Transcription
Welcome back to Spitball Cards. In today's episode, we have a couple fun topics. The first one is Tai was not here this past week, and we discussed a video. We called it, uh, "Breakers Are Milking the Hobby Dry." And what it was was about how we believe that breakers are not really a great thing because, you know, they make wax more expensive. Breaking is addictive. And Tai messaged us in our group chat after watching that and said, "I'm going to drop a truth bomb on you in perspective." And so, I'm excited to hear what Tai has to say about it. On the opposite end of that spectrum. So without further ado, Ty, what were your thoughts from our video this past week and what do you disagree with? I feel like this should be the format you did on the other video where you picked each picked a side of the debate and then kind of went from there, which I also enjoyed. But, um, you guys brought up some good points. It's a really important topic, a really important topic. And, uh, addiction is an important topic. Um, and so are some of the other things that you talked about. And the the biggest thing, I've got a list of points. I try not to have too many like extended monologues, but I do have a list of points I want to get through and just share some a little bit of maybe different broader perspective on this. Um, the the main thing I guess that I want to get across is like there's a lot of different ways that people can lose money in the sports card hobby. In fact, like most of the hobby is kind of a financial, uh, like a losing proposition at the end of the day if you're actively participating in the modern hobby. So, um, it's a really important overarching principle and one that I don't think is getting talked about necessarily enough. Um, so I've got a list of points. I'm going to talk through these. Uh, the first thing is that I really disagreed with. I don't remember which who among the four of you guys last week, um, agreed or said that there's a big difference between breaking and ripping boxes yourself. I know the topic of like, well, you can just get nothing as opposed to getting cards out of a box. Of like Chris, I think I remember you messaging me about a Stadium Club Chrome box that you ripped and you like weren't happy having any of the cards in the box. So, you had a box full of stuff, but you were pissed off that you owned the cards that came out of the box. And the same thing happened to me recently. I opened a box. I brought a box of Series 2 Tops up to rip with a friend and his son, and we opened it. It was $110 box plus taxes, and I got $5 worth of cards out of it. And I didn't want any of them. And then there's the dilemma of like, what do you want with these cards? So I see both both of them as gambling. I acknowledge that. I think ripping boxes is gambling. It's the big G word that nobody wants to say, and both are usually poor financial investments. Um, when I hear that Rob from Burbank, who I very much like and respect and, uh, I agree with him on a lot of things and I love how many singles and, you know, value cards and things he has, but when I hear him disparage breaking as fractionalized gambling, but then turn around and proudly promote full boxes of sealed wax as part of Burbank's new offering with dynamically changing price tags like he did on Instagram today. That to me smacks of being a double standard. I don't see how you can say, "Oh, you can do full-blown gambling for three, four, 500, $2,000 a box, but getting in for a fractionalized price because you want to chase the teams that you like, like the Tigers, that's that's crossing the line. That's not a that's not a good idea."
Um, the bigger picture, and this is something that Chris Su called out recently in one of the videos, is that right now is arguably the worst return on investment for opening sealed product ever in the history of sealed product of opening. It's just bad in general. You're not going to get your value out of it. And so that's a big overarching problem. Specific to the addiction piece, um, it's not unique to breaking. People get addicted to ripping and opening boxes themselves. They also get addicted to a whole lot of other things like, um, scrolling eBay, scrolling TikTok and Instagram, social media, alcohol. You guys talked about some of those things. Addiction is like a human problem. It's just a human human dynamic problem. It's not unique to the hobby and it's certainly not unique to ripping boxes or to breaking. So what I see a lot of times is people in the hobby, and maybe this is just a broader human dynamic too, latch on to things that have sort of a gross element to them and then whether intentional or not, they like to virtue signal about it and talk about it and have sort of this like collective rally behind this thing being a terrible thing. But it's not really fair. There's a lot of people who do break responsibly, who and there are a lot of breakers who do it at cost or slightly above cost because they like building the community. Doug from my team did that for years. He hasn't been doing it recently, but he would run little breaks and he'd run them through Discord. He'd get the interest and he would honestly make nowhere near what was worth his time just because he liked opening boxes and he liked participating in the chat with everybody, and those people really appreciated the experience, too. So, it's kind of like everybody looks at the the the piece that the negatives of breaking and goes, "Oh, I don't really like any of this, so the whole thing must be a net negative or really bad for the hobby." And I just I think that's shortsighted and it's not being reasonable to the bigger picture of it.
