Speaker 1: What's up everybody?
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Hobby Hotline, episode three eighty two, here
on April, the second Saturday in April. I believe I'm
here with Lauren and Alex. We are going to be
covering a lot about the industry conference, the TOPS industry
conference that happened this past week. And I know Alex
you were actually at the industry conference, so I want to,
you know, after we're actually sorry, let me kick the
Lauren first. I'll ask her, Lauren, how's your how you doing,
how's your week bend? And then we'll kick Alex after that.
Speaker 3: Good, good week, exciting week, interesting week. Looking forward to
this conversation, it's a lot to talk about into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And Alex, you were at the industry conference.
I saw a bunch of your video is doing a
great job covering that from a media perspective. Let the
audience know, like what your experience was, like, how did
it go? You know, any anything that maybe didn't hit
the new cycle that you heard about that you want
to do an exclusive here on Hobby Hotline.
Speaker 1: But yeah, how how was it all?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: Adam, good morning, And first off, before I start, no
one ever really talks about ask the host like, how
are you doing? How was your week?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, week was week was good. Just been you know,
a crushing videos. I was gonna say busting out videos.
That's a pause, but yeah, doing a bunch, doing videos
every day, trying to do as many as I can here.
But yeah, week, week's been good. I mean Master's week.
That's always exciting. Glad to I'm excited.
Speaker 4: To take it off the background. I got it on
in the background right now.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to take a nap on Sunday and fall
asleep with that in the background. But yeah, other than that,
I mean, everything's good. Thanks for thanks for jumping in there,
no problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I just want to make sure everyone's fully aware.
Like everyone knows the industry conference is for direct accounts,
right with tops direct accounts. This year is the first
year the Fanatics brought out a few content and creators
influencers to help, you know, put out stuff on social media.
They they kind of are starting to understand, like all
the shops are gonna do it already as soon as
the stuff's on the stage and you know, in displayed
and they've announced it, like it's out in universe, it's
out in universe. So they're like, let's bring a few
friends of fanatics out and and maybe they'll do the
same thing through their network and everything else. So a
few of us were invited, and I want to make
sure everyone's fully aware. I was not paid to go out.
They did not pay my way nothing. I had to
pay the whole thing. And for me, it was one
of those incidents where it's great information right off the bat,
and also it's great networking seeing all the shop owners
and everybody else you know that was there, so myself
new cards and comics. These are accounts that you can
go on YouTube, you can and you can go on Instagram.
You go everywhere their socials are and just check out
some of those stuff. Some of this stuff Kayla collects.
Was their talent was there? Jay Mojo? He was just
pumping out stuff left and right. But he he has
a nice little business going with some interns pumping out
stuff for him. So if he's got it easy. I
was sitting there just going to town my phone and
everything while I was happening. But out in Arizona, out
in the Glendale where the Cardinals play in State Farm,
which is great for me because Pat Tillman Memorial is
right in front of there, so I got to go
back and see that again, so that's always nice. But
it was put a very very good conference put on
by TOPS, and I'm grateful for the fact that I.
Speaker 1: Was able to Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean it looked like, you know, the amount of
news I was actually I couldn't believe it. I mean,
the last couple of years, there's always news that comes
out at the industry conference. I think two years ago
someone had leaked that Bronny was going to be signing
with TOPS, which then probably meant that lebron was gonna
be signing with Tops. And then last year there were
images of the you know, first Tops chrome basketball product
that they put in the slide that I don't know
if necessarily was supposed to get out, but it did.
And then this year they have WWE in because just
in the past year since the last Industry Conference, they
have acquired the licensing rights for w well, not acquire,
but started making them for ww NFL and and and
the NBA. So this was probably one of the bigger years.
I mean, Lauren, I'll kick you with this first question here,
what was you know, was there any news that you
saw that you were excited about or that caught your
eye this past week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there was so much. I mean, I'm
a tennis collector, I collect cocoke off, so like it
was nice to get some updates there. Nothing like really
smashing there, nothing.
Speaker 1: Like blowing my mind like like that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like it was. You know, it's good to
get updates. It's good to hear like what direction they're
going in and what to look forward to, any changes
anything that like might kind of tweak how I pursue,
you know, my collection. Yeah, I mean I think and
also you know, knowing kind of where they've been and
where they're going with tennis, that kind of like it
kind of like gets you prepared for what they're doing
with the other products. You know, I'm familiar with graphite,
I'm familiar with royalty. I'm obviously not like an expert,
but I'm familiar with it, so I can kind of see, like, okay,
based on I know and like about the NBA, what
am I gonna find you know, from from royalty based
on what I know about it from collecting tenants. So
that was interesting. And with WWE, I think I think
this is going to be a really big exciting time
for w W E cards. We've been looking forward to
the Royalty because I believe Royalty is where they're going
to have the WrestleMania patches. Like John C's WrestleMania patch.
I believe that's going to be in that product and
that's coming may, I think, And so that's really exciting.
You know, it's just kind of it's broadening the scope
and the excitement and the fervor, which is fun. So yeah,
I think it was it was cool to kind of
see where they're going. I will also say I I
love seeing like kind of the designs and where they're
going with it. I has Brian and I are very
active on the ww Slam app, which is you know,
chard collecting app, and it's kind of it's cool because
you can kind of see like some of the designs
there and you can see a little bit of it,
not always like you know, BARB for bar, but you
can kind of see the influence between the app and
you know, the physical product that they're you know, releasing.
So that's also really cool. So I think I think
it's exciting. I think it's a taste of you know,
what's to come, and I think that the hobby, you know,
I think that's good news and they can talk about it.
We're going to talk about it and criticize it, but
it's it's good. I think it's exciting and fun.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that obviously you're seeing Tops now
with like this is at least for the next you know,
five ten years, this is gonna Tops and fanatics are
going to be running the show here like, and so
I think the pushback on them, it's really sort of odd.
And maybe this is just a one off comments I've
seen here and there, but it's like the quickness that
I've seen people completely turn on fanatics and Tops is
pretty interesting. I Mean, for a while it was always
Openini stinks they have no quality control, and I think
to an extent that some of that stuff is true,
but I think it's more just, you know, the loader
comments are always the negative ones, so those are you know,
people are more likely to leave negative comments than positive comments.
But the amount of you know, Tops is flooding the
market or Tops is doing this, and it's like they
just they haven't even made half of these products yet either.
So it's like I don't even know what people are
really I don't know what people have to complain about
so far, in my opinion, all Tops has really done
has add more stuff into the hobby since Fanatics took
over in twenty twenty three. I mean the debut patches,
you know, and now they're going to be making the
premiere patches, which is actually you know a little bit
of the segue here into the first topic that we
have from the specifically from the show is the design
of the well the debut premier patches, same difference here,
but the premier patch design, which is going to be
in this first top Schrome product, has been revealed. So
you know, Alex, I think you were so you were
at these presentations and you know, you saw some pretty
cool stuff that they actually did with the premiere patches.
So you know, let the audience know, like how that
what that experience was, What was the crowd reaction, how
did they feel about these cards?
Speaker 4: So I just want to talk about something that was
in the comments. Someone asked if I got any free stuff?
