Transcription
We just completed the first day of the TOPS industry conference and we learned some pretty interesting stuff. TOPS talked a lot today about the importance of the collector in everything they're doing and they talked about wax prices and their concern that sealed products at times are becoming too expensive and unsustainable on the secondary market. But what is TOPS going to do about this? And what else did we learn from day one of the TOPS industry summit? We're going to break it all down for you next.
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Welcome to the TOPS industry conference in Phoenix, Arizona. And I am here with Scotty B. Scotty B Cards, our director of community partnerships here at Sportscard Investor. And Scott, we are here. Yeah, >> inside State Farm Arena, home of the Arizona Cardinals. That's where Topps has done this conference this year. Kind of a cool environment to do a big conference in. >> They took it to the next level with this place and it looks great. We were at the very top level overlooking the field. They brought us down to where we're sitting right now. There's a stage to the left of us. Uh, and we were able to have some great conversations. It's been awesome. >> It's been a good day. We've learned a lot from day one. We're going to break it down for the audience. Now, I've got my Topps notebook that they gave everybody. were able to take a couple of notes. Uh, so I pulled out some highlights I want to make sure we talk about.
But first, I'm curious. This is your first time ever Yeah. >> attending the Topps industry conference. Uh, probably your first your first time ever attending like kind of an official industry event, right? Because there's really this really is kind of the only one right now that exists. There used to be the industry summit that Beckett put on. There used to be the Mint Collective out in Vegas. Unfortunately, both of those have gone by the wayside. So, this is it. Like, the TOPS industry conference is like the one insider event each year that brings together all of the hobby shop owners, all of the breakers, and a lot of industry executives to talk about the state of the industry. >> Yep. >> What has this felt like to you? What What have your been your impressions so far of the first day? >> So, I've been overwhelmed is the wrong word. Overwhelmed is the wrong word. I've been very impressed with the size of the event, with the people that are here. They've done a very good job of making it a super solid event, but there's a lot of really big names here and a lot of people in the industry. You don't realize how big the industry is until you come to these types of events. And then you hear only like half of like Topps card shops they're allocating towards are actually even here. And this is the first they're actually allowing content creators. So we saw Neo, we saw other people as well here, which is a lot of fun. So Topps is really expanding. I think they're really trying to get to the collector more, which is why they invited those, you know, individuals that create content to kind of get that information out.
In the past, correct me if I'm wrong, it wasn't really that way, right? Especially the last few years where Topps has gotten the baseball card licensing and they're actually working towards now football and basketball. It was more about making sure everybody was in alignment with Topps' goal. But now, like, it's it's been a very fun first day. Very high energy. They've done a fun bunch a bunch of fun giveaways. We saw Luis Gonzalez, the former Diamondback superstar. So, it's been pretty cool. >> Yeah, I I am happy that Topps has opened this event up a little bit more >> because they have, you know, I've been to this event now. I think this is my fourth or fifth year going to it, but in previous years, it was always supposed to be kept more secretive. Like they actually actively asked me and the other content creators. They first of all, they didn't invite content creators. I happened to come because I'm a card shop owner. Yeah. who does business with Tops, right? Um but like me and like Ryan Johnson, Card Collector 2, who came for that reason. Um they would they would like pull us aside and be like, "Hey, please don't post any photos of any of the slides that are being shown and you got to be limited in what you talk about." Like they they try to keep kind of a little bit of a veil of secrecy over the whole thing.
This year they reverse strategy and they said, "You know what? Actually, we're going to take the opposite approach. We're going to allow people to post photos and in fact we're going to invite more content creators in to actually cover the event, which I think is super smart. I I I'm not quite sure what their strategy was in prior years for wanting to keep it secret, >> but I'm glad this year they're opening it up and allowing more coverage of the event. >> Maybe some of the secrecy was just to make sure that they didn't come off the wrong way, not in their own words. you know, that can always be something that they want to control from a PR perspective, but now like they even did like with their slides, you can tell those slides were made with the intent of photos being snapped and posted online. And so like I've already seen those circulating even between the end of day one, well not the end the end of the announcements of day one and now, which only a couple hours, I've seen those start to circulate and we're going to discuss those topics obviously, but I'm glad they went that route. I think if they continue that route, this could become that annual event where people look forward to it because really cool news will come out every single year. >> I hope it is. I hope it is. I hope it grows in that direction and this becomes like the big, you know, exciting announcement point for the industry, for the hobby of everything that's forthcoming.