There's also just like a personal responsibility problem. I Scott, I think you were the one who maybe pointed out, I don't remember who, you know, people spend $10 here and $10 there and suddenly your bank statement is at a,000 bucks at the end of the month. That's not breaking's fault. That's a personal financial management problem. It does. It does make I even said like you can do the same thing with singles on eBay. I you can. And that's and that's like the bigger picture and and that's kind of leading this is like sort of the ultimate punchline that I really want, you know, all of your feedback on. But, um, there's this there's that aspect, you know, about, um, everybody says buy singles. Buy singles. Just buy the singles that you want and then you won't be unhappy. But like the truth is if you're buying ultra modern singles, you're probably still just going to lose your shirt just as badly as if you're buying boxes. It's just a different type of loss because you're going on to eBay and you're paying the money at like present market value if it's anybody who's active right now, and then their prices just go down over time. This is a very, very provable demonstrable dynamic for 99% of cards today. And it doesn't even matter if the players are good. I've got a video coming out next week on the Market Movers channel talking about players who I believe like the ship has sailed on and I'm going to talk about ones who it's completely gone on, who I whose cards I would just be selling unless you want to collect them, and then others who probably are close but maybe could have a rebound in, you know, in the event of certain cases. But we've seen this like with so many players who have been very good and on the trajectory of the hall of very good to the hall of hall of great, and their prices just down, down, down, usually within like their third to fourth year in the league. They just start to tank because there's a new shiny object coming onto the scene that everybody wants to chase. Um, like I said, there is also some upside for breaking. Uh, you get to buy in if you only want the your your favorite team or your favorite player out of a given box, and that's what you want to chase. Well, now sure fractionalized gambling, but also fractionalized collecting. I can buy into a case break for Riley Green and pay less than what I would pay for a box, one hobby box in that case, significantly less in a lot of cases. And then I get all the Riley Green cards. And there's sure to be some that come out of the box. Maybe they won't be the value of what I paid, but if it's 15 bucks, it's like, oh, cool. Hype, start to chase my rainbow, and start to build that out.
At the end of the day, the big winners in the hobby financially, um, are people who play the margin game. That's why flipping is a thing right now. It's why people buy at margin and they instantly flip. It's how a lot of card shops operate. They're not even Cards HQ doesn't even grade a lot of the raw cards that they buy. Even they don't even look at them. They just buy and list and buy and list and they turn for margin. The manufacturers are making a lot of money because they're the ones who control, you know, the printing and and the prices and they can sort of set the price on everything to ensure they're making money. And then like the grading companies and the shops and the distributors, um, as well as the breakers. The rest of us, like regardless of how you're participating, are probably losing money unless you're really good, and some of you guys have been, um, about timing the market and buying opportunistically and then selling and being okay with letting cards go. But like the vast majority of what I hear from the people who are the most vocal about disparaging, breaking, and ripping boxes, who are the ones that are chanting, buy singles, they're buying cards that are not going to hold their value long term. And that's fine. It's completely fine. But acknowledge that fact. Acknowledge the fact that you will lose money over time. And if that's your hobby, it's totally fine. But if somebody else wants to thrill seek by buying into breaks, I don't see a problem with that either. So, it's more like the big picture. It's like everybody kind of focuses