8 ms·

Fanatics Is Building a Weird Monopoly over Sports Trading Cards

101 points by cainxinth 3y ago

DannyBee 3y ago
Matt glosses over the caselaw and rules.. This case is nowhere near as likely to succeed as he thinks. I'll just quote the FTC itself here: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/exclusive-supply-or-purchase-agreements https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... First, Panini is not a small newcomer trying to break in, in fact, they had exclusive rights prior to Fanatics (and still do). This case would be much more likely to succeed if it was a newcomer trying to break in. As a result, Panini is going to have a hell of a time arguing that because somebody else won the contracts, it's now bad. Second, Matt literally doesn't mention it, but all Fanatics would have to do anyway is show some set of procompetitive effects of the agreements, which is fairly easy to do. See, e.g., https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-8#:~:text=Panelists%20generally%20agreed%20that%20this,way%2C%20I%20have%20got%20a https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol... (just to quote the DOJ) Third: He throws in some stuff about MSRP, but cites no caselaw because MSRP's are legal, and even kicking out dealers who refuse to honor them is legal. Again, see the FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-supply-chain/manufacturer-imposed-requirements https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... I actually personally think MSRP and friends should have stayed per-se illegal, etc. But it's not. Another significant issue with this case overall is: The remedies won't fix anything - Panini will have a hell of a time showing that divestment or injunction would fix the market. Instead, to create competition of any sort, you'd have to enjoin MLB/NFL/etc from exclusive dealing with a single trading card manufacturer. Otherwise, whether it's panini or fanatics, you will still have a single licensed trading card manufacturer. But MLB/et al are not party to the suit. So they can't be enjoined. Their desire for "Fanatics is not allowed to sign exclusive contracts" would require that the MLB/et al not want exclusive contracts, which they do! Panini knows this, and in practice they just want Fanatics to not be allowed to sign exclusive contracts. They themselves want to turn around and resign exclusive contracts forever :) This is totally obvious to any judge, etc, and as a result, the suit will simply seem like sour grapes - they are not pissed that the market is being monopolized, they are pissed they are not the ones doing it. They will get really hard to answer questions about how the remedies will create competition in the market, rather than them monopolizing the two-party market instead. In practice, if they want competition, they should be suing MLB/et al. I don't give this case a super high chance of success. It may succeed, for sure, but it's a much tougher road than Matt paints.
raydiatian 3y ago
Wait, who cares about trading cards?
- zoover2020 3y ago
  This is a billion+ dollar industry, it's not about "who cares about ..." but rather exposing evil corporations before it's too late.
  - dagw 3y ago
    exposing evil corporations before it's too late To play devils advocate, too late for what? Let's assume this company succeeds in their evil scheme and completely takes over the sports card market for next 50+ years, using their monopoly power to mercilessly crushing anybody who tries to compete. Unless they can use that power to muscle into a market that actually matters, what difference does it make to society.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      I’m not sure how to break this to you gracefully but you, your parents, your children, and every person you have ever met or even contemplated will die, and along with them their hopes, dreams, and preferences. The degree to which one type of diversion “actually matters” or not should be taken in that context.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      A monopoly is a profit fountain. You can use that monopoly to leverage yourself into new monopolies (because you have capital to waste/dump e.g. Microsoft), and use that collection of monopolies to leverage yourself into political influence. Monopolies are like cancer. edit: to expand; a monopoly is by nature a political thing. Once you control the market, you control the suppliers and retailers, and you don't actually have to manufacture or handle the products that you control. You set your suppliers prices, you set your wholesale prices, and you set your retail prices. Your real job then consists of fending off politicians/regulators that become interested in what you have, and creating politicians/regulators that will help you get more of what you want.
hoseja 3y ago
That sounds like a deeply perverse and useless market in the first place. Hard to care somebody is cannibalizing it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
CalRobert 3y ago
"cards collected by children and hobbyists." Do children still collect these cards?
- amelius 3y ago
  Yes, why not make this an App, that can show cards but also short video fragments.
  - bdav2418 3y ago
    While we are at it, we should also add some technology that makes them non-fungible, how about a blockchain?
  - swarnie 3y ago
    Maybe without the tangible aspect even children would realise they are paying $$$ for infinitely reproducible pixels. IE the death of economics as i understand it.
    - oefrha 3y ago