You know, So also just want to make sure everyone's
fully awhere. You know, none of the content creators, influencers
they invited got any of the free packs or anything
else like that. That was for the hobby shops direct
accounts that all paid for their you know, to be
there and everything else. So we were there just specifically
just to push stuff out. They get none of those
perks unfortunately. Trust me, I wish I would add some.
But the Premier patch A lot of people don't know
is this. These premiere patches have actually been around for
a few years. They just haven't been put in the cards.
And I think the NFL actually made these patches two
years ago, two or three years ago. They have to
look that up, but they just didn't have a license,
so they haven't been able to use them.
Speaker 1: And everyone, I think.
Speaker 4: Yes, everyone speculating like are these were these going to
be used? Were these the ones that are going to
be doing or they were they just for the NFL.
They did really cool thing, I believe with uh, you
know a little segue into showing it off or whatever. Mcmellan,
the Rookie of the Year Offensive Rookie of the Year
from the Panthers, actually showed up there and signed his
on the spot at the conference. He was only there
for minutes.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: They did a nice little skit where I mean Mike
Mayhan called him, ask him when he's going to be
able to sign it, and he was in the building,
came up and signed it. I have one takeaway from that.
This product releases next week, right that card is not
in a pack right now, So what does that tell me?
That's probably a redemption, right, is my guess.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I'm not one hundred percent they could have quickly put
it back into production put it into a pack. However,
I think it's probably going to be a redemption. And
if it's redemption, that means that card will not be
found in a Breaker's delay because the Breakers Delight boxes
they're all live and all the other skews retail and
hobby they're redemption. So if you have the Panthers and
you're searching for that card, I wouldn't And if you're
going into group breaks, this is group breaking, right, I
wouldn't be taking the Panthers in Breakers Delight. Just that's
just me. That's something that people didn't talk about, something
I thought of of later that you know, the fact
that wasn't already packed out means it's probably going to
be a redempt. So I've always one of the things
I've always said about these type of cards, is the
checklist that comes out. I wish they would say which
ones are redemptions and which ones aren't. Back in the day,
checklists used to have a little asterisk saying they're redemptions. Right,
If you tell that, then you know specifically where to
search for these cards. But that was really cool feature,
you know. That was one of the one of the
highlights of the whole conference, was him showing up and
signing it, and it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this, I think it was.
Speaker 2: I guess it would have been this past season is
when I noticed that they had these patches. So I
did some digging and looked and looked into it. And
they had been doing it since twenty twenty three, like
player rookies had been wearing these patches, and I didn't
know what they were gonna like like like you said,
I didn't know what they're going to do with the patches.
Speaker 1: I thought that I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe they'd put them in cards, maybe they
put them on license cards.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know.
Speaker 2: There was an NFL memo that was put out in
twenty twenty three that apparently the rookies got to keep
their jerseys and with the patches came on the jerseys,
and it was a whole it was a whole part
of it. So I don't know at what point that changed,
Like I'm assuming it had to have been something with
Tops making the patches, Like I don't even know really
where it stemmed from.
Speaker 1: But you know, I either I thought it.
Speaker 4: I thought that they were going to make a different,
completely different one. Knowing that this was the NFL's like,
you know, announcement for this patch, I thought Tops would
come out with another debut, not the premiere, but they
ended up you know, taking this actual patch right right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Lauren, I'll ask you this question.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that you were talking about before
the show some of the WWE debut patches and stuff
along those lines. So you know, there were a ton
of announcements of other patches as well. We'll get into
the basketball one, but what were kind of your thoughts
on the overall the patches that were announced. I mean,
you can talk about ww if you want, or the NFL,
I guess in the scenario.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it's cool. I think I
remember when you know, they first announced what they were
doing with baseball and how exciting that was. That was
a huge fervor and I loved that. I love the
excitement that was around it. And I think, I mean,
I think it's died down a little bit now because
you know, it's not as novel. It felt very like
fresh and exciting, and you know, baseball is also kind
of a different breed from football and basketball. I know
we'll probably get into it a little bit, but like
you know, with having an update for the NBA with
the patches, I'm kind of weirded out by that. I
don't love it, just because of the way basketball works.
You know, it's it's you kind of look a season
ahead or like a season behind. I guess you would say,
like you know, you're you're not. Like with baseball. It
makes sense because you know players are being called up,
things change. There should be you know, there should be
like adaptations. With basketball, it's kind of like one fluid thing,
like you're there, you're not, and like you look forward
to them being in like the product, you know, the
next year. So I don't know, I might be nitpicking
on that, but it's kind of weird to me they're
going to have an update. I don't love it. And
it's not like that's just.
Speaker 1: A nitpicky thing.
Speaker 3: It's not a big deal. It's just I don't love it.
But yeah, I mean I think the patches are cool.
I think it's just another way to like connect with
you know, with your favorite athletes. I mean we can
like last night we were watching SmackDown and Dan Housen
he is, you know, very popular on like the indies
and stuff, and now he's at WWE.
Speaker 4: I've looked all over for a debut patch. I looked
all over his too. I couldn't find one. I don't
think he had one. I was just like, where is
it all?
Speaker 3: Well, Brian, I was looking. I was like, where would
it be? Is it on its cape? And like we
missed it? But Brian said it was on his I
think left boot up by his shin. Maybe I don't
know exactly. I have to go back and look too,
but he mentioned it last night that that's where it was,
so almost next time, next time. But yeah, like that,
see like that, this is another way like I'm connecting
with another fan and we're like, you know, like it's exciting.
I think it's cool. You know, Alex is gonna go
back and look and like, you know, like, I think
that's cool. I think it's a cool way to engage
people with you know, athletes and and the product that
they love. And I think it's yeah, I like it.
Speaker 4: Debut patch it nice.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Dan House and I had watched him
when he was on a w but then I bought
some of he was in.
Speaker 1: I think it was like I forget I think it
was an upper deck set.
Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly which one it was, but I
bought a couple of his cards and then and then
he got hurt. And I know we're getting kind of,
you know, specific into nerdy wrestling here, but like Dan,
I mean, Dan Housen is hilarious and I'm glad that
he's in the WW now, and I'm glad that after
his debut people didn't really like him.
Speaker 1: Now they seem to love him. So that's right. I
think that's really great.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think too to your point,
Lauren about the update, it really almost feels like now
they're they're sort of I'm hoping next year maybe they
just put the patches in the regular Tops Chrome. I
think that there's two reasons why they're doing Tops Chrome update.
For basketball this year, probably to get Luca a Tops
Chrome you know, debut card I suppose because he wasn't
in the first Tops Chrome. Uh, he will, I guess
presumably be in this one. And then also the debut
patches that will be the reason why they're doing Tops
update this year for Chrome. But you know they're putting
the patches in the regular Tops Chrome for football and
I have seen I guess kind of again we're sort
of transitioning. There's so many topics here, I want to
kind of keep everything all together. But the the the
products that they announced for the NFL, there were six
products that have been announced so far, and I don't
know if that means that there's only going to be
the six. Uh they announced obviously Tops Chrome and then
finest Signature class Tops Chrome, Black, Tops Chrome Cosmic, and
there was one more that I forget O Resurgence, which
is like an autograph product. So I don't know if
it's gonna be a shorter release schedule here. And you know, Alex,
I'll ask you this question, how do you feel about
Tops taking over the license and making rookies from last
year with the draft in like two weeks.