But let's dive into some of the topics that we heard today. So, there was definitely an overarching theme like they came right out of the bat. The very first speaker of the day was Mike Mayan, who's the CEO of of Fanatics Collectibles. So he's in charge of Topps, he's in charge of the entire, you know, unit in which all of the, you know, Fanatics Collect, Fanatics Authentics, all of the things that Fanatics is doing in the collectibles space all roll up underneath Mike Mayhem, right? And he introduced the theme, the joy of collecting during his opening talk and he talked a lot about things that he believes Topps is doing to really push that joy of collecting. But right off the bat, it was clear from him introducing that as a theme that there was going to be a lot of emphasis on collectors and collecting and growing the ecosystem of collectors, which I think is healthy. I think that's certainly putting the emphasis on on the right thing, right? It's not it's they're not they weren't emphasizing, you know, the hype and the big hits and, you know, the the uh you know, the the breaking and everything quite as much. this year was really more more around the true collecting or at least parts of it were and they covered some of the other stuff as well. But what did you think thematically of what Topps tried to roll out with here? >> Well, I mean every person who spoke probably 10 people overall on the first day, every single one's a Topps employee and every single one talked about their collecting journey. So, it showed them as kids with their collections and what they collected, how they got into cards. So, they're definitely focusing on the collector and every single conversation to these card shop owners was how do we maintain collectors inside of cards? Obviously, with the marketing efforts they have, it's easy to go out and get sports fans to like say, "Oh man, I have nostalgia towards carts." We all know nostalgia is a very strong thing, but now they're focusing on helping card shops retain those individuals. And like you mentioned, they're acknowledging the shortcomings of their own doing. You know, it's hard with pricing on the secondary market that could be pushing those collectors out. So, I thought it was great to hear them talking about the collectors so much. There's a couple things at the end of this conversation we're going to talk about that maybe people are going to say we they weren't focused on collectors with the announcement, but I actually think it's still a really good thing. Uh, but yeah, the whole time every person was focused on the collector, individual stories, how we can, you know, tell those stories and collect unique cards. >> It definitely created a nice theme for the event. Yeah.
And when Mike Mayan spoke, he pointed to specific things Tops has done which has in his opinion advance the collecting experience. >> He talked about some of the big cards like you mentioned like he didn't really do that a lot but he talked about some of those big things like the rookie debut patch autograph and the rookie red logo and all those things. >> Topps Rip Night >> uh you know obviously a big community event that brings a lot of people together at card shops across the country. >> The TOPS chrome buyback program. Yep. uh which obviously is something that helps card shops because it gets it's another reason for collectors to come into card shops to redeem those cards to get store credit. Yeah. The Bowman Red rookie card promotion. He even talked about Fanatics Fest and how that you know he tal he kind of compared it to the Coachella of sports is, you know, and the idea of it being kind of a top offunnel way to get a lot more fans associated with it. and he he laid out in his speech, he laid out kind of some hallmarks that I thought were I I thought were on point in terms of what Topps is focused on that they believe is going to continue to grow the collector ecosystem. So, I wrote down the five things that uh he covered. He talked about innovate a product and that's where as you said things like the MLB debut patches um you know were something that he he was pointing to there and a lot of other product innovation captivating marketing which we heard later in the day the success that they're having on social media. We also saw a lot of their uh kind of almost TV ad spots >> which are all fantastic. >> They look so good. >> Really well done. um engaged athletes >> was a third hallmark and obviously he talked about not only the number of athletes that participated like in Tops Rip Night all of these big names from across the hobby but also athletes who genuinely love collecting who are getting more into collecting um connected ecosystem and this was you know he he's this one they didn't expand on as much but you know obviously talking about underneath Fanatic's umbrella they they make the cards they've got the Fanatics Collect, which is, you know, the marketplace for the cards. They've got the breaking out Fanatics Live and, you know, and and he kind of teased more connectivity with the collector ecosystem coming over the course of the next year. Um, and then finally, global expansion, uh, which obviously we've seen a lot of expansion this year, and he specifically referenced the Fanatics collect store in London being a, you know, big expansion obviously to the UK and to Europe. Um but a lot of a lot of focus from TOPS right now on expansion. Of those kind of pillars, innovative product, captivating marketing, um engaged athletes, connected ecosystem, and global expansion. What stands out most to you?
