
see it, the greater is definitely going to see it.
And I'll show them, you know, look through the loop,
hold it close to your eye, close to the card
till it comes into focus, and do you see this
corner here? A lot of people don't know to look through,
you know, a magnification like the graters will to see.
So I think that that human connection is so important,
and I'm really happy that we see value in attending
shows like the Dallas Card Show. And it's not just that,
you know, PSA has started doing We did ninety eight
drop off events at hobby shops last year where we're
going to different hobby shops throughout the North America and
taking in submissions, but more than that, answering questions and
guiding people on that right path of the collecting. So
for us, what we look for in an event is,
you know, is it are there going to be a
lot of collectors there? But also it's fun to attend
events that we haven't done. But we were just in
Louisiana for an event and people were so excited that
we were there. So I think it's it's a little
bit of a mix of what's an established show or
an established shop and where haven't we been before where
we can reach a new audience and touch a new community.
Speaker 5: That's great conversation, but I have to jump off in
like two years, so that's great.
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining the show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me on to talk cards.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you, Chris, I'm glad you went first.
Speaker 4: I met with Colin the GM over at ud Beckett
a few days ago and we talked about exactly that,
about how the BGS brand has been especially strong at
the Dallas Card Show, but it also has done a
lot of shows around the country over the years, and
he was saying that the learnings the process improvements that
have been have really helped p s A to scale,
will be brought are being brought to the Beckett ingestion
process because there were people just waiting super long lines
around the corner for the bgs UH to get their
cards in and Friday at the Dallas card show last month,
and that's you like to have a little bit of
a line, but that's that's really too much. The other
thing I would say is that when we were contemplating
this many years ago and thinking about going to shows,
we never thought of it as a marketing expense. We
thought of it as a profit center going to It's
very expensive to set up there, and we weren't thinking, hey, well,
I hope we can break even. It was no, is
there the demand there because you do charge it, there's
higher rates, especially if you want same day service, and
so is this going to work? And frequently it did.
The crazy thing is sometimes it worked even better if
PSA was there. Also, In other words, when you have
two there at the same time that people come out
with their cards and they're not really playing one to
get off against the other, but they're just saying this
is a major show. PSA is going to be there,
BGS is going to be there. I'm gonna take my cards.
And certainly in the old days, they had certain cards
they took to BGS, certain cars they took to.
Speaker 2: P s A.
Speaker 4: And you know, when people were talking about how crummy
BGS was doing, it just didn't comport with what you
saw at the shows. Because BGS has always had a niche.
It's always had a certain edge in certain things. They
did not across the board, but shows were what So
it is a marketing situation. You do get marketing benefit
of that, but it was a profit center for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when I started Doctor Jim, you know,
our lines were so crazy that people would be like, oh,
just take it to Becket. But now now I think,
you know, as we look to give the shows back
and make it take quicker, it's a customer experience effort
for us. And there's a lot of value in in
that because the longer you have a customer, the more
valuable they are to an organization. So for us, over
the last few years in particular, we've really used it
as a customer experience type of opportunity.
Speaker 4: Which which I won't say you've perfected, but certainly you're higher.
You're bringing you over was a giant step in that direction,
and kudos to you. But what the criticism that was
three months ago on this very show about Hey collectors
has taken over and they're going to crush BGS and
and SGC. We're now seeing that that's not what's happening.
There's some significant brand distinctions between what SGC is doing,
what BGS is doing, and what PSA is doing. And
not only can they coexist, but they can feed off
each other. I don't think PSA is going to have
a black label anytime soon. They're leaving that alone. SGC
has has real strength in the in the pre war there.
They're leaving that that's not as big a market, and
they haven't exported their they haven't brought in their value
up charge to certainly to BEGS, which would again disturb
the market. This differentiation, which is good. We don't want
to monolith grading experience one size fits all, but a
universal submission form was something we talked about that that
would be a step in the right to make it
easy for people to grade and then you know, easy
easier for them to know why it got the grade
they got.
Speaker 3: We talked, Hey, can we go back to that comment, Sorry,
doctor Jim the comment from Able, because it's a good one.