Speaker 4: So what they said was this year's class is only
going to have like that small group, a small group
of six different products. The next year they're gonna have
twenty some products. I can't remember the exact number. They said,
twenty some product So that's good, right, And I want
to go quickly go back to the Chrome update and
everything with the patches. They're going to have to continue
to do this because they're gonna be doing TOPS Chrome
you know, already in the beginning of the year. There's
no way they can get those debut patches into regular
TOPS Chrome. That's why updates there, right, it's later on
in the season while they all making their debuts, and
some of those individuals that go directly to the G
League first, they're coming up after, you know, and just
like just like baseball there com they might be coming
up later on in the year. So also with update,
we didn't we didn't Top off you know, discuss I'll
discuss it real quick. They've got alternate jerseys, so they
have a lot of the city jerseys are going to
be the actual cards instead of you know, the regular
jerseys and stuff. So there are different variations. But again
this is another time frame where TOPS is just you know,
I believe throwing a product out there just to make
more money and throw I mean, that's where the gimmick
of the cause it is a gimmick, the debut patches.
But yeah, so the football wise, you know, with those
six one of the cool things, you know, with the
draft that's coming up that they did announces they said
they're gonna have a tops Now card literally waiting for
after they come off the stage. So it's like as
soon as I don't know, if they have a little
bug ineer, as soon as it's announced that you know,
they'd be printing right there. They just have everything ready,
or if they have all the players, they might already
have all the big players cards with all thirty two
teams already made and you know, and then to destroy
the other ones and just have that one sitting there
waiting for them to sign. So that's gonna be pretty cool.
But those six products, you know, you can see it's
a lot of the chrome Materials resurgence they've had before
Signature series. They've had these with the non license you know,
you know last year. So uh so they've already know,
we already kind of know what's probably gonna look like
and everything. But with the NFL logos and everything else,
we know they're gonna just look so much better, and
I'm excited excited to see it and see what they
can come with, especially with.
Speaker 2: The lineup that Yeah, yeah, yeah, Again, it's maybe a
maybe it's a social media thing, but I've seen people
talk about how this draft class like isn't as good,
and it's like, what games were you watching?
Speaker 1: Like this draft class was awesome last year.
Speaker 2: I don't I Again, maybe it's just I noticed these
comments sometimes because I just see them on social network.
But yeah, I think it's exciting that we're getting Tops Chrome,
you know, in I guess it's up come this week's
So that's really cool.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys had any experience trying
to buy any of that Tops Chrome. I saw that
the Jumbo first day issue boxes that they did for
the Dutch auction, those actually sold out at They started
at thirty two hundred, and they went down a certain
amount every couple of minutes, but then within twelve minutes
they were already sold out at twenty eight hundred dollars,
which you know, you know, Lauren, I'll ask you this question.
Maybe like where like, that's pretty that's a pretty interesting
insight into the demand for football, you know, because basketball
made it pretty far down the list, Like I was,
I was looking back at it was seventeen hundred dollars
for basketball, so it dropped almost half the price. Do
you think that it is a football demand or do
you think it's maybe more that people saw what happened
to the price of those first day issue basketball boxes
and they didn't want to miss out on prices for
these one A guess.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. It might be. I mean, it
might be a little bit of both and more one
than the other. I don't know. You know that I
think that's one thing that is good and bad depending
on you know what angle you're looking at it from.
With you know, all these tops announcements is there is
a lot of excitement and a lot of hype and
people get invested in it, but then the price gets
driven up and Dutch options I don't I don't have
a problem with Dutch auptions. I think it's an interesting concept,
but you know, I think it it links to the
aftermarket so much, you know, I think it's a way
for the company to get in on like aftermarket pricing,
you know. So I don't know, I don't know. It's
you know, it's it's kind of hard right now to see.
I feel like there's depending on which glasses you have on,
if you have your rose color glasses or your like
regular ones. Is it people passionate about you know, the
product and the new products and the players and collecting,
or is it people who are passion about you know,
making a profit and you know, breaking and stuff. And
I'm not trying to like cask either one. You know,
make judgment on either one, but you know, one obviously
has a lot more preference to majority of people, especially
the people who are probably watching this, than you know, others.
So I don't know. I think I think there is
a lot of interest, but I think there's also like
I think there is fomo of like, wow, there's a
lot I mean with WW right now, the numbers are
kind of like they're in a transitional period right now,
and it's kind of astounding. And you know, we've seen
things that pop off like crazy, just all of a sudden,
and not in like a flash in the pan kind
of way. Some of these are like sustainable, like they
jump and don't come back down. So I think it's
an interesting time for like all these things coming together,
and and also how tops and fanatics are managing it,
and you know, are they you know, kind of fueling
it in a you know, sustainable, positive way that works
for collectors and people who make a living off of
this or is it just you know, we're gonna gobble
up as much as we can and leave it how
we you know, how we do. So, I don't know,
it's interesting. That's a great question, because I think that's
a really I think you could come back and ask
that at a lot of different points and have a
different perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think that's the same. I
agree with you.
Speaker 2: I think it's a kind of I think it's a
kind of a combination of both. I mean, I think
the pricing for basketball is definitely you know, that's going
to affect the future pricing for these products. Like, I mean,
I wouldn't be surprised if next year they do it
and it sells out immediately, like it doesn't go down
and price it all if they started thirty two hundred,
I wouldn't be surprised of it. It doesn't sell out at
thirty two hundred. We actually had a good comment here
in the chat from I think one of our co
hosts here Still Gum. He was talking about that there
was no flagship product. So, you know, Alex, I'll ask
you this question. Do you think like the difference between
tops Chrome and just regular Flagship do you think that
would have been a cool product to start off with
here like they did with Basketball, or like, are you
fine with them jumping right into top scrowl because I
think in theory, this is going to be a bit
of a shorter h a shorter class in terms of
how many products there are coming out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think because of the shorter timeframe, that's the
reason why they did that. Usually Flagship is the first
one that's out, it's out for a good bit right
before they start doing some other stuff, and I believe
they just skip that because of the time frame. Like
as soon as the draft happens, I'm almost positive, Well,
they're going to do the premiere, right, you know, the
rookie premiere and stuff they're going to start pumping out,
you know, the card stock for Flagship, you know, for
for the next draft year, for this one coming up.
So I'm fine with it. Mainly because you know, I
everyone was fully trying to think like one of the
problems with a lot of UH sports, and you know,
hockey is a prime example. They're always behind, always behind.
And if if TOPS would have said, hey, let's make
our twenty products right of foot twenty twenty five because
we want to. I mean, we saw it with Wemby.
We saw with the Wemby rookie stuff. It was like
two years after he was a rookie, he had rookie
stuff coming out, right, it would have been I think
the backlog. So the one thing that I do think
is funny and I want to tie it all together.
You know, with all the different products, there is one
product line on one brand that I see across all
It's Royalty Royalty. But it's not in football Royalty. It
seems like it's in every single sport. And that was
one of the questions I had going to the industry conference,
was asking, I'm like, are you gonna do this with
all of them? Are you gonna have five star football soccer?