So, it has to be the marketing. I mean, that's kind of pushing everything. We see a lot of the biggest sales right now happening are the cards that are being marketed by either Topps, us, whoever, you know, whatever we're talking about gets more eyeballs. And so, I think it's a really good thing. the the Tops Rip Night, he said, and I think we can share these numbers because they announced it, but 52% of the card shops who participated in the Tops Rip Night, that was their biggest night of sales ever, their biggest day of sales ever for that shop. And so, it's mutually beneficial for Tops and for these card shops to engage in these events. And you of all people know this with Cards HQ. And I think it's great they're focusing that route. And I do think it's great that they're focusing on those TV spots and focusing on like families and helping parents understand what kids would want and and all those are really great. So I think it's a great funnel into the hobby and I'm glad they're focusing on maintaining those kids in the hobby. And if you remember preanatics days when Topps was not owned by Fanatics, it's amazing how much different it is. for better and for worse. People can have gripes, but I think overall when they said they were going to 10x the hobby, maybe they didn't 10x it yet, but they have done a significant good like a like a really good job, significantly well done on increasing the participation of new individuals. Like they doubled their subscriber count on uh Instagram in one year, which is insane from 4 to 8 million. So the marketing aspect and putting ad dollars behind all that was very impressive to me. I I do believe they have achieved 10xing the marketing, the attention, the engagement >> since they got involved, particularly on social because yeah, we saw later in the day, we saw Ben Haynes, their head of social, speak, and he shared a lot of the social stats. As you said, follower counts doubled in the last year, but >> they shared some stats such as like the amount of engagement across all the different social media accounts that Topps runs. Yeah. Believe it was up 9.6 times. So there's your 10x. >> Yeah. >> Uh first quarter of this year compared to first quarter of last year. >> And that's like in a good year still like five years ago, right? Like >> correct. >> Crazy. >> There there are way like they I don't think they've 10xed the number of hardcore collectors, but they have 10xed certain metrics and they have definitely they have definitely multiplied the number of collectors. I mean, we're seeing it right now in the market. Like the sports cards are as hot as they have ever been. if you're tracking the market of key players. We were talking earlier just before the show, you were talking to our producer Rob about Otani's market and how crazy that's been. Um, and and there's a number of key players that over the last year have, you know, two, three, 4xed and >> and while that's not always a direct onetoone with a number of collectors, there's some correlation there. There's more dollars undoubtedly coming in ever before. So, there's definitely been growth, big growth since TOPS got involved. I doubt we're fully at 10x yet, but the people who were laughing, and there were a lot of people laughing four years ago, it was 2022. Yes. When Topps first said, when Michael Rubin first said, "Our goal is to 10x the number of collectors." And there were a lot of people laughing and said, "There is no possibility ever." And those people like have to be looking at it now if they're rational. They're probably not rational, but if they're looking at it now and they're probably going like, "Huh, okay. They still got work to do, but I think they probably have like three orly three or 4xed it, >> I think." So, it's 10x is still a little ways away, but it ain't nearly as far away as it sounded, you know, four years ago when that statement was first made.
So, it's funny you bring up 2022. I think that's when Vegas Dave sold the Mike Trout Super Fraction. I think it was around that time and he was saying he was selling that card because in the next 2 to 3 years the hobby was going to be in trouble and that just goes to show like there were two trains of thought. There was the 10x route and there was the hobbies in trouble route and we are significantly more on the 10x route and the cool thing about what Topps has done is you know when they acquired this really big IP fanatics did and they want to take that and they want to use everything they own to do a good job and so they put a lot of marketing and ad dollars behind it. It's kind of like what you do when you acquire a new company. And I think even though they put that money in, they've had great ROI on it. Like the reception of collectors, I mean, we see it all over the place. Now we're in the UK. I actually spoke to the only female card shop owner in the UK last night at that social event. And it's just great to hear how much it's growing. That was like a pipe dream 10 years ago. And so I think we're still in the not the infant stages per se, but we're still in a very early stage of where this could go. They said that they had, I believe they said, 20 or 22 different countries represented amongst the uh card shop owners and the breakers in attendance. Um, that's incredible. Yeah. >> I mean, you probably couldn't have found a collector in 22 different countries, you know, seven years ago if you were like really trying. >> I can't even name 22 countries. >> Well, exactly. But they got 22 countries here represented and and I I've seen it because I actually, you know, I had the privilege last year of going to Singapore and Thailand and both of those card shop owners who I met in those countries are here. >> Um Japan, the card shop owner in Tokyo who I had met a couple years prior to that, he's here. So, and then I met uh some card shop owners from the Philippines, they're here. And so I even within Asia, I met four different card shop owners. And I think there are more from four different countries in Asia. I know Europe is is well represented with different countries here as well. So, you know, Australia, Canada, there's a lot of international people here and it's still the hobby is still small in a lot of those countries, but the very fact that they are represented and there are shops and more shops are being open shows that there the growth is well beyond just what we see in the US.
Yeah. And I will say it was it was funny because the very first thing like literally maybe not the very first thing but right in the first couple minutes that Mike mentioned was how he's heard from everybody how everybody wants more allocation you know and so he's like aware of some of those bottleneck constraints that we have on pricing and all these card shop owners. But it it just shows like there's so much demand that the problem isn't tops right. It's just that the the network of getting this product out there the supply chain is so difficult because there's so much demand which is cool. >> Oh it is. And you don't want them, nobody wants, everyone wants more product, but nobody wants them to start over printing. That's the challenge. And making the secondary market all watered down and all that kind of stuff. >> I mean, I'm I'm glad they're on this end versus the other side, if I'm being honest. >> Yeah, 100%.