      I recall playing with knockoff Pokémon trading cards when I was a kid. Same fun, $/$$ instead of $$$.
    - riversflow 3y ago
      Highly doubt. Somehow video games are funding themselves selling skins. My understanding is that Gen Z eats them up. I’m a late millenial, and the Skyrim horse armor debacle was a formative experience, as such I have never paid for a skin, and neither have any of my (similarly aged) friends. Z
      - quickthrowman 3y ago
        Horse armor was Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, I pirated it :) I did, however, pay for the Shivering Isles expansion.
  - 3y ago
dghughes 3y ago
I'm not into sports but I recently saw a story on Football (soccer) Stickers aka Panini stickers. It's a massive industry over $1 billion in sales maybe $1.5 by now. edit: I see it mentions Panini hard to believe Fanatics sells more!
amelius 3y ago
They are leeching from children. Can we have an open-source trading card movement who will just make them go bankrupt?
- somat 3y ago
  No: open source works because the economy of manufacturing software is so wierd. you can breakdown total costs into development, manufacturing, distribution. Software manufacturing and distribution cost are about as close to zero as you can get. So all it takes is one altruistic soul willing to shoulder the research cost. and there is no reoccurring manufacturing or distribution cost to burden this person. physical trading cards would have a recurring manufacturing and distribution costs. This is, strictly speaking, orthogonal to opensource, an open source trading card by definition would come with the design file used to make the card. I guess you could print your own cards. No: the trading card appeal is scarcity of resource. there is no thrill of acquisition when you can get anything at will. Yes: go to wikipedia and look up information of your favorite sports figures. feel free to put it in a nice template. there is your open source trading card.
  - Y_Y 3y ago
    I can't wait for the school yard of the future where kids just trade laminated Wikipedia printouts with each other. "Hey look, I got a rare Honus Wagner from 2007 where somebody vandalized it to say Honus Wanglord!"
- masklinn 3y ago
  You can't really compete on licensed league IP, since you'd need to acquire the license, and leagues want money. "open source" doesn't really make sense for trading cards either, since the entire point is collectibility. It's not even clear what "open source" would entail at all. Hell, even for a trading card game what "open source" means isn't really clear: you can already create your own format if you want, you're never going to be able to play bespoke cards at sanctioned events (way too easy to abuse), would it just give you the right to "fork" the TCG and reuse as many of the existing cards & rules as you want ignoring the rest? That hardly seems useful as you can more or less already do that, everybody understands that an MTG ETB and a Hearthstone Battlecry are the same thing, you just can't use the exact same names (let alone reuse art because that is under separate licensing).
owisd 3y ago
The whole appeal of trading cards comes from some company creating artificial scarcity on the supply of the cards, if you could just go online and order for a flat per card fee any brand new trading cards a la carte from the entire back catalog it would take away all the "fun".
- 1337biz 3y ago
  Same situation with Ferraris. If only they would hire more people, cut some corners and get a bigger factory, I could afford one!
  - thombat 3y ago
    Not a useful comparison, since the limitation isn't of the supply of cards overall but of particular cards that (other than the material printed) are identical to the common ones.
  - kjs3 3y ago
    To be fair, unlike a monopoly controlled product, Ferraris are fungible in that I can equally not be able to afford a Lamborghini, Bugatti, Koenigsegg and numerous others. We have many options for cars we can't afford. The Honda will have to do. :-)
  - RobotToaster 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
  - kibwen 3y ago
    This is quite a silly comparison, because these cards are cheap to produce and trivial to manufacture relative to something like a car. The value is from the perceived scarcity, not from the perceived quality or luxury or usefulness, and the scarcity is at the whim of the manufacturer who artificially decides which cards will be scarce and which will be common.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  Really the appeal of trading cards and foundation of scarcity goes back to the 1960s when kids would play with the cards, put them in bicycle spokes to make brrr sounds, etc. and then their parents threw their cards out or the kids did themselves when they outgrew them. Fast forward 20-30 years and scarcity happened for cards like Mickey Mantle and other hall of fame players and prices shot up to thousands for a single card in mint condition. Kids like me hear that and buy tons of baseball cards. The lore of people with rare cards was talked about at card shops. It was cool to buy a pack and see what you got and trade with friends. Being a baseball fan at the time, it was fun to collect every player on your favorite team, maybe get cards signed by them at a game. The fun is in the collecting, sharing, memories, etc. I'm sure there are similar stories for things like comic books and other collectibles (first edition books) where earlier releases of things are now rare. If everything were just a flat fee per card nobody would bother.
disposition2 3y ago