You're gonna start making all those you know, one brands
that you have in baseballdynasts. They said, there's gonna be
a dynasty football down the road, there's gonna be of course,
dynasty basketball and everything else. Are they going to constantly
keep making the same products across the all lines, And
it seems like Royalty is the first one besides Chrome
of course, right Chrome and pretty much finest. It's one
of those first products that is the bigger ones. That's
in UFC, it's in WWE, it's in soccer, it's in tennis,
it's in all that all the other sports. So I
really liked seeing that announcement. But back to football, I think,
you know, having these these quick six and how long
they've been you know, actually hopefully they were making them
all at the same time. So when these players were
sitting down signing, they were signing all the different I
know a few times that I've been at shows and
I've been in the back rooms where I've been able
to be around the players signing the cards like they
were multiple different, you know, different products that were there.
Was pretty cool to see. And then to tie again
back to everyone's talking about tops tops tops tops, when's
the last time you heard anyone talks about talk about
the unlicensed basketball that's coming out from Panini right right,
it's literally getting ready to come out. No one's talking
about that right at all. And so tops is you know,
done enough. I believe that's out there with you know,
marketing and everything else and everything they're doing, or Panini's
just not doing enough that you know their their stuff's coming.
It's the only rpas that are going to be out
there for one of the top road right exactly, and
those players. So I think I find that pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're gonna actually take a quick, quick little
jump into I believe we got John and Jason actually
at the I think they're at the strong showing ways.
Speaker 5: We could not hear you at all, so apologies, but
we are here live at Strongsville. Wanted to say, Hi,
it's a poppin' show this weekend, all kinds of people.
We had the YouTube gathering last night, well over one
hundred people were there. Uh four collectors that is doing
our trade night tonight and we are expecting a big shroud.
It's a great show here, So big show, guys, Thanks
for joining, Thanks for letting jump on. Yeah we said
hey let's jump on the hobby hotline and talk for
a minute.
Speaker 1: So yeah guys, yeah, yeah, have a good one.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thanks for having guys have a good show saying Hi,
thanks guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had a John and Jason.
Speaker 2: They were in an alternate universe that was the in
the in the Wrong that was vertical rather than horizontal.
Speaker 1: There glad they could jump in there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Obviously four collectors were here on their YouTube channel. Always
gracious hosts here for our show every Saturday. Definitely definitely
some cool stuff. If you're at the Strongsville Show, I
mean check that out. I mean say how to everybody.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: You know the shows like that, the Strongsville Show, they're
always exciting to go to. Uh, definitely definitely fun, especially
you know after with with some of the news, I'm
sure the show is probably buzzing there.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, we'll.
Speaker 2: Jump back into I think the the thing that you
were talking about, Alex is something that I've been thinking about.
I don't know, I'm trying to figure out how to
angle a video something here because I think the unlicensed
Panini stuff is going to do much better than I
think people realize, because I think that Panini has done
such a good job with basketball and this is this
is sort of the maybe I'm kind of brainstorming a
little bit here and spitballing, But like, I feel like
Panini's basketball products licensed have been a little bit better
than Tops' baseball products potentially, so like when you shift
that over to an unlicensed environment, That's why I think
maybe the Panini baseball maybe doesn't do as well compared
to Tops baseball, and then the Tops basketball maybe didn't
hit as hard as maybe some people were expecting versus
the versus the license or unlicensedtuff. Again, I'm still trying
to figure out exactly what I'm trying to say here,
but yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: I think you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I think it goes off the optics of where the
cars look. You know, I'll I'll be the first one
to say the Tops unlicensed basketball looked like total garbage.
Speaker 1: It did, Yeah, didn't.
Speaker 4: Especially the finest was brutal. It was brutal looking. But
I also had a theory saying they did that on
purpose to make their licensed basketball look better. That's That's
what I'm putting out there. So yeah, yeah, but Panini
has also been doing unlicensed sports for a long time now,
so they kind of learned they know the right angles
to put the players and every and stuff like that,
and there was If you look at the unlicensed basketball
that's coming out, there's a lot of holding the basketballs
in front because a lot of the logos for basketball
is right here, right, and everything else. So I think
that they they've learned, they've they've actually been watching comments
and hearing people talk about it, and their production team
or their their creative team is putting together these designs
off of what people are saying of the license, like,
we're gonna still go this route. But the thing we
did here, the only thing we haven't heard is any
unlicensed football. None, right, none at all? Right, are they going?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 4: I know that's one question everyone's going to have, you know,
they you know, they of course lost the NFLPA rights
and stuff, and that's why they didn't have any active
players in those last few products. But we've seen unlicensed
basketball stuff coming up, but they haven't announced anything unlicensed football,
so I don't even know it's gonna happen. But uh, yeah,
I think I think it's the optics aspect that they've
they've actually learned, you know, from from other crappy looking ones,
to make this look better. So, yeah, save dynasty basketball
and then that's that was one of the big news
ever one talked about. I'll talk I'll tie this in
real quick. NBA Hoops, the NBA hoops brand. Okay, everyone
was like in shock of like, how are they making
NBA hoops cards when they were just with Panini. Well,
the NBA license actually owned the NBA Hoops product, So
wherever whoever has the NBA license has that product and
that's why they're able to they I literally when we
were talking this, I was talking to some them actually
from Bleaker Trading right before this was announced. When it
came on the stage, I was like, yeah, whoever has
the NBA lights has the cards, and then they quickly
said it on stage. That kind of it was funny,
those those mock ups and the stuff got actually announced
from tops like the pictures a day before this came
on the stage.
Speaker 1: That's what I saw.
Speaker 2: I saw those images and I was like, I was like,
what the heck is this like this? I was like, okay,
so let me just like photoshop the images. I was like,
that's kind of cool, Like I guess these.
Speaker 4: Days with AI it's like really really hard.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's right right exactly, and I'll just want one.
One other point about the unlicensed Panini stuff. I think
with the NBA, and you know, potentially NFL as well,
the jersey colors are much more iconic in the NBA
than they are in the mlbuh because and just the
the the logo placement on the jerseys are much easier
to avoid than it is for baseball, because with baseball,
you got it across the chest, you got it on
the helmet. With basketball, all you got is one logo
on the jersey somewhere. And the colors that are used
on those jerseys, Like if you told me, like just
you know, even off top of your head, if you
if you I were to say, I'm thinking of a
team that's purple and gold, Everyone's going to say Lakers.
I'm thinking of a team that's green and white. Everyone's
going to say Celtics. If you were to say, you know,
I'm thinking of a team that has like gray and red,
like that could be any that could be ten different
teams and that won't be So I think that also
translates better to unlicensed product. I mean, just from what
I've seen at least so far, like, I think the
way that they can do it will be very cool
and so you know, Lauren, sorry, I think we me
and Alex going off on a little bit of TANGI yeah,
and listening. Yeah, I'll give you, I'll give you some
time here. What were your thoughts on the UH you know,
maybe it's hoops, maybe it's any of the NBA stuff
that kind of that came out this week with UH
with with more products being announced.
Speaker 3: Well, I remember, I can't remember where I saw it,
but I'm ninety nine point nine nine nine percent sure
it was Alex who said that NBA hoops, you know,
like I'm sure I read it somewhere and it was
from Alex because that was fast and that was interesting
to me that like, yeah, that's that's a through line.
