MINT Collective brought together not only established leaders in the sports card hobby like Panini, eBay, Beckett, and PSA, but also innovators and disruptors like Fanatics, Collectable, and Card Ladder.
After three days of meeting with collectors, dealers, card shops, tech platforms, content creators, and everyone in between, it is clear that trading cards are no longer a simple hobby. Instead, it has transformed into a fast-growing and evolving industry with huge opportunities to grow its total addressable market, customer experience, and market capitalization.
From the establishment of Fanatics Trading Cards in 2021 to the M&A and investment deals announced by stalwarts like Beckett and Collectors , trading cards are moving from a niche pastime to a large industry. The lessons of the supply glut that led to massive depreciation in values of the 1990s are still first and foremost in everyone’s minds and opportunities to grow sustainably were the locus of most conversations.
At MAGPIE, we see three factors that can accelerate growth:
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New products, services, and marketing targeting audiences of sports, entertainment, and culture enthusiasts who are not yet active in cards. Josh Luber cited that 2-3M people purchased sports cards, yet Fanatics alone has >80M customers. Fanatics has started to push into these areas with Zerocool but there is much more to be done.
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Move from a US-centric perspective to a global one. There are huge collector audiences in Europe and Asia, particularly for sports like soccer, F1, and even basketball. We barely heard mention of these markets over the course of the weekend.
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Better data – While the most sophisticated collectors and investors identify arbitrage opportunities based on illiquidity and low-volume, far more people are sitting on the sidelines due to uncertainty. Many players, MAGPIE included, are working on this problem, but there is room for more collaboration. Better information about supply, volumes, and prices will help to convert passive followers into active consumers, which is good for everyone from dealers to manufacturers to individual collectors.
As the card industry begins to mature, it is clear that technology innovation is coming, but the direct impact and adoption as part of the collector experience are still unclear. It’s hard to pinpoint if the underinvestment in technology over the last decade is principally a result of the decimation of the industry in the 1990s, customer behavior, or some other factor.
Through our conversations with attendees, it’s evident that as the next generation of collectors moves into adulthood, the digital experiences they have come to expect in other facets of their lives will soon permeate #TheHobby. There was a lot of discussion about the role of NFTs, the need for data standardization, and an explosion of new technology platforms to support the collector. Yet, more questions than answers remain. The key will be whether dealers, manufacturers, and others can adapt to these shifts in behavior and preference fast enough and if collectors are willing to invest time and money to embrace these shifts en masse.
MAGPIE creates that ecosystem to help collectors, investors, dealers, and card shops grow the industry dynamically, and sustainably.
Join MAGPIE to collect better today!