on the little thing and and the I wouldn't maybe they're not edge cases, but like I said, it's the gross part of it and they extrapolate it into breaking bad, boxes bad, when in reality those two things get us the cards to buy on the single on the secondary market as singles, and that's kind of my my attitude toward it. I know a lot of people are not going to agree with that. Um, but I just think the whole value proposition of buying cards in general tends to be somewhat of a fool's errand, um, for most for a lot of people. At the very least in the singles market, there's always a winner and a loser. Um, at least in the singles market, one good thing is you know what you're getting when you spend money. That's the that's the one thing I'd argue is like I know I'm getting an Aaron Judge card. I agree. You buy an Aaron Judge spot, most likely you'll get. And I and I want to be really clear about something. I'm almost like arguing from the perspective. So, a lot of people, like I said, seem to be arguing from like the the perspective of like trying to defend the little man or like the victims who are whatever. We're all grown men and some women, but most most of us are men. And so, you take accountability. And if you spend 10, 30, 100, $200,000 on breaks in a given year, you got to swallow that pill. Nobody held a gun to your head and said, "Buy again. Buy again. Buy again." Is the system set up in such a way to be conducive to that and to encourage you? Yes. Just like Instagram is set up like this, just like Coco Melon's designed to melt the brains of children. It's there's a lot of aspects to it. Be smarter than it. Um, and and so I think the educational piece is really important and the awareness piece, and I don't want anybody being duped. Um, at the end of the day, half of the Market Movers videos I put out today and talk about it on this channel are oriented around that and around, uh, the awareness factor and being smart and educated with what you're doing in this hobby. And that's the that's the most important thing. Just know what you're getting into. Take personal responsibility. Um, and then kind of go from there. So anyway, what do you guys think? I don't know if anyone is still with us after Ty said in minute two that everyone in this hobby is losing money and no cards will have any value and all of Ultramodern is worthless.
Um, yeah, I kind of want to just echo what Scott said. I I get exactly what you're saying. It's a risk either way and yeah, most of the single cards that we buy will probably over time lose money, but at least if we're if we're collecting, which I think is the basis of what we're doing, I'd rather just go collect more Acuña and free them. I agree. Then roll the dice and hope I pull those cards out of a box. If they're all going to go to zero, I'd rather just buy them myself anyway. I agree. I agree. That's that's almost entirely what I do today. I very rarely rip anything because it's such a bad value proposition. But what I don't do is like ridicule. We don't hear from the people who don't care if they're losing money ripping boxes. We hear from the people that post on Reddit or their wives do that they made a big mistake. But if if the whole thing were like ruining every single person's life, we would hear about it a lot more and it would change. But the reality is I I meet a lot of people who are like, I got a lot of money and I just love buying into breaks and like, okay, and that that exists. It's the same concept as those that, you know, alcoholism, right? Some people have an issue with it. People don't have an issue. I agree with you when you brought that up. So, it is fun. I think I think just I I have to say it is fun to rip a box. I've been doing it since I was a kid. I remember buying like a '87 Topps hockey packs at 7-Eleven for 45 or 50 cents and just hoping to pull a Gretzky or any New York Rangers card, and it was fun, and it's still fun today to get a box with your buddies and rip through it. There is like an entertainment value to it. If going to the movies with my wife costs $50 and a, you know, a Series 2 hobby box is going to set me back $100, I I should I should take my wife to the movies is what I probably should do. Maybe twice. Agreed. Yeah.