That's really cool that NBA has that, Like that's a
really cool thing. I think that's I think that's you know,
significant to know. I think that that's a really cool
little factoid and a and a great thing for like
the through line of NBA products. Yeah, I in talking
about the unlicensed UFF I do agree with you. Like
That's why I was just kind of listening because I
agree with both of you were saying, which is Panini
does seem to usually be a little bit more particular
about the photos that they choose for their unlicensed stuff
and the I was looking because I thought I had
a spare stack of magic players from the Tops basketball chrome.
It was ugly. The pictures were like inconsistent, like some
of them were studio shots, some of like it was
very weird, like the way that they did it, it
did seem a little bit kind of like here damn
kind of situation, you know, like we got to get
our phone in the water, so let's just like toss
this out here. And yeah, so I mean it was
just I was quiet because I was just listening to
you guys and thinking, because it's a really interesting conversation.
We are at a drinking point where yeah, we're being
bomardered with all this top stuff, but like Panini's not gone.
Well here, they're still doing stuff. And you know, I
know I've talked a lot about like they have the
WNBA license and they have you know, they have a
lot of women's sports. I think they really should go
in hard on that. But yeah, they can still make
on licensed products, and they can still they can still
contend with tops and fanatics, maybe not to the extent
that would like, but like they're still you know, they're
not dead on arrival. They're still there. There's still you know,
And and TOPS is really good at their marketing. They are,
and I think that that's something that you know, like
we saw with the National you know, over the last
couple of years, they really stepped it up. Last year,
they really tried to pursue you know, digital marketing, and
I think that that's important. I think you can ignore
that at this point in the game, otherwise you will
not survive it. And so I think Panini, I think
Panini really needs to step that aspect up. And I think,
you know, I don't. I'm not saying they have to
do like what fanatics and TOPS do, but like I remember,
something happened some sporting men I can't even remember, but
I was looking at Panini like to see, like are
they doing a penie instant? What's going on? And they
like just didn't post they weren't even posting in like
their stories or like they're not following along with the
narrative of the sports that they do have, and they
have to they have to contend with that and they
have to drive the interest. So yeah, it's interesting. I
think it's an interesting aspect and it'll be great to
see how Panini decides to react, if they do decide
to just kind of keep going at their stag and pace,
or if they are going to contend, you know, to
some extent with Tops.
Speaker 4: So going off the picture you have on there, Adam,
I did want to put a little tidbit out there
that a lot of people actually don't know the Bowman
product that's coming out right. It's going to have both
college and you know for Bowman first and the rookies
in it. It's a product they've already shown previews for
it and they're going to have all the different stuff.
There's one thing, there's one problem in there. Leif owns
the rights to the Bruiser Brothers. They will not have
any Bowman cards. The top people from the draft will
not have any Bowman cards. You know, a lot of
people those exclusive rights to these players, you know, Leif
goes out and gets them earlier, are going to keep
them out of this type of product. So it'd be
very interesting to see. I know we've seen that in
the past, right, Damian Lillard right off the bat, Donovan
Mitchell of course, Jordan and other individuals right are exclusive
to one brand and then in all the other stuff.
He is one of the biggest players that are coming
out in the draft and he's not even going to
be in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, there's gonna I mean, Bowman I think
will be cool because it's the first time we're gonna
see NBA and then men's and women's college all within
one product. I do, I do, I don't know. It's
not It's not really a worry because I think TOPS
will figure it out. But like, I think that the
Bowman product for baseball works because the players are wearing
their pro uniforms, so and I think that the Bowman
product for college worked because they were in their college
uniforms and it wasn't this combination of NBA and college players.
And so I'm I don't know. I'm kind of torn
on if I like the combination. I think it's cool
to include both of those, like all three of those
groups of players into one product, But I do I
don't know. So I wish that they would almost do
like a secondary I wish they would just do it
like how they do it with baseball, like do a
Bowman college product and then do like a bowman chrome
or a bowman some other type of bowman where you
can include the college players but then also include the
pro players. I just I wish there was maybe some
sort of separation there. And actually I sort of kind
of along the similar topic, I want touch on something
Lauren said. I think that Panini needs to lean into
more of their segmentation of their sports, you know, with
you know, they also just got the WNS, the NWSL
license the Women's Soccer League, which is you know, not
necessarily a newer league. I think it was formed in
twenty twelve, but over the past four or five seasons,
that's where we've seen a lot of the growth. And
Park's side cards I believe was the company that made
those cards before, so Panini just got the license for them,
and then they have the license obviously for WNBA and
their soccer with the World Cup coming up. I just
think that within the sports card industry, not every product
has to be for everyone. So I think figuring out
a way to segment the and give the collectors of
the sports what they want and not try and make
every product the same, I think is going to be
very important for I think it's gonna be very important
for Panini because they have, you know, the WNBA. They
just signed the new collective bargaining agreement, so they're not
going to go into a lockout or they were kind
of in a lockout, but not really because the season
hasn't started. But I do think that overall, Panini just
needs to segment.
Speaker 1: And I don't know or maybe not.
Speaker 2: I guess it's maybe kind of a fifty to fifty
there whether they should or shouldn't. But in my opinion,
that's just sort of how I think Panini should be
moving forward with with some of their products, like with
the licenses that they that they have. They you know,
we can't dwell on losing the licenses because there's nothing
you can do about it. So it's like they just
got to figure out how to move forward with and
again WNBA and WSL those are very popular.
Speaker 1: And then even the World Cup.
Speaker 2: That's like I haven't seen as much promotion about these
World Cup stickers or the World Cup prism as much
as I would like, and those are in my opinion,
that's the most This is the most important product. The
World Cup prison product is the most important product for
them since losing the licenses in the last decade, So
I don't know, and maybe that's a little bit of
an exaggeration, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I still think that there is very important.
Speaker 4: So I'm wondering if it's because of the fact they
might not have a lot of the signers, right, you know,
everyone pushes towards you know, those big, big players and stuff.
I'm wondering if they haven't been pushing a lot because
they know TOPS has them all and you know, to
go back to Able and Vegas's comment, I don't know
if it's just exclusive autos or their actual whole rights
for the Boozer brothers, So don't quote me on that,
but I know for a fact the autos they will
not have. I don't know if it's actually just all cards.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I don't know if it's like an
arch Manning situation where there's no arch manning Tops cards,
where it's like, fully, the full license of arch Manning
is not in TOPS, it's only in Panini. And I
think same with Dylan Rayola. I think his name is
the guy that tries to mimic Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 1: I think he isn't in any TOP.
Speaker 2: I think he might actually not thinking about he might
have one TOPS card, but not like as of recently.
But arch Manning, I know, doesn't have any TOPS cards
only has only has paninies. So you know, maybe it's
the same thing, like maybe I don't know, I mean Leaf,
I don't know how Tops and Pine really let that
slip through the cracks, like those are two of you know,
he's gonna be the number one pick. So it's like,
I don't know how you miss how you miss almost
getting the number one pick.
Speaker 4: Here, It's happened over so many years, back to back
to back. You know, these guys go exclusive with one
so so yeah, but you know, I don't know if
you had it, you know, on your on your stuff
to look up. But one of the biggest things, and
I know Lauren really loves us too, is the entertainment
section of TOPS, right the announcement for you know, Star
Wars and Disney and all the other stuff that they're having.
There is so much stuff that they are bringing out
over the next year that they talk about it is
we don't want to bring up your search history.
Speaker 1: There's no just fine there.