The national lines at the National, he mentions, we were
able to get them down to about twenty minutes to
an hour at the last National by using a lot
of different queuing systems. But there are digital queuing systems
that work well unless you have one hundred and fifty
thousand people all under one roof, and then these queuing
systems don't work as well because they're sending text messages
to customers letting them know it's your turn in line,
and they don't get them when or they don't get
them in the same speed or expediency when you're out
at somewhere like Disneyland that's much more wide open and
broad and doesn't have that concentration of people. So that's
been a tough one Able that we've been working on,
and one thing that I've found value in that I
think we'll do again this year is events to help
people plan and prep before the national begins. So for
you know, one of the things that bottlenecks some of
these lines are those first timers. So if we could
host some type of first time event or something like
that to help get everyone ready. It helps the line
go a lot quicker. So we'll do things like that,
And then we've been also been doing dealers submissions can
take a little bit. We've been giving them their own
queues and letting them submit a little earlier before before
the show.
Speaker 2: Starts, if we can get our booth up and ready.
Speaker 3: So the National has a lot of different different ways,
but it's one that lines are always tricky.
Speaker 1: Yet, well back to doctor Beckett's talking about the three
companies all under one roof. As you can see from
my back wall, I had a particular preference in grading company,
and I'm a little bitter about the situation because of
like the very topic we're discussing. They have completely just
removed sgc's presence at any show. We even have the
upcoming Strongsville show next weekend that SGC has been going
to for years. Seems like it would be their bread
and butter show to go to, and yet they're not
sending them. So how do I interpret that any other
way than they're basically squashing my favorite brand into oblivion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I'm not part of that team, but I
just would say, John, I would I would rise up
and I would gather Crony's and other vintage collectors that
are fans of SGC and say and contact somebody at
Collectors perhaps Chris Carlin, Hey, say, look, we have fifty
guys that are going to be at that show that
want to submit to SGC, and we're going to guarantee
you this kind of submission volume. Can you do that
for us? I bet they could if you knew that.
But you know they're thinking, you know, maybe they're like
I said, they don't want to come as a marketing spense.
They don't need to market to that group. They need
to serve that group.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And a lot of guys go to that
show and they would bring their high dollar cards that
they don't want to ship, and I'm.
Speaker 4: Saying deal with to them in person. It's too late
for this year, but it's yeah next year. Just say, look,
that was disappointing. What would it take? And like I said,
it's it's see Carlin at dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, I will say that when you make a lot
of John, that makes.
Speaker 3: One thing that's been really interesting for me on the
latest ride of my career here under with collectors is
they have leadership has kept these companies very separate. So
I have not worked on anything with Beckett. I have
not worked on anything with SGC. There is a lot
of sharing of information with regard to operational UH and
grading talent, where they're sharing ideas and concepts that work
really well here. Let's use that over here to make
capacity better, to make things move through quicker, safer, to
reduce damages. That type of sharing has happened, But from
a marketing standpoint or event standpoint, I don't work with SGC,
or or OR or BGS. They operate on their own.
And one of the things I know that both of
those companies of leadership on SGC and Beckett in particular
are working to improve the operational efficiencies first before they
get to do the fun stuff, if that makes sense.
So you have to make sure you're One thing that
I was told by someone I value very much, the
former CEO OH of Collectors, Mike West out of Dallas,
and he has retired, but I came over here with
all these fun ideas of things I wanted to do,
and he was very disciplined with me and said, Chris,
you've got to get your blocking and tackling down first
before you can work on these trick plays and this
fun stuff. And it's right, you have to have your
house in order before you can do some of these
other things. And I think that's where again I'm not
working with SGC or BGS, but from what I've learned
of the culture of collectors is let's get things humming
before we do some of these other.
Speaker 1: I mean, as the bitter SGC fan, I see it
as the sharing was the SGC shared their grads into
the neighboring suite that now says PSA, And now I
have less people available to actually have good turnaround times,
and you know, maybe the quality is not even there
at the same place anymore either.
Speaker 4: So yeah, but SGC used to have the best turnaround
times in the industry. Yeah, and so that's gone. They're
going to now be consistent with BGS, which is slow now,
and PSA, which is slow now.
Speaker 3: Again, we're getting back to the fact that everyone's missing
is demand for grading services has gone through the roof.