Great article, thanks for sharing. Fanatics sports merchandise (t-shirts, etc) is probably the worst quality merchandise I’ve purchased in my life. It’s a good thing they have such a monopoly, because after a few purchases, people would seek out alternatives. I, despite being a pretty avid sports fan, have just stopped buying sports merchandise because it’s almost always Fanatics.
- mfwit 3y ago
  Exactly this. Ebbets Field Flannels is basically the only sports merchandise I buy these days but since they were bought by Lids last year, Fanatics now has a partial stake in them too. Thankfully I haven't noticed any change in product quality, but its only a matter of time.
  - barkerja 3y ago
    My goto these days is: - homage.com - whereimfrom.com - neweracap.com - 47brand.com
- bluedevil2k 3y ago
  100% this! The quality at Fanatics has fallen off a cliff the last few years to the point that I won’t ever order anything from there again. They have descriptions of some “performance t-shirt” material that turns out to the be low quality cotton that starts falling alert after a few washes. Advertisements of “Free Shipping” only for them to have $4 added to every order for “handling” (they’re synonymous in the US). My tip to everyone is to order sports related clothing from Chinese sites like DHGate and AliExpress. The quality is better than Fanatics at 25% the price. “It’s counterfeit” — well sometimes a consumer has to fight back.
  - wsatb 3y ago
    While I haven't found anything similar for professional sports, Homefield[1] is great for college gear. If your school isn't offered, they add new schools like every week. Less of a selection, I guess, but not only is the quality of Fanatics bad, their gear is also very cookie cutter. All of Homefield's apparel is unique to the school. I feel like I have to go to the store for anything worthwhile in professional sports now, and even B&M will often just have a bunch of Fanatics junk. [1] https://www.homefieldapparel.com/ https://www.homefieldapparel.com/
lizknope 3y ago
I was a kid in the late 1980's to early 90's. That was the height of the "Junk Wax Era." Baseball cards were so overproduced that stuff from that era is almost worthless. You can still buy sealed unopened boxes of complete sets of cards from that time. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/ranking-junk-wax-era-years-baseball-cards-1987-to-1993/ejcq9oqvaxl96c1dfndaw0md https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/ranking-junk-wax-er... I mention this because I don't really trust anyone's opinion about how rare something is or price guides created by groups trying to get you to buy more cards.
- autokad 3y ago
  Becket (through Becket Price guide) told us what the market price was back then, only that it wasn't. We had no idea how many cards were being produced (it was A LOT) and we didn't even know that print run was an issue. Today, card prices is all market driven (there are some bidding shenanigan's that happen though). Today, people mostly buy graded cards, which have pop reports through the grading agency. There are also many good ways to know how many cards in a Print Run. Scotty B's cards on youtube goes over these in detail. Since there are serial numbered cards that have pack odds, you can reverse engineer the print run. That being said, its not a wise idea to buy base cards anymore. What you really want is licensed serial numbered cards, preferably rookies with on card autos of the base card. Of course this is sport specific, such as in hockey the young guns cards are most important. I have made about 40,000$ this year in revenue selling cards (revenue, not earnings - doesn't include cost).
- marktangotango 3y ago
  My kids are into collecting pokemon cards big time. We have this conversation pretty frequently; why didn't I buy pokemon cards in the 90's? We'd be rich! I try to tell them about the over production and glut in collectible cards in the 90's but it really doesn't sink in. At the time we had just come off the beanie baby and pog fads. I personally had no interest in buying any thing. I still have no clue why these cards are "worth" as much as they say they are. On the other hand those black lotus mtg cards I used to see for $10, that is real scarcity I understand.
  - 3y ago
Ekaros 3y ago
I'm not sure if exclusivity is a bad thing... So what is the complete opposite of this type of monopoly? Anyone getting a license for very cheap and then just producing insane amount of cards. In the end those cards end up being worth nothing, or below the initial sale price. Then again maybe that moment of enjoyment is enough if it is cheap.
runamuck 3y ago
Fanatics just bought PWCC - I assume for their sleek (IMHO) online auction and vault. This provides another pillar to their sports card domination.
whynotkeithberg 3y ago
Thanks for sharing! I disagree with them saying most people have viewed fanatics taking over as a positive thing... On r/baseballcards Fanatics is not trusted or viewed well. We do like a few of the changes they're making such as selling more stuff online so the average person can buy on release day rather than having to pay double to scalpers. But overall, fanatics is not viewed positively by anyone I know. Especially those who have been unfortunate enough to buy their sports merch as it's not done well.
llsf 3y ago
Creating fake scarcity + random draw, looks like a lottery/casino where the slot machine is not locked/regulated. Fanatics is trying to own the whole sports card lottery. They are going to print money in 2026. It would be nice to have alternative venues for the sports cards addicts.