Um, let's talk about maybe the element that stood out to me most today. Topps kind of took on the like they took it right. They put it up on the slide. They did a big slide about the fact that they are aware and do not want uh sealed product prices, wax prices to become unsustainable >> in and and inaccessible. Those were the two words they used. In fact, they showed a chart where it was like, okay, we drop a new product like, you know, top scrum basketball, top scrum football, which is let's say that one because that's coming in a couple of weeks. We drop that at a certain price. They do a very limited drop on their website. Then it goes out of card shops. Card shops release it at a certain price based on where the market is at that time. But some products like we saw it happen with Tops Chrome Basketball will then just continue to go up and up and up and up and up some more. And they go and they showed this, you know, kind of example chart on the screen and they're like it's and they said it is healthy if a product goes up after release day. If after release day the product becomes more expensive on the secondary market, that is healthy because it's a sign of good interest in the product, but it's only healthy to a certain extent. And once it starts to go beyond a certain amount of appreciation, then it starts to become in the it starts to go into what they had kind of coined as an inaccessible category, which is where now it's become so expensive that a lot of people who would otherwise want to buy that product. They're walking into a hobby shop. They want to buy a box of Tops Chrome basketball. They can no longer afford to buy it. Or maybe they can afford it, but they just don't want to spend that kind of money on it. That puts it in inaccessible. Topps doesn't like that. There's a stage beyond inaccessible which they identified and that is unsustainable. And that is where it has gotten so high that at that price point the product is kind of hurting everybody because you can't open up almost any box of the product and get your value back out of it. And chances are the pro that it can't stay up at that price forever and at some point is going to, you know, fall back down and maybe fall hard. Now, they said there's only so much they can do about the secondary market is they don't control that, but they're hyper aware of it. And they started talking about things like needing more value offerings and needing uh needing more, you know, kids accessible products, better entry points for people to try to not have as much product end up in those in that inaccessible category and beyond. What did you take away from that part of the of the stage discussion?
Yeah, like you said at the very end there, they talked about how they want at least the ability to have mega boxes constantly available in every single car shop around the entire world. So like mega box, hanger boxes. And they said their goal to kind of help that curve is to introduce more of those retail formats, which they're going to do. And I think that's going to alleviate a lot of the pressure and stress on the card shops. I one thing I think is interesting, there was actually another graph, and if we can find these, maybe we can put them on the screen so people can see what we're talking about. But it also they also discussed how healthy wax leads to healthy singles which leads to healthy collectors. And so when they're paying attention to the secondary market values, they view the expense of wax as a problem because then it leads to unhealthy singles and unhealthy collecting behaviors. So to them, they view that as the very key thing. And they have a couple things they can do. They have a couple levers. They can print more, which again, people get mad uh because we don't want to buy a box and have it go down in value. We've seen that happen before. uh or they just, you know, release different types of formats of product. And so I'm glad they're aware of it. There's only so much they can do, but it's good to know they are paying attention to the secondary market. But I think the bigger most important thing is they want to make it a good healthy collecting environment and they've identified the release of the product and the and price immediately after as what's going to cause a good collecting environment. So, >> and I and I like the idea of having retail product constantly accessible, constantly available in card shops, that has been a weak point >> historically. So, I mean, if you go like if you go back I don't I don't know how long ago. If you go back some period of time ago, you couldn't even hobby shops were not even allowed to acquire like retail product from the manufacturers. like you you the the manufacturers wanted to sell retail product exclusively to the big box retailers like you know Walmart and Target and then they wanted to sell hobby product exclusively to the hobby shops and they didn't intermingle the two but the hobby shops would say we need the retail product because we need lower entry points >> and they were buying out all the Walmarts >> and and then you had all the flipping behavior where people were you know whether it was a hobby shop themselves or some of the hobby shops customers would go buy out every box they can get their hands on at the Walmart and go sell it to the hobby shop who would then mark it up 10 or 20 bucks above the Walmart price and resell it. And that's not really the intended purpose either. So now Topps in the last few years has made more of a concerted effort to make retail product available for hobby shops because they have recognized the importance of that and also the the problem with not having that available especially as hobby box prices have escalated. they TOPS has seen like well yeah we do actually need to get retail product into more hobby shops and have it there because that is an important entry point for people. Um and so but it has still sometimes not been super easy to get and keep in stock and get enough of it and all that kind of stuff. identify as a potential solution for keeping prices in check and a potential and something that they could have impact over because they do have impact over that right now. There's probably a lot of people watching saying like well the problem with retail product if they make a lot more of it is just going to get more and more watered down. >> I think that's okay. I'd rather see the price point remain low and accessible. Even if your chances of getting something really good out of the product, even if your odds become a little longer and a little longer and a little longer, it's still important to have those hanger boxes and value boxes and mega boxes at prices that people can come in and buy one and feel like that was just that was a easy choice for them, not something that they have to paint over. Sometimes like we talk about okay gambling right I always I don't gamble myself much but people frame gambling like you know it's excess income and so you can do breaking as well as excess income so like that's just how you enjoy spending that money we can look at like yes let's say the odds are long on retail product opening wax is always going to be a gamble in some capacity when you're opening up product even back in the 1950s it was I remember back in like 1933 I think when they were chasing the oh who was the player I can't believe I forgot but there's a specific player that one of the companies purposely left out of the gaudy set. You know, like their goal was to get the kids to buy the wax to look for that car. Only mad parents got them in the mail. >> Uh maybe it was Napou. That's exactly what it was. 1933 Gouty. >> But the point is like sometimes it's just fun to scratch that itch of opening a product even if you are a focused singles collector. Like I I count myself as a focused singles collector. I am priced out of wax and I was before it went way up for hobby boxes. So, for me, I would rather go open up a $50 mega box personally than drop $500 and then feel really, really sad after cuz I could have just bought a cool Cards HQ single instead. And so, I think it's good. I think it's a good movement. Even if odds are long, just to get a Cooper flag base card is awesome. You know, for a kid that's a great entry into like this is what the hobby is about is chasing these fun players and looking for all for me the Jazz players if that's who your favorite basketball team is type of a thing.