PSA does not want to charge thirty two dollars for
a card to get greaded. We do not, but we
have to right now is slow, the capacity slow the
demand of what's coming through and the company is scale
like I can't believe again, going from grading forty thousand
cards four years ago to ninety thousand to one hundred
thousand today. There's facilities that are opening across the world
to address the globalization of the hobby. So there's facilities
coming on in Germany, more being done in Europe in particular,
but in China and Japan. We have some of the
best talent, I think in the grading business with Brad
Hartland and Canada and things like that. So I think
a lot of these capacity issues will be addressed over
the next year. And there's something that no one's really
been talking about and something that could slow things down
a lot in this hobby and enforce a bit of
a correction, and that's a labor dispute. In baseball, labor disputes,
they are one of the worst things that can happen
for the hobby from a manufacturer standpoint. Jason Masher, the
president of Upper deck Is, is famous at saying we're
as nimble as an oil tanker when it comes to
that stuff. You know, you commit to these deals with
the leagues, and you commit to make a certain amount
of product, and when something like that happens, you can't
steer away from it. And from all I'm seeing right
now with regard to baseball is the owners do not
want a the players do not want a salary cap.
The owners do, and it's not looking good for baseball
next season. That could cause a real significant I mean
something from COVID. We were talking about how it made
COVID made everything better for the hobby with regard to
demand and interest and excitement. This would be the first
real test if there is any type of labor disputing.
Speaker 4: Well, the player Association and the properties are sitting at
the same table with fanatics trying to figure out how
they can make money in that business together, so maybe
there'll be some cooperation that Maybe it's the tail wagging
the dog.
Speaker 1: But all right, we are hitting right around an hour,
so I think it's time to wrap things up. What's
future future plans for you, guys, Chris, you want to
go first?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm heading to the TOPS conference on Monday,
excited to see what's what's coming in the way of
football there. And then after that I'm going to be
out at some of the PSA submission centers in hobby shops.
So I'll be going to Mojo Breaks in Santa Clara
in two weeks, then out to cards HQ and in
Georgia a couple weeks after that, and then out at
David Adams in New York. So excited to see collectors
out at those events, and and of course be at
the Dallas Card Show and get to hang with my
main man, doctor Jim.
Speaker 2: So excited for all of those.
Speaker 1: Awesome all right, how about you and doctor Beckett?
Speaker 4: Well, Chris, even though I'm really excited about seeing you
at the Dallas Show in May, I might be gone.
I'm a fifty to fifty on going to the Toronto Expo.
Speaker 2: I have of years.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you're going to be at that one.
Sounds like your your your schedule is full that week.
I am. I have been wanting to do that for
a number of years, and I'm thinking, why am I waiting?
Speaker 3: So, doctor Jim, there's so many dolls with your name
on it there.
Speaker 4: I don't know if there's enough hours in the day.
That's the only thing. So but I have that to
look forward to. And John, what do you what do
you you're bummed out about Strongsville and strong dependence.
Speaker 1: I know, I I I am ecstatic about going to
see it. I mean, we expect a massive showing from
our YouTube vintage community and I'm looking forward to seeing
a lot of people again, a lot of people for
the first time, and once again. UH four Collectors is
hosting a trade night there on Saturday night. That should
be a ton of fun. We're going to be in
the Holiday Inn Ballroom, which is actually the official hotel
for the dealers, so we're expecting really good attendance and
you know, it's free to get in and we'll be
having pizza. We got sponsors paying the paying the way
for us. Thank you to Collector Investor Auctions and Howard
Chesser a few of my favorite things for sponsoring that
event for us. But yeah, thank you guys for a
great show. Thank you to the chat uh mister Keating,
your wit and wisdom was pervasive throughout the show. We
would love to have you as a call in guest
at any point when you are available. It would be
interesting for sure. But yeah, thank you everyone to tuned
in and we will see you next time on hobby Hotline.
Thanks everyone, take care, Thanks Jean, Thanks.
Speaker 6: Thank you for listening to this episode of Hobby Hotline.
Just want to remind everyone we are a live show
every Saturday morning, eleven am eastern eight am Pacific on
the four Collectors channel on YouTube. That's the number four,
the word Collector's channel on YouTube. We hope to see
many of you live on a future Saturday.
Speaker 1: We have a great interactive chat room and we always
provide a link for anyone that wants to come on
the show and chop it up with us.
Speaker 4: So that's a reminder.
Speaker 6: Every Saturday, eleven am eastern eight am Pacific only four
Collectors channel on YouTube.
Speaker 4: Hope to see you on the show.