101 points by cainxinth 3y ago

Matt glosses over the caselaw and rules.. This case is nowhere near as likely to succeed as he thinks. I'll just quote the FTC itself here: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/exclusive-supply-or-purchase-agreements https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... First, Panini is not a small newcomer trying to break in, in fact, they had exclusive rights prior to Fanatics (and still do). This case would be much more likely to succeed if it was a newcomer trying to break in. As a result, Panini is going to have a hell of a time arguing that because somebody else won the contracts, it's now bad. Second, Matt literally doesn't mention it, but all Fanatics would have to do anyway is show some set of procompetitive effects of the agreements, which is fairly easy to do. See, e.g., https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-8#:~:text=Panelists%20generally%20agreed%20that%20this,way%2C%20I%20have%20got%20a https://www.justice.gov/archives/atr/competition-and-monopol... (just to quote the DOJ) Third: He throws in some stuff about MSRP, but cites no caselaw because MSRP's are legal, and even kicking out dealers who refuse to honor them is legal. Again, see the FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-supply-chain/manufacturer-imposed-requirements https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... I actually personally think MSRP and friends should have stayed per-se illegal, etc. But it's not. Another significant issue with this case overall is: The remedies won't fix anything - Panini will have a hell of a time showing that divestment or injunction would fix the market. Instead, to create competition of any sort, you'd have to enjoin MLB/NFL/etc from exclusive dealing with a single trading card manufacturer. Otherwise, whether it's panini or fanatics, you will still have a single licensed trading card manufacturer. But MLB/et al are not party to the suit. So they can't be enjoined. Their desire for "Fanatics is not allowed to sign exclusive contracts" would require that the MLB/et al not want exclusive contracts, which they do! Panini knows this, and in practice they just want Fanatics to not be allowed to sign exclusive contracts. They themselves want to turn around and resign exclusive contracts forever :) This is totally obvious to any judge, etc, and as a result, the suit will simply seem like sour grapes - they are not pissed that the market is being monopolized, they are pissed they are not the ones doing it. They will get really hard to answer questions about how the remedies will create competition in the market, rather than them monopolizing the two-party market instead. In practice, if they want competition, they should be suing MLB/et al. I don't give this case a super high chance of success. It may succeed, for sure, but it's a much tougher road than Matt paints.