Speaker 4: But but like you know, the fiftieth year of Wars
is next year, right, you know, and they're they some
one of the biggest things that I thought was one
of the coolest things. And in one of the tops
products will be actual film cells from the original Star Wars,
the original first movie. The actual film cell signed you
know by Harrison Ford, well you know, signature whatever. There
was a true one of ones. That is fun. That's incredible, honestly,
like that is history right there. But some of the
stuff with that, with Disney and everything else, Disney Channel autographs,
I know a lot of people talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, there's so many individuals and again we're now we're
getting into the the realm of a lot of these characters. Jesse,
Jesse came out. It's really funny. As he walked Candace
Parker was in the building. She was doing some stuff
over there, and he walked right past her. I'm just like, yeah,
that's always nice looking like buzz light you're walking by
Candas Parker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I love the love the dedication there
from Jesse because I think he has like a super
viral video of him wearing the buzz light your outfit
opening up tops crawl. Oh yeah, because he pulled the
like one of one.
Speaker 1: Walt Disney autograph for this past year, and.
Speaker 2: It was like during Halloween or was during something where
he was wearing the buzz Light Universe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he loved the medication.
Speaker 4: He needed to wait for the adult side costume to
come out and not just go full force under the
kids size. But yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, he did
a really good job being on stage helping monitorate the
entertainment section because you know, he does a lot of that.
But the Disney Channel autographs did hit a lot of
people in the crowd because they're the age They washed
a lot of those Disney Channel type of shows and
everything else, right, you know a lot of it. It's
not going to hit all the older individuals. But the
stuff that they're doing with Disney and Marvel and WWE
is just incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, And I mean that was when I saw
the Disney Channel. I was like, oh, I was like, oh,
that's really cool. I mean, I I I love the
you know, I have like a Rizzler autograph. I love
the like random pop culture, the random pop culture cards
that come out and leaf actually you know we're speaking
about Leave earlier. They I think have done the best
job out of anybody coming out with the most like
relevant pop culture people that are going on right now.
So I think this top, this Disney Disney Channel product,
I think is going to be very quiet. You know,
they have Vanata Hutchinson, Demi Lovato, Roman, Raven Simone, and
then more than those are the names that they have
on there. So I'll be interested to see, you know,
who else who else they have on that, because that's.
Speaker 4: One of the things I've told Tops, I've actually talked
to you know, a couple of individuals. How they haven't
came out with their own pop century product is mind
boggling to me. The amount of people that they that
they do stuff with and everything else from actors, from
US artists and everything else, Like, how they do they
not have their own pulp pulps pop century type of
product is yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, totally yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: I mean it's just that there are I don't know,
it's just the the mixing of popular culture and cards
is kind of in full effect right now. But I
think it can it can continue to get bigger. I
mean we see a lot of like, you know, Dune
for example. I mean I'm a big Dune.
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you're doing books at the back,
but I'm a big dune head. I guess you could come.
Speaker 2: But so I'm excited for the movie. And then Tops
came out with the product and I thought that was
really cool, and you're they're doing that with a lot
of you know, the Disney All the Disney stuff they're doing,
I think is pretty impressive. Again, another huge ip that
they have acquired. And then uh, the other you know,
big ip that they acquired in this past year. That
exciting that they're going to be bringing this back WWE,
and they announced that w W and NFL, and I
don't remember if there were any other buybacks they announced
at the show, but WWE being one. That's very exciting
that you can return these cards of the people who
were going to be in the title matches at WrestleMania,
and then for the NFL, it's going to be Matthew Stafford,
which is interesting. You know, Alex, we were talking about
this before the show, and you brought up like, this
is kind of the first time that they have done
this buyback where we already know who's going to be
the buyback, who's going to.
Speaker 1: Be the athlete.
Speaker 2: So you know, I I'll you know, I'll kick to
you first, Alex, You're like, what were your thoughts on
all the buyback stuff? And you know just kind of
overall the thoughts on it.
Speaker 4: I guess in general, I've always loved this. I always
love it because it's giving you know, money back to
the hobby shops, right, It's getting people to bring stuff
into their lcs. You know a lot of people based
cards thrown to the side, right, it is it is
re rolling those cards because a lot of times these
buybacks they're going in their stamped and there's there's it's
really rare. I haven't seen any of the auto buybacks
when the products and stuff and and everything else. But
for WWE, right, maybe it gets someone that's had fun
opening chrome and gets them to watch Wrestleman because you know,
the first the first hour Wrestlemnion next week on both
nights is on ESPN, ESPN and ESPN two before you
have to have the actual you know, uh ESPN plus Yeah,
brock Lesner fight is actually on ESPN two. I believe
in that in that first hour, So uh so you
watch you free if you have cable. But I love it,
Like I said, it brings money back to the lcs's hands,
and it brings people coming and talking and ripping and
you know, and and the actual aspect of not knowing
who is me keeps more cards now like the WWE,
it's only four cards. NBA, NFL, MLB, it's like you're
keeping everything right now because you don't know who you
know it is now. NBA is a little closer because
you can kind of see the odds, you can kind
of pick out three. In the NFL. Of course, like
we said, Stafford was already the MVP when when this
came out, But this is this is a one off
going forward, it will be different, right, It's gonna be
when when Chrome comes out, We're gonna be We're not
going to know. So I've always loved it, and it's
it's the life on question. Everyone out there can can
answer it. And you guys can answer it too. If
you have, say you have a CM punk and he
wins numbered to ninety nine or even number to fifty,
that's a two hundred dollars buyback credit. Are you getting
the buy back? Are you getting the the two? Are
you trying to sell it on ebit?
Speaker 1: Lauren, I'll kick I'll let you answer that first.
Speaker 3: That depends on what you know, what I'm gonna saying honestly,
like because we've had we have had that discussion. Brian
has like done the math and he's like, I'm gonna
buy more cards anyway, So do I want the cash
or do I want the credit? And it's usually yeah,
I want the credit, So like, uh yeah, usually if
we you know, have those cards, depending on where it's at,
because what like end of the end of the end
of the day, Like what's gonna get us more cards?
That's that's the question, you know, if eBay is gonna
get us more cash whatever. But like we we've done.
I love the buyback. I think it's great. I agree
with both of you that it's an incredible way to
engage so many different elements of the hobby. And yeah,
it's I'm I'm I'm gonna go where I can get
more constant, Like that's that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I I I'll be honest, I
bought some shake some SGA cards on eBay. Like if
you can find them for like fifteen bucks, that's totally
worth it because you're essentially I think the odds for
him to win MVP are like minus fifty thousand or
something like that.
Speaker 1: So it's like he's basically.
Speaker 2: Guaranteed to win MVP, unless I don't even know if
there's necessarily a way that he wouldn't win MVP, but
like right exactly, So, like if you have those cards,
you're you essentially have a you have twenty dollars in
store credit.
Speaker 1: So like I was buying him for.
Speaker 2: Like fifteen dollars a piece just to get like an
extra five, like I think about like I think about
like five or six of them just so that way,
you know, if I wanted to go to a hobby shop,
I can get it like one hundred bucks essentially.
Speaker 1: So and you know.
Speaker 4: Someone sold me two X fractors for thirty bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's great, that's a great deal.
Speaker 4: That's eighty dollars. And I'm not turning these in to
get the blues, yeah, because it'll be the same price.
It's gonna be the same right price.