Just just a few things to add there. I think there's a lot of truth to what Tai said. Um, you know, when we're making a video talking about how group breaking is a threat to the hobby, sometimes you don't have enough room to throw in all the nuances of, well, in the scheme of things, there is a lot of good to it and it's not that different than these other things because, but I don't think we got around to it there. And Tai not being there was probably a reason why we also didn't get around to it. But, uh, so Tai talks about the difference of group breaking and breaking wax that you're purchasing yourself. I would say that for the most part, it is a lot of the same. Um, but group breaking does allow you, in my opinion, to be able to do it easier. You're clicking a button. You're maybe not noticing the receipts racking up. You're also not going to a store or physically opening any pack. Somebody else is doing on your behalf. And then on the the other end of that in the mail, maybe you're only getting the hits. So you're accruing maybe fewer cards. You're not realizing it has become a problem. And of course, you're paying a little bit more per spot because of the margin that goes to the breaker or breaking company or platform, whatever. Um, what I would say, uh, with regards to like comparing singles to breaking of any kind is that in my opinion, somebody who has five years of education and experience in this hobby, which might be a minority of us right at this point. So let's say three years, three years of education and experience. I think you're less likely to get yourself in hot water if you're to solely engage in the singles buying aspect of the hobby. Where with breaking, if that's the only way that you're engaging with a hobby and you're doing that consistently, I'd say that's more likely to end up being very destructive behavior, which could be shown in, you know, racking up debt, spouses getting mad, not having enough money to put gas in your car or whatever. Um, but I think there's a few things here we should talk about with regards to just singles buying, and we've never really talked about this in full, but I think singles buying can hit you in many different ways. So, somebody like me who buys a lot of players, I speculate on prospects, younger players, try to flip them within like six months or 18 months. I think that's kind of similar to the dopamine hit you would get from sports betting with a futures bet, right? Like plus 1,800 Kyle Tucker for MVP. Put some money on it. Let's see if it hits, right? So, you're going for that high. You're kind of going for that chase. But then also, there are folks, and I think all of us kind of fit this, probably me less than you, the three of you guys here, where sometimes people don't have specific collecting goals and they'll just buy for the sake of buying. So, you're not really going for a dopamine hit, but you're looking to fill a void, some sort of happiness issue or and and really the anticipation is getting that thing in the mail. Open up the package, you're like, "Oh, cool." 15 seconds of that feels pretty nice. You put it to the side. You have no target in mind. There's no structure around when you're buying or if you're going to stop your buying. And I feel like not it's kind of like hoarding, right? Accumulate for this for the sake of accumulating versus having a plan in mind like, okay, trying to collect this complete set of Home Field Advantages, then I'm going to move on to some other thing and staying within your means, being responsible about it, of course. Um, at the end of the day, going back to breaking, anything done in moderation, um, with a decent mindset is in that it's fine. I don't think it's overly destructive. Alcohol, sports betting, I mean, we're not trying to get rid of it. Like I'm, I'm not trying to shout from a roof deck, like let's get rid of breaking entirely. Uh, but I think people just need to be warned and understand the risks.
Yeah, one thing I'll also note about buying singles is spending $200 on a single versus $200 on a break spot. You can always sell the single for 170 instantly, right? You can always get a majority of your money back where that's not always the case with breaking, which is hard. But I do agree and I I will say though, like there is an adrenaline rush and a high of buying singles. And so for me, how I don't know if I'm the only one, but there's times like looking forward to getting the card is just as much fun, if not more fun, than owning the card. Uh, as well as hunting for the card, looking for six months for a card, then you own it, and then six months later maybe you're bored of it, right? So it happens that way, uh, for everybody. U I guess collect responsibly, right? Maybe that's the biggest thing regardless of how you do it. And don't overspend what you can afford to spend is the big thing regardless of what you're buying. So, yeah, I do want to give one shout out, uh, really quickly to these guys. Um, I shouted them on a recent video, but Collectors MD, it's a recently formed group. They have an Instagram, uh, and obviously this website, but it's a support group, and if you do have an addiction problem, even, you know, you're just a little concerned, um, it seems like a really good support group. So, I know, um, they've already made an impact for some people. So, and I don't I don't want to give the impression again that, um, addiction is not real or anything along those lines. It is. I think probably all of us know people who've had, uh, or maybe ourselves have had issues with that in in life. So, um, if that's something you're struggling with and you are having a hard time walking away and not chasing the next hit in a box or even with singles, I'm sure they could be of, um, some support.