Yeah. And for, you know, for as a card shop owner, having more available, accessible retail product honestly will be a little bit of a relief. Yeah. Because hobby product is in short supply and high demand. And even a store like Cards HQ, >> we don't get that much of it. We don't get nearly enough to satisfy customer demand. It is often that there will be a major new release, Top Series 1 Baseball, and that's not even a high-end release. That's a release that we actually did get a good amount of. We completely sold out of our top series 1 baseball allocation when that product came out of of our hobby boxes and our jumbo boxes. We completely sold out within I think 4 days uh three to between three and five days of release date. We were completely sold out. So that means that any collector a week after release date, when by the way, they're still seeing all of the hype on social media, all the commercial that Topps made with Kevin Cosner doing the voiceover, all that kind of stuff. People are seeing that and they're going, "Oh, I would like to go pick up a box of Top Series 1 baseball. I'm, you know, seeing it on social. They come into Cards HQ, we're out. One week after release, we're out." So if they're not going to make hobby products readily available because they and and they can't because then they can only do so many autographs and so many super short prints and numbered parallels and everything like that. Then at least if they make the retail box formats readily available and accessible, we can at least have those. So at least when that collector comes in a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks after the release of the product, we can say, "Yeah, unfortunately we're sold out of hobby." That goes quick. We sell out of that within the first week. >> By the way, I'm just getting completely attacked by a fly. I mean, it's been it wants to be in the video so bad. >> It's breaking our eye contact. I'm trying not to smile. >> It wants to be in the video so badly. It's been in the video. It's been like half the video. Um, but uh at least you know that collector comes in the store and we can we can say, "Hey, yeah, we don't have the hobbies. Those sold out quickly, but we got a nice selection of different value style boxes. So, if you just want to rip Top Series One, grab a few mega boxes, you know, and and while the odds of getting something great out of one of them aren't as good, you can actually afford to buy a few of them, you know, and and and sometimes when you do that, you end up surprising yourself and actually pulling something really good. >> I actually opened up recently, and this is the first time I've purchased a like a box from I bought it from Meyer. So, it was the Top Celebration. Are you familiar with that set? Super fun set. Like that was some of the most fun I had opening product in a long time. So like they are doing a lot of these things correct. And I know no matter what Topps and Fanatics does, they're going to have people mad at them no matter what they do. But I think having more readily available product is a better solution than just not having the product and protecting the secondary market costs personally. But we'll see what they do to make it even more even because like you said, if you have your first wave of uh product and that sells out, it's just nice to at least have something there as you wait for that second wave. So, >> yeah, 100%. Yeah. So, that that was I'm glad they're focused on it. I'm glad it's I'm glad it's an area.
One thing I a word that I heard a lot today was education. Uh they said that multiple presentations throughout the day, they talked about the importance of educating collectors. We heard that when they were talking about uh how they're evaluating shops. They said we want shops who actively enhance the customer experience and educate collectors. They talked about the importance of content creators uh doing that. And then even during the breaking session, they spent a lot of time talking about the role of breakers as educators because people who like to join break streams and, you know, watch break streams, buy into breaks, they're often engaged, you know, with the stream, watching it on their phone for 30 minutes, an hour, multiple hours. That's a perfect opportunity for a breaker to be able to educate, oh, this is what this product's all about. like, "Hey guys, we're going to open up the new Tops Chrome basketball. Here's the cards we're looking for. Like, here's the players we're looking for. Here's the cards we're looking for. Here's what we can expect to get in a box." Breaking it down a little bit for the consumer. Educating them. Here's why this is a good product and you might want to be interested in it. Or maybe this here's why this may not be the right product for you, you know, for whatever reason that may be. >> Um, education seem to be an emphasis. I like that because I feel that ties back into the joy of collecting and you know the idea of enhancing the collector experience. And I think strategically the reason why Topps is placing a lot of emphasis today on education and wanting the hobby shops and the breakers to lean in that direction is because they're doing a really good job through the marketing at the top of the funnel of exposing the hobby to new people for the very first time. And now, by the way, they just got the NFL license, which is the biggest fan base in the United States. So, if Topps is successful at getting a segment of the casual football fan who's not a collector exposed to the hobby and they start to come in and they're interested in maybe buying their first pack of football cards and dabbling with it a little bit, Tops wants them to have really good educational guidance. Yeah. >> Really all three is what Topps wants. They want every touch point of the hobby to provide education back to the back to the collector. And I think it's a really start smart strategy for TOPS to be pushing the card shops in that direction and the breakers and the content creators and saying prioritize this because we're going to bring the new people in and you need to educate the new people to ensure they have a good experience.