raydiatian 3y ago

Wait, who cares about trading cards?

zoover2020 3y ago
This is a billion+ dollar industry, it's not about "who cares about ..." but rather exposing evil corporations before it's too late.
- dagw 3y ago
  exposing evil corporations before it's too late To play devils advocate, too late for what? Let's assume this company succeeds in their evil scheme and completely takes over the sports card market for next 50+ years, using their monopoly power to mercilessly crushing anybody who tries to compete. Unless they can use that power to muscle into a market that actually matters, what difference does it make to society.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    I’m not sure how to break this to you gracefully but you, your parents, your children, and every person you have ever met or even contemplated will die, and along with them their hopes, dreams, and preferences. The degree to which one type of diversion “actually matters” or not should be taken in that context.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    A monopoly is a profit fountain. You can use that monopoly to leverage yourself into new monopolies (because you have capital to waste/dump e.g. Microsoft), and use that collection of monopolies to leverage yourself into political influence. Monopolies are like cancer. edit: to expand; a monopoly is by nature a political thing. Once you control the market, you control the suppliers and retailers, and you don't actually have to manufacture or handle the products that you control. You set your suppliers prices, you set your wholesale prices, and you set your retail prices. Your real job then consists of fending off politicians/regulators that become interested in what you have, and creating politicians/regulators that will help you get more of what you want.

hoseja 3y ago

That sounds like a deeply perverse and useless market in the first place. Hard to care somebody is cannibalizing it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

CalRobert 3y ago

"cards collected by children and hobbyists." Do children still collect these cards?

amelius 3y ago
Yes, why not make this an App, that can show cards but also short video fragments.
- bdav2418 3y ago
  While we are at it, we should also add some technology that makes them non-fungible, how about a blockchain?
- swarnie 3y ago
  Maybe without the tangible aspect even children would realise they are paying $$$ for infinitely reproducible pixels. IE the death of economics as i understand it.
  - oefrha 3y ago
    I recall playing with knockoff Pokémon trading cards when I was a kid. Same fun, $/$$ instead of $$$.
  - riversflow 3y ago
    Highly doubt. Somehow video games are funding themselves selling skins. My understanding is that Gen Z eats them up. I’m a late millenial, and the Skyrim horse armor debacle was a formative experience, as such I have never paid for a skin, and neither have any of my (similarly aged) friends. Z
    - quickthrowman 3y ago
      Horse armor was Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, I pirated it :) I did, however, pay for the Shivering Isles expansion.
- 3y ago

dghughes 3y ago

I'm not into sports but I recently saw a story on Football (soccer) Stickers aka Panini stickers. It's a massive industry over $1 billion in sales maybe $1.5 by now. edit: I see it mentions Panini hard to believe Fanatics sells more!

amelius 3y ago

They are leeching from children. Can we have an open-source trading card movement who will just make them go bankrupt?