You know what's the hardest thing for me? Wanting to always get the next card. I just bought a really cool card. You guys don't know what it is yet. I think Ty might know what it is. I think I told Ty, but it's coming in this week. But man, like, man, I also really want a Charizard first edition. And then it's like, okay, well, that's another $10,000. So, it's okay. How do I get that card? So, I think practicing contentment is a big thing, too, and that's something I need to work on myself. So, we all have things that we need to be aware of and don't feed the beast a little bit. But, thanks for shouting that out, T. I just wanted to add one one other thing. First of all, real quick. Um, Scott, I give you a specific example where I could not get most of my money back on a single I bought. I had a $300 Wander Franco in the mail headed towards my house. By the time I opened up that package, it was worth about $25. Obviously, that's a pretty unusual situation. That's a risk. Hopefully, there is another like this is a Phil mentioned little dopamine bursts. I get one in this hobby doing, uh, blind PSA reveals with Jeff on our Blabbot Slabin channel. And when you get that gem card of a of a raw you bought it, I definitely do get like a like a nice little endorphin rush. And I have actually I've stopped myself. I used to do this for a while when we started doing those. I would literally look for cards that I don't necessarily want, but like, you know, nice value cards around $100 that I thought I could gem because I'm like, "Oh, this would look this would be a good addition to a show about a blind reveal." And I started chasing the raw to PSA 10 to get that sort of that rush, and then I would try to sell most of the cards, and some of them like they come back in eight, you get that random grader who screws you, and money can disappear that way very, very quickly. I have been able to rein that in, but there was like a three or four month time where I was like I was like, what am I doing? I am literally chasing this gem rush.
Yeah, grading kind of feels like opening packs in a way. It's it's the same feeling but way higher odds of getting something good. So I agree. Yeah. Yeah. The if you look at the the grading numbers popular published by Gem Rate, you'd easily deduce right away that not all of this is logical and rational. A lot of this is irrational. The amount of people and cards that are kind of getting involved, um, clogging up all these pop reports and the turnaround times and everything. Um, you got to you have to just assume some amount of that is some sort of like addictive driven like I'm just really obsessed with what Chris is talking about there. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Um, one other thing I'll mention is that, um, I made a comment towards the end of the the video that we did and I said that this isn't all because of breaking, by the way, that people are obsessed with chasing hits. A lot of this just has to do with the nature of serialized cards, and part of that is also culture is much more gambling oriented, right? So this starts from, you know, sports betting, and it's just this is just society now, right? So group breaking is just like one kind of representation of that behavior more than it is like, oh, get rid of group breaking and you fix everything, and the hobby is all like, you know, smiley faces and whatever the metaphor is. The one last thing I'll mention is to Tai's point, I I like I like the idea of, uh, pick your team breaks, and I think that's a healthier way to go about it to like truly be targeting as a collector, unless you're like you really like the whole set, you don't care what you get. Uh, but unfortunately, I think based on the time it takes to actually price out teams and based on what I've seen, a vast majority of breaks are actually the random teams, random divisions, over 50%, uh, if not closer to 75%. So, there's that. That can be very true. Yep.
Okay. Well, this this episode went a little bit different direction than we anticipated and it went longer. Ty, thanks for bringing some meaningful thoughts to the chat. And if you're struggling with this, just know you're not alone. You're just addicted to watching Spitball and Cards. I don't blame you one bit, but if you are, you might as well like, subscribe, and consider joining our Patreon. No, we can't say the Patreon. That's the opposite of what we're trying to do here. I said it. Patreon. Don't buy the next break. Buy Patreon. And one last thing, um, lotteryization of the hobby, which Fanatics is at least partially responsible for feeding into the the hit chasing and everything with what they've done with on demand products. And, you know, you have a one in X amount of chance to get this, and you see how print runs are affected by that with Topps Now and everything. Um, and, um, yeah, I guess we're all to blame here. And any of you guys in the comments also if you guys have any questions. I mean, I think the four of us here do have addictive tendencies. I myself, I just recently got my screen time down under five hours a day. Was sitting at eight. So none of us here are infallible here. And, um, interested to understand if you guys can can relate to this content anyway. So, yeah, good thoughts. I I I have Instagram up in my phone way too often and I always have the excuse, well, I need it because I sell cards and I buy cards. Instagram. I need to be up to date on all the events for sports cards on Instagram. But sometimes I wonder if I just deleted it if my life would be any worse. I don't think it would be. Um, so we all have our own things that we're not willing to fully give up. So, oh yeah, it's true.