Yeah. I mean, I have had my own personal baseball card channel since 2021 and it's all educational focused and there's a lot of people who are very appreciative of just explaining some of these things that are second nature to you and I that we wake up and think about. we check our eBay searches that they just don't know about like the term SSP or the term image variation like all these things that they're not aware of or like the different hierarchy when it comes to parallels and what's more desired and why even though one might be lowered a little bit le less than the other one and so it's nice to see Tops be self-aware but they don't just want customers in to get their money it didn't feel that way they want to create a collecting environment which is why they want to give all these different materials and apparently I wasn't aware of this because I'm not a breaker but they provide like these really indepth sheets to breakers before every release where they can look through and see every single card kind of like see the big hits and why and like they really explain it well and so that's the type of stuff that is a good step in the right direction. >> Yeah, I agree. I think I think education is key. I was happy to hear the >> check out Market Movers. Shout out Tai if you like education. >> There you go. That's right. >> So >> that's right. The Market Movers YouTube channel. He's doing that all the time every week over there. Yeah, for sure.
Um what what today stuck out to you maybe as you know we just talked about some of the theming tops are trying to get on some of the messaging but maybe some of the things that maybe maybe stuck out or surprised you or maybe didn't go quite as well or weren't quite as in line with the messaging as you would have liked to have seen. So, it's not that I would have would not have liked to seen it differently, but they had Gary Vee on a panel. >> And I mean, like, I have nothing against Gary Vee. Like, I wouldn't say I was like Gary Vee supporter or anti-Gary B. A lot of people feel he's very polarizing to some individuals, but >> I loved some of the stuff he said. He even he called out all that. He's like, I'm mad at you and I'm mad at all of you because you didn't even print V friends as much as I wanted you to. And so, like even he was like giving him a hard time, but they're self-aware of all of that, which is really nice. Uh but yeah, so four tops. I'm just glad to see that they are actually trying to worry about the small guy, which is nice. So >> yeah, >> but Gary Vee was fun. >> Yeah, >> it was a lot of fun to see. >> Gary Vee was fun. He He was opinionated as always. >> It was really Yeah, >> I I I've always liked Gary Vee. I think he said some smart things like he one thing he brought up today, he was very he was very he hammered this message home with the audience. Uh which again all the car shop owners, he's like you got to prepare for the win. >> Thank you. That's what I want. That's where I was going with Gary Vee before I lost my own train of thought. That's what he was bringing up. And even some of the tops employees were saying like, "Guys, take advantage of this moment because right now, they didn't have everybody raise their hands." He's like, "I'm not going to have you raise your hands." This is not Gary Vee. It was a different Tops employee, but how many of you have done better this year than last year? Sure. And he expected every single person to raise their hand. He's like, "That's not how it's always going to be." So, we need to build and prepare for those times where we have a winter and in this like prolonged summer phase, you got to prepare. So >> he he made a big emphasis on that. He called he he asked the car shop owners in the audience who had owned car shops for 20 years to raise their hands and and he very correctly said these guys know what I'm talking about. It's easy if you came into this industry, if you open up a car shop in the last two or three years, it's easy to see the boom that's happening right now and to feel like this is a wonderful business to be in and everything's roses. He's like, but he's like, it's not always necessarily going to be this way. And if you look at these car shop owners who have done this for 20 years, they've been through some very lean years. And there were some very lean years.
I actually was funny you bring that up because on the panel there was four individuals. One of which I was Who is the person from PSA? >> Uh Chris Carlin. >> So he was even talking about the uh Van Go Pikachu. Yes. >> And how it's a high pop count, but it maintains the price because every Pokemon collector feels like they need to have that card in their collection. And then Gary gets the mic and he's like, I remember when people were saying everybody needed a Jeff Bagwell Stadium Club rookie in their collection. And I got a good chuckle out of the older collectors because he's spot on. Like that is not always going to last even though it feels that way in the moment. >> Yeah, 100%. And it it was a good it's a good wakeup call to everybody in the audience for sure. Like it is it it's a very frothy time right now to be in the sports card business. Whether you own a shop or whether you're breaking or whether you're just simply casually like somebody listening just flipping cards occasionally or just even building just simply a a PC or an investment collection and just watching in market movers the trends of how those cards are going up. Chances are they're probably going up. you know, for the most part. Obviously, if you're prospecting and buying a lot of rookie quarterbacks, not always in that case, but if you're buying good quality stuff of like the top name guys, then chances are it is it has gone up over the last year or two. It's been a frothy time in the hobby for sure. But we need to all remember no matter what part of the hobby you're in, just a casual collector or on down to a multi-, you know, store card shop operator, like you need to remember the frothiness that exists right now is not necessarily always going to be the case. Gary's solution to that >> was that shop owners need to think about diversification and they need to lean into content creation. Those were kind of the two themes, you know, that he talked about.