somat 3y ago
No: open source works because the economy of manufacturing software is so wierd. you can breakdown total costs into development, manufacturing, distribution. Software manufacturing and distribution cost are about as close to zero as you can get. So all it takes is one altruistic soul willing to shoulder the research cost. and there is no reoccurring manufacturing or distribution cost to burden this person. physical trading cards would have a recurring manufacturing and distribution costs. This is, strictly speaking, orthogonal to opensource, an open source trading card by definition would come with the design file used to make the card. I guess you could print your own cards. No: the trading card appeal is scarcity of resource. there is no thrill of acquisition when you can get anything at will. Yes: go to wikipedia and look up information of your favorite sports figures. feel free to put it in a nice template. there is your open source trading card.
- Y_Y 3y ago
  I can't wait for the school yard of the future where kids just trade laminated Wikipedia printouts with each other. "Hey look, I got a rare Honus Wagner from 2007 where somebody vandalized it to say Honus Wanglord!"
masklinn 3y ago
You can't really compete on licensed league IP, since you'd need to acquire the license, and leagues want money. "open source" doesn't really make sense for trading cards either, since the entire point is collectibility. It's not even clear what "open source" would entail at all. Hell, even for a trading card game what "open source" means isn't really clear: you can already create your own format if you want, you're never going to be able to play bespoke cards at sanctioned events (way too easy to abuse), would it just give you the right to "fork" the TCG and reuse as many of the existing cards & rules as you want ignoring the rest? That hardly seems useful as you can more or less already do that, everybody understands that an MTG ETB and a Hearthstone Battlecry are the same thing, you just can't use the exact same names (let alone reuse art because that is under separate licensing).

owisd 3y ago

The whole appeal of trading cards comes from some company creating artificial scarcity on the supply of the cards, if you could just go online and order for a flat per card fee any brand new trading cards a la carte from the entire back catalog it would take away all the "fun".

1337biz 3y ago
Same situation with Ferraris. If only they would hire more people, cut some corners and get a bigger factory, I could afford one!
- thombat 3y ago
  Not a useful comparison, since the limitation isn't of the supply of cards overall but of particular cards that (other than the material printed) are identical to the common ones.
- kjs3 3y ago
  To be fair, unlike a monopoly controlled product, Ferraris are fungible in that I can equally not be able to afford a Lamborghini, Bugatti, Koenigsegg and numerous others. We have many options for cars we can't afford. The Honda will have to do. :-)
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- kibwen 3y ago
  This is quite a silly comparison, because these cards are cheap to produce and trivial to manufacture relative to something like a car. The value is from the perceived scarcity, not from the perceived quality or luxury or usefulness, and the scarcity is at the whim of the manufacturer who artificially decides which cards will be scarce and which will be common.
mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
Really the appeal of trading cards and foundation of scarcity goes back to the 1960s when kids would play with the cards, put them in bicycle spokes to make brrr sounds, etc. and then their parents threw their cards out or the kids did themselves when they outgrew them. Fast forward 20-30 years and scarcity happened for cards like Mickey Mantle and other hall of fame players and prices shot up to thousands for a single card in mint condition. Kids like me hear that and buy tons of baseball cards. The lore of people with rare cards was talked about at card shops. It was cool to buy a pack and see what you got and trade with friends. Being a baseball fan at the time, it was fun to collect every player on your favorite team, maybe get cards signed by them at a game. The fun is in the collecting, sharing, memories, etc. I'm sure there are similar stories for things like comic books and other collectibles (first edition books) where earlier releases of things are now rare. If everything were just a flat fee per card nobody would bother.

disposition2 3y ago

Great article, thanks for sharing. Fanatics sports merchandise (t-shirts, etc) is probably the worst quality merchandise I’ve purchased in my life. It’s a good thing they have such a monopoly, because after a few purchases, people would seek out alternatives. I, despite being a pretty avid sports fan, have just stopped buying sports merchandise because it’s almost always Fanatics.

