What Would You Change?

[JaxSportsHub]

Fanatics is quickly taking over the world of sports cards. If you are like us, you have been through the thick and thin over the decades and seen the highs and lows both from a value stand point and the cost stand point.

We had the Junk Wax Era which will always have some nostalgia for me as well as Grading, etc etc etc. I left the world for a bit and came back to it and while I have enjoyed it, I have labeled this era the Participation Trophy Era. Where for some sports like this one (football), every card is limited and every player has 2,675 rookie cards. I think my last count with Panini for pulling a player that had potential was Trevor Lawrence in 2021 and he had over 150 available.

So the Participation Trophy Era means that every box opened is designed to give you the warm and fuzzy feeling of getting something amazing (Numbered, Relic, Auto), etc even though they wont be all that desirable longterm. This came about to go along with the extreme rise in cost of these boxes.

So, back to the original question. if you were Fanatics, would you continue the trend that has kept things hot or would you make major changes and scale things back to something a bit more tenured?

What say you?

[pwaldo]

Honestly if I ran Fanatics I wouldn't but if I was running things I would. And if that sounds weird and confusing just here me out on it. Fanatics as a company is huge. They don't care about the sports card industry as it is peanuts to their whole operation. If they had card sales go to zero and still had all their other businesses pump out money they would be making billions. So to them it is insignificant. It would be like Wal Mart caring bout the sports card isle (even though they don't technically own that). Just using it as an example of size and scale to a company.

But personally I would scale things back because Fanatics bought high at the worst time possible and they will destroy this hobby if they try and make a big profit going forward. There is just no way to make up the amount of money they paid unless they crank up the presses and crank up the prices. And in this economy it is going to be a disaster.

I know people say well it is basically a monopoly and that people have no choice and they must buy so Fanatics has everyone by the family jewels but I see this as more of a Bud Light situation. If you don't like Bud Light you can buy tons of other alcohol. Not just beer but vodka, whiskey, etc If you don't want to pay for the 2023 products from Fanatics you can buy stuff from 2005, 1975, 1995, hockey, football, wrestling, baseball, etc. You can make sets. You can buy graded cards. You can just get your cards graded etc. You have an almost unlimited amount of choices. So even if you are addicting to opening packs, boxes, and cases you can open up tons of stuff and feed your addiction without Fanatics making a cent off of you.

People need to stop being sheep for big corporations and having no brain. You can have fun, enjoy yourself, and even make money doing something that isn't basically being a worker bee for a guy at the top that makes all the cash while you do all the work. For example you can try to put together an autograph set like 1989 Pro Set by getting IP or TTM autographs. The cards aren't costly and the stamps really aren't either. You just have to pay big money for the deceased players to complete it and wait for all the mail to arrive. That project may take years but once you complete it you will have something that is very valuable, unique, and something that Fanatics receives not one cent from.

[steelers6]

If I were Fanatics you have a 3 tiered system. High end (big collectors), a middle product (for the masses) and a low end for kids. I would only have inserts numbered out of /10. I would have 2 inserts. So a base, a gold to/10 and a 1/1. Thats it. I would also allow people to trade in their base cards for a special redemption card only from the company #'d to /10, /5 or 1/1. Heard that from The Great curator. great idea. then middle and low end can be for set collectors

[doniceage]

If you want head to the Nationals and see what Fanatic plans are for future. I am sure they are planning to talk more and more about how they will exactly do things. Been talk of some folks working very close with Fanatics and being distributed for them. I am definitely not a fan of one company holding all the licenses but it is what it is. Who know perhaps they will blow us collectors away with great product, while maintaining value, etc. As for Participation trophy I do not truly think that this is that era I think the Covid years created the investment phase with grading and that will be falling by the wayside as to me there is no way the cards will keep up the value especially for all the stuff that being pumped out by the companies. I mean what to keep them from turning out the volume on the presses before they lose their licenses. Hence, a junk era again as if you look at boxes of newer stuff and in the last year or so prices have come down from what I have seen.

DON

[pwaldo]

If ones checks out what Fanatics is doing in baseball and what they have announced so far or have failed to announce. They are basically putting all the low end and retail products on "pause" which I happen to think to take they are just cancelling them and they are making more "breaker friendly boxes" whatever the heck that means.

Basically they just want to cut out the retail stuff that sells for $19.99 to $29.99 a blaster and make these stupid $1000+ boxes that streamers and influencers break like candy looking for the insane $1,000,000 hit. Probably a more fun and better odds to win lottery for people who play the lotto and get nothing back in return but for everyone else it is basically going to suck.