He said some stuff like it was interesting. He was telling people to buy non-Tops products. He's like, "Go buy Panini products. Go to the because you don't want to be reliant on one thing." And so like I'm sure Topps was cool with him saying that. They know Gary Vee is a wild card when he speaks, but that was always nice to that was nice to see as well. Um Gary said a bunch of stuff. I don't want to get too deep into it. Nath Gary Vee show, but there is one thing I want to talk about. I don't know if I can jump jump to this. >> Sure, let's do it. But the one thing I was excited about, and this needs to be kind of discussed with caution because I think people could take it the wrong way when actually I think it's a straight good thing in a in a little bit, but Topps and Fanatics is introducing their own credit card, >> which I thought was awesome because on that credit card, you get 5% back on your purchases through Fanatics. And I think it's actually other collectibles as well. I think it was an American Express. I don't know if eBay does that, but like >> I purchased recently a Julie Rodriguez Dynasty card and I would have loved 5% back. It kind of reminded me of like the the eBay bucks days where they used to get 5 to 10% off for a specific window. But I thought that was great. So I think that's great and obviously there's people I don't want people to think it's a predatory thing like Costco offers credit cards, TJ Maxx offers credit cards, every business does. So I think it's a good thing. But like what were your thoughts on that? Because I was definitely getting the most reaction on social. I did not I I haven't posted anything yet about the credit card, but I know there some of the other content creators who were here put out like I've seen a couple of like kind of mocking posts about the credit card because the concept of like card shops are going to be allowing people to apply for Fanatic's credit card which then allows people to, you know, buy more expensive boxes and then and then, you know, finance them or, you know, it it could be it can be used the wrong way and therefore if you want to look at it through that lens it can look like a bad luck look it can look like people are already worried about this hobby is going too in the direction of of flipping too in the direction of speculation too in the direction of like breaking chance taking that kind of stuff and so now you add a now you add credit card into the mix does it fuel some of
That even more are people using the card to overleverage themselves to pick up cards to flip and then putting themselves in a dangerous situation if the flipping doesn't work out right, that type of thing. So, that is the, that is the cynical way of looking at it.
The positive way of looking at it, because like you, I'm actually excited about this thing and I'm certainly will apply for one of these things, because the positive way of looking at it is if you use it responsibly, you, it's a good thing to have. Because what they're doing is they're saying 5% it's, it's, it's not true cashback, it's Fan Cash. So, it's 5% credit which you can use through Fanatics Collect and and Tops.com and all that kind of stuff. But 5% Fan Cash on on all of your purchases of cards, all of your purchases with hobby shops that sign up for the program. That's a big deal.
So, think about that. Our customers at Cards HQ, let's say we have a customer at Cards HQ, which we have a lot of these who are coming in and they like to sometimes buy singles for their PC or sometimes sometimes they buy singles more for investment purposes. They may come in and buy some Otani or Babe Ruth Gouty or something, right? That collector can now walk into Cards HQ with one of the Fanatics credit cards and buy those same cards that they were going to buy anyway, but now get 5% cashback on their purchase for doing so. Fanatics Collect, you know, if you're, if I, I buy high-end auction items on Fanatics Collect, um, you know, sometimes $30, $50,000 plus cards, right? If I could pay for one of those cards on a Fanatics credit card and get 5% Fan Cash, it's a pretty good, pretty good situation for me. So, if used responsibly, I think it's actually going to be a really good thing for the collectors who use it responsibly.
Well, the thing is with all credit cards, and this is why I can't, like I wouldn't say they're doing anything predatory at all. Like I've obviously like there's benefits of doing this for them. They're not doing it just solely out of the goodness of their heart, or else they probably wouldn't be doing it. But for me, like there are other sources and ways these individuals could get credit cards to go leverage into card shops that I don't see it as big of a deal myself. If anything, I'm just excited. I was looking at a travel credit card because I'm going to be coming to Atlanta all the time, hopefully weekly, so we can film more content and do things together, which is going to be great and there's benefits and it's, you know, it's great. But to have that aspect and on the side of the hobby where I do a lot of my spending and I buy and sell, like it's just, I only am excited about it. Like I'm really excited. Plus, if you sign up for their credit card, there are other perks. One of which is kind of being clowned on a little bit, but I still think it's a great perk, is if you spend like $1,000 a month, which we all probably do on groceries, then you get like a nice Fanatics jersey of your choice. Great. That's cool. But the thing that should excite collectors, especially those who struggle with getting product at release, is it does allow you, if you own this credit card, to be first in line to get new product on Tops.com. Like, that's great. And then you can use your TOPS credit card or Fanatics credit card to buy something on Tops.com. You got 5% back. It's a 5% discount, right? Like it's, it gets you in there, helps you get product earlier, gives you a discount and then you get a big check at the end of the year. I think it's great if used responsibly. It's a great tool. Yeah.