mfwit 3y ago
Exactly this. Ebbets Field Flannels is basically the only sports merchandise I buy these days but since they were bought by Lids last year, Fanatics now has a partial stake in them too. Thankfully I haven't noticed any change in product quality, but its only a matter of time.
- barkerja 3y ago
  My goto these days is: - homage.com - whereimfrom.com - neweracap.com - 47brand.com
bluedevil2k 3y ago
100% this! The quality at Fanatics has fallen off a cliff the last few years to the point that I won’t ever order anything from there again. They have descriptions of some “performance t-shirt” material that turns out to the be low quality cotton that starts falling alert after a few washes. Advertisements of “Free Shipping” only for them to have $4 added to every order for “handling” (they’re synonymous in the US). My tip to everyone is to order sports related clothing from Chinese sites like DHGate and AliExpress. The quality is better than Fanatics at 25% the price. “It’s counterfeit” — well sometimes a consumer has to fight back.
- wsatb 3y ago
  While I haven't found anything similar for professional sports, Homefield[1] is great for college gear. If your school isn't offered, they add new schools like every week. Less of a selection, I guess, but not only is the quality of Fanatics bad, their gear is also very cookie cutter. All of Homefield's apparel is unique to the school. I feel like I have to go to the store for anything worthwhile in professional sports now, and even B&M will often just have a bunch of Fanatics junk. [1] https://www.homefieldapparel.com/ https://www.homefieldapparel.com/

lizknope 3y ago

I was a kid in the late 1980's to early 90's. That was the height of the "Junk Wax Era." Baseball cards were so overproduced that stuff from that era is almost worthless. You can still buy sealed unopened boxes of complete sets of cards from that time. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/ranking-junk-wax-era-years-baseball-cards-1987-to-1993/ejcq9oqvaxl96c1dfndaw0md https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/ranking-junk-wax-er... I mention this because I don't really trust anyone's opinion about how rare something is or price guides created by groups trying to get you to buy more cards.

autokad 3y ago
Becket (through Becket Price guide) told us what the market price was back then, only that it wasn't. We had no idea how many cards were being produced (it was A LOT) and we didn't even know that print run was an issue. Today, card prices is all market driven (there are some bidding shenanigan's that happen though). Today, people mostly buy graded cards, which have pop reports through the grading agency. There are also many good ways to know how many cards in a Print Run. Scotty B's cards on youtube goes over these in detail. Since there are serial numbered cards that have pack odds, you can reverse engineer the print run. That being said, its not a wise idea to buy base cards anymore. What you really want is licensed serial numbered cards, preferably rookies with on card autos of the base card. Of course this is sport specific, such as in hockey the young guns cards are most important. I have made about 40,000$ this year in revenue selling cards (revenue, not earnings - doesn't include cost).
marktangotango 3y ago
My kids are into collecting pokemon cards big time. We have this conversation pretty frequently; why didn't I buy pokemon cards in the 90's? We'd be rich! I try to tell them about the over production and glut in collectible cards in the 90's but it really doesn't sink in. At the time we had just come off the beanie baby and pog fads. I personally had no interest in buying any thing. I still have no clue why these cards are "worth" as much as they say they are. On the other hand those black lotus mtg cards I used to see for $10, that is real scarcity I understand.
- 3y ago

Ekaros 3y ago

I'm not sure if exclusivity is a bad thing... So what is the complete opposite of this type of monopoly? Anyone getting a license for very cheap and then just producing insane amount of cards. In the end those cards end up being worth nothing, or below the initial sale price. Then again maybe that moment of enjoyment is enough if it is cheap.

runamuck 3y ago

Fanatics just bought PWCC - I assume for their sleek (IMHO) online auction and vault. This provides another pillar to their sports card domination.

whynotkeithberg 3y ago

Thanks for sharing! I disagree with them saying most people have viewed fanatics taking over as a positive thing... On r/baseballcards Fanatics is not trusted or viewed well. We do like a few of the changes they're making such as selling more stuff online so the average person can buy on release day rather than having to pay double to scalpers. But overall, fanatics is not viewed positively by anyone I know. Especially those who have been unfortunate enough to buy their sports merch as it's not done well.

llsf 3y ago

Creating fake scarcity + random draw, looks like a lottery/casino where the slot machine is not locked/regulated. Fanatics is trying to own the whole sports card lottery. They are going to print money in 2026. It would be nice to have alternative venues for the sports cards addicts.