Speaker 2: So yeah, And so I mean, if you're like at
a show, or you're at the Strongsville show or any
of the or any any show, just in general, I
think if you go to these dollar boxes, there's probably
a decent shot you're gonna be able to find maybe
two or three of these cards because like people don't
you know, some people follow pretty closely what's going on
in social media. But like if you're a store owner
or you're somebody who's opening and ripping packs and you
just have a bunch of cards, like you know, sure,
maybe you know that that SGA is going to have
this MVP buyback, but some people are just gonna say whatever,
just put it in the just put it in the
dollar box.
Speaker 1: Who cares?
Speaker 2: So? But if you find them in dollar boxes, they're
essentially worth twenty dollars, So it's a good way to
you know, I think that I wish Tops would expand
it to you know, potentially all of the award winners,
I mean for basketball and maybe football too. Like I
just think figuring out a way to get more money
back into collectors' hands is ultimately what I would like
companies to try and do more of, and especially with
like what a box looks like nowadays compared to what
it even looked like five or six years ago. Like
five or six years ago, you could go when you'd
buy a twenty or twenty five dollars hot blaster box
and you could sell half, you could sell all the
cards in the box and almost make all your money back.
Speaker 1: Nowadays, it's a little bit tough.
Speaker 2: So if there were a way to have three or
four cards that were guaranteed to be twenty dollars, that's
something that I would like them to I would like
them to do. So, yeah, expanding this is probably is
my I don't know if Tops is listening. That's my suggestion,
is figuring out a way to expand this. And I
know that they've done it with like the red Bowman logo,
but it's like, you know, that's again you're making You're
you're making a card that's different from a base card,
so it almost defeats the purpose a little bit, if
I'm in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's it is.
Speaker 2: I think it's cool that Tops does this, and I'm
excited to see if they do any type of expansion
or if they just keep going. Like I said, I
just wanted to be able to get more money back
into collector's hands, or even if it's store credit, get
more cards into their hands. I mean, there's people who
probably have an SGA card. They don't even realize that
they've got twenty bucks, they can just go and you know,
exchange it for whatever they want at a store.
Speaker 1: I think it's really cool.
Speaker 4: You did segue kind of to something that we didn't
talk about or whatever. The red red rookie redemption. It's
going to be for basketball, right However, like this, I
actually have to send us in this drake wild when
I actually hold it from a Logo Factor box, which
by the way, is the first time ever there was
these type of parallels in any type of Logo Factor
box because remember before they were all just in the
base packs. They were just bass. There wasn't there or whatever.
It's you only cared about the other stuff in the
megaboxes might be the megaboxes. But basketball and the Bowman
product are going to have the Rookie red redemption also.
But instead of one hundred dollars for fan cash, it's
two hundred dollars, right it started off two hundred instead
of one. Herd that was that was some news that
came out for that, and again it's the same type
of concept, and I have a feeling though the basketball
wants more, people will hold onto it if Cooper Flag
ends up winning, right because between him and Conkin uple
Cooper Flag has a better chance probably to win MVP
than Drake Baldwin does. Right, So you know that's where
the whole aspect of just holding on and then it's
a two hundred dollars card. Then you know, if he
wins a second MVP, it's an eight hundred dollars card.
And if somehow twenty years from now he's in the
Hall of Fame, then it's a thousand dollars fan cash card.
I honestly don't like the holding into Hall of Fame
because you don't know if this program is going to
be around in twenty years, right right, right, Yeah, So
that aspect, I'm just like, I'm getting it out if
I would have any right right past in the hurry.
But to your point, I think what you're talking about,
you know, with having more different cards in there for
the buyback and everything. It's kind of like the gold
logo man and the gold NFL shields, you know, that
are going to be in the product that the that
the MVP's Defensive Player of the Year, the Rookie of
the Year, they all wear on their uniforms kind of
would be under the same type of concept.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, exactly, And I mean, I guess we'll kind
of quickly touch on this topic as we're kind of
wrapping things up here.
Speaker 4: James. No, so he said, it's not it's not it's
I think it's the end of June. You have to
turn them in by okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you have any of those, those were
the red the red logo cards.
Speaker 4: Right yeah, Red Rookie Redeka.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then he's local. Bret will be sixty fifteen years so.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I mean, well we'll kind of touch on this
a little bit. I mean I was not necessarily a
huge fan of this news. So Fanatics is finally rolling
out their credit card that they are going to be
there's gonna be rewards for probably buying stuff with Fanatics
or sports cards. I you know, I'll go around the table.
I'll go around the horn here first, and then I'll
give my thoughts on it. Alex, what were you know
if you saw this, what were your kind of initial
thoughts when they rolled this out?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it was something that everyone probably guess was
gonna eventually happen, right. You know a lot of people
use credit cards for in this industry for buying stuff,
and especially the hobby shops. This these kind of this
type of program is kind of almost toward geared towards
the hobby shops more than it is the actual briggers,
because now they can get this extremely big credit card
that they can gain points and everything else on and
you know, stuff to come back to their shop or whatever.
But for me, I mean, if it all comes down to, like,
can you budget your own money? Everyone, you know, individuals
that can get the credit card are an adult like
and in today's world, yes, the gambling aspect and everything
else is out there and people might not be able
to manage their money. It's gonna be hard. If you
know how to do it, it's it's it's fine. Like
I have an MX card. I actually have two. One
of them I'm going to close and I'm just gonna
get that one. I'm just pre replacing one card with
the other, and just I'm like, why not use the
use that for those perks if I'm gonna do it anyways,
I have one, I have a separate count that I
do all my card stuff with, and why not just
put it through there and get some points, get some
perks and stuff. So I do like the fact that
you know that you can design them to you know,
have your your your specific card. Any of the TOPS cards,
they're gonna have a whole bunch of logos that you
can put on there. You can get your favorite card,
you can have this card as your actual credit card.
That'd be pretty cool, but also can be bad because
then you can also think it's just a base card
and throw it out from.
Speaker 2: The toss and toss it in a dollar box or something. Yeah, yeah, Lauren,
same same same question here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think Alex because we you know,
we've all said we discussed it a little bit briefly
before we got on air, and the Alex made it
good point, an important point with the framing of which
I did not consider. You know, I just saw it
with like, you know, clear eyes. This was an industry
you know experience for you know, fanatics and tops like
like Alex said, it was networking. It was, you know,
a way to engage the business side of it. And
if you do have a shop, it probably does make
sense to have this card. When I initially saw it,
I was looking at it as like any old collector
on the street. That seems not great, But if you are,
if you are in this business and this is what
you do. I can understand it working as like your card.
I think it's a slippery slope when you look at
it outside of that frame. And that's where my initial
knee jerk reaction came from was it's open everybody. You know, everybody,
you know what. I just I had questions, you know,
like what's the limit, what's the standard, what's you know whatever.
But considering it as a business card for like lcs
or you know whatever, I I can see the benefits there.