So, while people are absolutely, you know, some people are going to take the cynical approach and look at it from the potential downside. Absolutely. But I'm going to look at it from the standpoint you are. For me, it's opportunity. For me, it's all those things. For me, it's like even for the card shop to get this, by the way, because by the way, we as a card shop will also sometimes buy try to buy product on Tops.com because we don't necessarily get enough allocated to us. So, we're going to try to buy more because we want more for our showcases or for breaking or whatever. So, we're going to go on to Tops.com. So, if this credit card allows us to get special access on Tops.com to buy product, heck yeah, we're going to have that credit card because, you know, and the 5% back that makes it a little more affordable for us. We don't have to take as much of a markup because we're going to get that 5% back. So for us, I mean, it's, it's a very good thing in my opinion. It's all about how you look at it.
And it's no different than anything else in life. And by the way, it's no different than breaking, which is there's people that look at breaking as this is bad. This is, you know, pushing people into bad habits, whatever. And then there's people that look at breaking as like if done responsibly, this is really fun entertainment. This allows me to get into a box or product that I otherwise could not afford or do not want to spend that much money on for a fraction of that and still get the excitement of being part of a break. Maybe I don't hit anything because my one team, you know, didn't get anything or whatever, but like I got the experience of sitting there for an hour and watching this amazing product be opened and chatting with the people and congratulating the people who did hit the big cards and all that stuff. It's all about how you look at it, right? And so the credit card is no different in my opinion than a lot of other things in life. Maybe I'm being tonedeaf and I'm sorry if if it sounds that way because I'm sure there's people whose lives have been ruined by credit debt. You know, it's one of those things where Americans carry a lot of credit debt, but I guess I'm just looking at from the responsible perspective where I think there's just only a benefit for collectors because you can get credit cards anywhere, but now we have the opportunity to benefit from it in the hobby. So, that was exciting. That's probably the biggest news I would say of the day, like actual news.
But I was impressed with them today. Uh very much focused on collectors. The collector's journey. It was kind of funny at the end with the credit card though, because it was quite opposite. Timing wise, I do think the announcement about the new Fanatics credit card should not have been the final presentation of the day. It, it, that is not, they should have, that should have, that could have been somewhere in the middle. They could have ended, could have wrapped with some nice joy of collecting. Honestly, they should have taken the Brian uh who did the all the commercials. He showed all the great commercials. Should have been. That should have been the last thing, cuz that was a nice feel-good moment. Reconnects everybody. You know, you got to see all these commercials that Fanatics and Tops has put out over the last year. Um, you know, and a lot of them were kind of heartwarming things and so that would have been the better way to end it today.
I know. And we got a sneak peek, you and I did. We can't obviously share what it was about some of their ideas that are coming out soon. I'm excited about this. Oh, there's something big happening. There's something big happening on that front which everyone will be see in in a few months, but we got to keep them in the dark for the moment. This has been good. So, uh tomorrow here at the TOPS conference, they are going to be releasing all of the information about new products. So today was more about kind of the hobby and the ecosystem as a whole. Tomorrow goes specific into the different sports and some of their upcoming plans for all the different products. So, that that's people are going to be interested in that. So what we're going to do, Scott, is we're going to do a special version of Cards on the Table this Thursday. Tomorrow, people are watching maybe this Jeff Wilson show, you know, Wednesday. So Thursday, Cards on the Table, the next day, uh we will be doing here uh right when the conference wraps up. So we will have all of the information about all the new product releases and information, we're going to be talking about that. So, anybody listening who is curious what other announcements are coming out of this and particularly announcements about products and what Top's plans are for baseball, football, basketball, etc. We'll have a lot more information to share on Cars on the Table this week.
And we spoke to the head of marketing, I believe is who it was, the VP of marketing a couple minutes ago, and he wouldn't even tell us what's going to be announced tomorrow yet. He wouldn't mention it, but he said there's some really big stuff coming out tomorrow he's excited about. So, I'm excited for it. It's always a fun day.
Well, there you go. Well, thanks for coming on the show with me, Scott. Thanks for letting me be here. Good to see you here as always. Glad you got to get to your first Tops Industry Conference. Thank you. Absolutely. And thank you guys for watching. As always, the full length episodes of these Jeff Wilson show. Uh Jeff Wilson shows are available on YouTube on the Jeff Wilson Show channel on YouTube. They're also available on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify. So make sure you are subscribed everywhere and check out Cards on the Table Thursday on the Sports Card Investor channel when that comes out Thursday evening. Thanks for watching. We'll see you there soon.