Any final thoughts, Ty or Chris? Nope. Lotteryization, which is a fantastic word. I I don't know if Phil just made that up or if I think Neo made it up like a year ago, unless it's actually a real word. Well, either way, I love it. That's a that's excellent word. I'm going to give you credit for it because I I like you more of the day. Yeah. The whole like you were talking about their their made to order stuff there, the Topps Now, like that that stuff is crazy. I mean, I found I found myself buying the the Freddie Freeman Kirk Gibson, uh, the home run card last October because there were like, what, 10 autos in there? So, I had a one in 80,000 chance of pulling one of those. And like, yeah, that that is I felt like an idiot afterwards. But my dad loved one of those cards. So, at least, you know, there's that. But yeah, it's it's really tempting. The Kershaw is just released in, uh, Topps Now for his Dynasty Black logo man autograph with the logo man from his pants from his 3,000th strikeout, which is pretty awesome that Ty might always mentions this, but that's probably going to be the most expensive Clayton Kershaw sale we'll probably ever see alongside his Bobblehead super collector, uh, maybe his red. But the point is like that is more true of gambling because you're buying 80 copies of the same card with just the hope of that one hit. So they are they are definitely leaning into it. Um, it's it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. So, just be aware. The demand's there. Repackers. Now we have digital repacks. I mean, these wouldn't exist if there wasn't demand for it. No, like it started really small, the grassroots, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Now 80% of the buying done at shows might be from repackers or people selling to repackers. It's, uh, it's impossible to get away from. So, yeah, I mean, this is this is the hobby now. Will it always be this way or do we think it's going to slow down? If that ever slows down, is the hobby just over as we know it? Like, is there I don't know if we like talked about that the last episode, but like, is there a world where this goes away or does that mean we're another late 90s where it's kind of died out? I thought it or how it would go away? No. What do you think, Ty? No, it's always going to be this way. I think it's been this way for a long time. It's just new dynamics. A lot of new dynamics, new tech, and new marketing insights and tricks have amplified it. Um, those Topps sell cards, by the way, another reason I think they sell a lot is because the gem rate on them is insanely high, which may or may not be designed, but it's like literally like 90%. Which makes sense. It's printed, put into a little acrylic box, and sent to you. Like it's it never has the chance to get dinged up. Who was Didn't it just happen that CGC graded like a hundred thousand of those or something crazy about Tony's 5050? Yeah. So, anywho, there's a lot of car show dealers. So, at the the last episode, I made a comment about how disruptive that repackers are. And there are a lot of, um, show dealers that are pissed off about repackers because they're not able to buy that much from at these shows, which used to be the main reason why they'd set up at these shows. And it's because you're not paying 90% and some of the repackers or people that sell to repackers are paying close to 90%. Right? So my my my sort of retort to that is like, well, you're selling to them though, so you're benefiting there, right? Even though you can't buy, you're still using these repackers to to sell to. Some people are a little fed up right now. I'm not one of those people. But, um, it's a it's a weird dynamic, and if you got rid of repackers, it would make a lot of people happy and it would change things up quite a bit. I don't know. I guess one way it could be impacted is if the government gets involved and stops repackers. That's one thing that could change the dynamic, but I don't think that's happening for a while. So, and we we benefit from higher singles prices with repackers, so we can't complain too much over here, the four of us. No, not at all. But other than that, thank you for watching everybody. We appreciate it and we'll see you in the next video.