That does make sense to me. But like I think
mad Zity Bruce said it, Yeah, like in college, don't
fall for the free shirt if you said for a
credit card, like some of the bells and whistles might
be appealing, but if you're not, like you know Alex said,
if you're not great with managing your money or you're
you know, you're kind of doing this thinking like oh
I can I can I can you know, be a
gymnast in the way that I can like validate these
purchases in this card, Like you can't bend over backwards
for that stuff. That's a slippery slope, and you know
it can I know, we all you know kind of
you know, are disparaging about gambling and you know how
the hobby can be gambling, and it did kind of
feel a little bit like leaning into that aspect. But
I can I can see now, you know, like it
can be beneficial I'm sure for businesses, but it depends
on how they market this. It depends on how they
approach it and how they you know, yeah, I don't know,
it's it is just depending on the framing. I mean,
I because now I'm like conflicting about how to address it.
But you know, it does just depend on how responsible
I guess fanatics feels about marketing this and do they
want to have the breadth or do they want to
have you know, the focus. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Interesting, yeah, I mean I will say I'll say this,
do not buy sports cards with a credit card if
you were not paying the credit card often full at
the end of the month. I have definitely fallen into
the trap of financial risk where I you know, I
got I have a card that I'm paying off now
that I got because it was like, oh, You're gonna
get all these points and then in the long run,
all the points are not worth what you ended up
paying an interest on the card. So from a business perspective, yes,
that makes a lot of sense. Like if you're getting
you know, if you are a business using this card
and you're getting rewards based on business purchases and there's
business uh goals that you're using the card for. I
think it's great if you're a collector who is trying
to get a free jersey by spending one thousand dollars
every month, I don't know if that's exactly the right move.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't, you know.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna pigeonhole everybody in the sports card industry
as financially irresponsible. Uh, but you know, it is a like,
you know, both of you guys are saying, it's as
very slippery slope. I mean, I think it's very easy
to see a credit limit of whatever you have and say, oh,
I'll just you know, i'll buy something here, buy something there,
and then you get to the end of the month
and you spend a couple thousand dollars you didn't even
realize it. So it's like, I think it's dangerous for
people who are not financially responsible. If you are not
a business or you are not someone who pays off
your credit cards in full. I probably wouldn't suggest buying it.
I I in my in my opinion, I wouldn't suggest
buying any type of sports card thing with a credit card,
just because, you know, from my own experience and maybe
maybe my own experience is gonna be different than the others.
But uh, that's that was sort of my thoughts. And
I mean, and this was something that we had known
was coming out for a while. Think they're finally rolling
it out, so uh, you know, I don't know, maybe
if my if my Fanatics credit card comes to the
mail next week, maybe I'll be uh saying a different
tune on the next episode of Hobby Hot, I'll be like, guys,
you got to use my promo.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's if you can manage your money, that's
great and that's what you you and you can use
it for that, then you should get it. But like
if you are irresponsible like myself, don't get it. Like
that's just that's just my you know, my my thoughts
on it in general, you know. And wow, I guess
we are kind of coming up on the hour here.
I didn't even realize how close we were, So I'll
go back around the horn one more time. Uh, you know,
give yourself a shad out. Let everybody know where they
can find you. Let let them know anything you got
coming up. Alex will start with you. What you got
going on this week? Anything you want to give a
shout out to shadow get you give yourself the self
promotion you deserve.
Speaker 4: Yep. I'm gonna be everywhere over the next two weeks.
Are ATC twenty two on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, anywhere you
see me. I'll be at WrestleMania. I'll be in Vegas.
I'm flying out Wednesday. I'm gonna there till Monday. I
want to be doing everything ww world and be handing
out packs. I'm gonna have a great time. Talks about
a few people. So I'm gonna be having a really
good time. The week after that NFL Draft eBay Live,
I'm gonna be doing some stuff with a couple individuals
during the draft. The actual draft fees are going to
be coming on stage after they're drafted and doing some
stuff on eBay Live, So shout out to that. So
I'm gonna be all over the place having fun and
i can't wait to share.
Speaker 2: The world absolutely, and Lauren, you know, basically the same
question with you. Let everybody know where they can find
all the amazing content that you're putting out as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Instagram the main one. I have been on a
bit of a sabbatical, but I am trying to get
back into hobby. Hotline has kind of been my teather
that I really enjoy and I am I'm trying to
get back into it and post more and interact more
and share more because I do love this hobby and
it is great. We are also heading to Vegas next week,
so Alex, you'll have to try and avoid me because
I am going to.
Speaker 4: Seek you out.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's you know, I think we're we're also
we're heading into you know, spring summertime and National's coming up,
and I think this is a This was a great
conversation today. I really enjoyed chatting with you guys. The
chat was great too. And I think that sometimes I
come on the show and I'm like, oh, this is
a bleak, bleak place, but in general not here, But like,
this was a really great conversation. I think the Hobby's
in a good position. I think, you know, the conversations
happening are great and yeah, I and I. I, you know,
I will scroll on TikTok and I'll randomly hear Adam
Swoytz and I'm like, we're I'll hear from the other
room and Brian's watching. I'm like, oh, there he is
or Alex, but usually it's Adam and I'm like, oh,
Adam's add again. But yeah, I think this is a
I just want to say thanks. Guy's a really good
show and early time and I love it here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, thank you. Thank you for the
you know, thanks for watching the video. So I appreciate that.
But yeah, So I mean, for me, I like to
make sure I end all these shows by you know,
people are gonna come and go in this hobby. There's
gonna be new people that come into the hobby and
they're gonna ask questions. You know, people are going to
come into the hobby the same way. Well that's I
was gonna say that. I was gonna say I was
gonna say that afterwards, but okay, so I'll start We'll
start with that. So, you know, the the handles there
on stream the handles there on streamy TikTok YouTube Instagram. Uh, Snapchat,
I think I don't know. I've kinda been posting some
videos there. It hasn't really been going very well. But uh, Snapchat, Spotlight,
but TikTok is kind of the main place, and then Instagram, uh,
and then also sports cards nonsense.
Speaker 1: On their YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: I'm doing some video a ton of videos for them.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's for the most part.
Speaker 2: Those are all the good place you can find or
all the all the videos that I'm making at least.
And then he you know here will be back on
the not me, but someone will be here hosting on
the four Collectors YouTube channel next week. But yep, like
I said, I always try to end the shows. Uh,
before Alex rudely interrupted me, I'm just kidding. But so everybody,
you know, people are coming into this industry all the time,
new people, uh, people who are just getting started, old
people who are getting back into it. Not old as
in age, but whatever, it doesn't really matter. They're gonna
have questions and they're gonna have questions the same way
that all of us had questions when we first got
into the industry. So if you can help out a
new collector with any questions. Just help them, you know,
answer their question kindly because it's confusing. We all know
this industry is confusing, so just help out the new collectors.
Help them become a lifelong collector the way that we
all are lifelong collectors because we all know how fun
it is and how confusing it can be. So help
out your fellow collectors. Make sure you are telling them
to go watch the four Collectors YouTube channel as well
for Hobby Hotline every single week. And like I said,
we'll be back here Saturday. I guess said, I forget
who exactly who's hosting, but someone else will be hosting.
It'll be a new around the horn worth of guest
hosts as well. Thank you all for watching, and you
know we'll come back here next with us next Saturday
and we'll see all on the next one.
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to this episode of Hobby Hotline.
Just 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.
Speaker 3: Four, the word Collector's channel on YouTube.
Speaker 4: We hope to see many of you live on a
future Saturday. 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.
So that's a reminder. Every Saturday eleven am Eastern eight
am Pacific, only four Collectors channel on YouTube. Hope to
see you on the show.