Recap Of Fanatics Fest 2026; How The 1/1 Home Field Advantage Superfractor Deal Got Done (And Sold) At Fanatics Fest; Interview With The Buyer (@cardsmax)

You're listening to Cards to the Moon, a podcast about trading cards from both a collector and investor perspective. We hope you'll stick around for the ride as we take a deep dive into the state of the hobby. Share some hot takes, hopefully some useful advice and fun stories along the way. Hey guys, welcome back to another edition of Cards to the Moon. My name is clark from 5cartguys.com. You could also find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and on TikTok at Five Card. Guys. It's all spelled out, all one word. Today's episode is number 382. It's going to be a little different than our regular Tuesday episode because I just got back from a wild weekend at Fanatics Fest in New York City and also at the West Coast Card show in Anaheim, California. So I'm still a little jet lagged as I'm recording this. As I literally touched down back In Toronto at 6am this morning, I was able to kiss my wife goodbye as she went off to work. And my two boys, they don't have camp this week, which means it's Daddy Daycare week. All right, so I got them playing a little Minecraft, which means I can record a quick pod episode for you guys and I thought I'd take this time to do a recap episode of my weekend. I'm actually going to break it up into two parts, mainly because I'm tired, slightly jet lag as I mentioned before. Plus I didn't sleep well on the Red Eye flight back to to at all. But I do have short interviews for each part, so I'll play the first one later in this episode, which I recorded on site at Fanatics Fest, and the next one I recorded on site at the West Coast Card show. And I will play part two of this episode the next day. So you'll have back to back podcast episodes this week. Okay, let's start with Fanatics Fest. This is my third year in a row going to Fanatics Fest, with all three times being at the Javits center in downtown New York City in Manhattan. Now, if you listen to, I believe a podcast episode early in the year this year, you'll know that I never intended on going to Fanatics Fest this year after an announcement that it will be held on the same weekend as the World Cup Finals match. Which by the way, congrats to Spain for winning it all this year. But because of the World Cup Finals, the expectation was that New York City was going to be packed and hotels and flights would be more expensive than usual and So I thought maybe it'll be a good year to check out the west coast card show instead. But then you know what, the airfare I kept checking and it was pretty standard to get to New York. And the hotel, the cost was reasonable, but only for Thursday night because if you check for Friday and Saturday night, I was finding the same hotel room I booked for Thursday. It was at least triple the price. So what I did was go to the first day of Fanatics Fest and I pretty much stayed the whole day. And remember, this is the first time Fanatics Fest added one more date, making it a four day show instead of three days as it was in the first two years of Fanatics Fest. So the question was, would it mean that there would be less people each day with the extra day of the event, or would the World cup crowd and more sports fans show up to easily fill up the capacity of Javits center over the four days? Well, the answer was there was more than enough people to fill out the four days of Fanatics Fest. Even before I arrived on Thursday, tickets had sold out for the first day of the show. Then as I got there they announced that tickets for Saturday sold out and Friday and Sunday were both very close or just on the verge of selling out as well. And on that first day I can tell you it was packed. Lines were everywhere. Even getting my media pass I thought would take 5, 10 minutes. It was a good 45 to 50 minute wait in a line that snaked across the main concourse. There are some Fanatics Fest exclusive products as well, like the Cactus Jack Topps Chrome baseball cards that was back and so was The Top Series 2 Fanatics Fest exclusive set which includes exclusive inserts like the Swinging for the Stars insert cards as well as the Big Apple refractor cards. And new this year was the Topps Chrome UCC Soccer hobby box. Again, another Fnatics Fest exclusive which meant it had special inserts that you wouldn't get in a regular hobby box. And if you had a ticket to the show, and you were lucky to be selected in the EQL draw to buy some of these exclusive products, that line was also long. Now again, I should remind you that Fanatics Fest is geared towards sports fans and not just card collectors. If you never heard of Fanatics Fest before, there are a bunch of professional athletes who interact and engage with the crowd, whether it's on a panel, on stage or just them walking amongst the crowd. Now some of them do go over to the card vendor booths looking to buy cards themselves. So there's certainly a blurring of the lines, but unlike card shows like the West Coast Card show or the national, even where it's primarily for the card collector, you'll definitely have people in the Fanatics Fest crowd that is just there for the athletes and celebrities and the different sport activations and events set up at the show. Now, that being said, the cart show element of Fan Fest can't be overlooked because it seems like it's getting bigger and better each year. There's maybe, I don't know, 300 to 400 vendors at Fanatics Fest, and each table was packed with people. Now, similar to last year, the tables were spread out throughout the showroom floor. So going from one end of the hall to the other, you you can find a vendor pretty quickly. And from what I witnessed, there were plenty of deals being made. In fact, I was helping DC Darryl, a friend and frequent guest of our pod, complete his deal for a Tom Brady Bowman chrome rookie card PSA 10 that he had. And you can look up comps yourself, but it's a nice chunk of change and honestly I was a little worried about having to carry that cash around. But then when I went to the dealer to make the transaction, there were a group of four or maybe five younger collectors. They looked like they were in their early 20s and I think they were in the middle of making a hundred K transaction with a Patrick Mahomes rookie patch auto BGS 9.5 I saw in person as the centerpiece of that deal and they were live streaming the whole thing real time. So yeah, lots of money flowing and it's pretty incredible to see in real time how much the hobby is thriving right now. Anyway, I also made a deal at Fanatics Fest with Cards Max, who you might already know on ig. We actually first met at the Sport Card Expo in Toronto, where he also had a booth. This past April I found out through a friend of his that he was a collector also of the home field advantage, one of one super fractors from the 2024 Topps Chrome update set, and as loyal listeners know, I have or had the Bobby Wood Jr. Super Fractor. We didn't end up making a deal on the spot in Toronto at the Sport Card Expo, but he did message me a few months later on Instagram and with a little back and forth we got an Instagram handshake deal done. Now I made a video on YouTube about this whole interaction, so click the link in the show notes below to get more details of this deal and how it came about. But I can tell you that I did make one stipulation for this deal to take place and that was for us to do it in person. And we found out we would both be at Fanatics Fest. So that's where the deal ultimately got done. Anyway, I did get a chance to interview him at the show at Fanatics Fest. So let me play that clip for you right now and I'll return right afterwards. All right. I finally found Cards Max. We first initially met at the Sport Card Expo in Toronto and I'm glad that he came up to me. I actually was introduced. We were introduced to each other by one of your friends who knew you were going for the Superfractor home field advantage set and he saw it on my case in Toronto. And then you came over and yeah, what'd you think when you first saw it? So this actually goes deeper back because I think I messaged you on Instagram in January after sleuthing to find the Bobby Wood home field super factor home field advantage. I'm not buying all of them, all of them, but I think it's a fun, like personal project to find. I think part of the enjoyment both in collecting, investing, speculating, whatever is like being able to design your collection or your holding with whatever sort of personal flair you want. And I think people can berate fanatics for, and believe me, people do for a lot of different things. But one thing they've nailed out of the park is how beautiful some of the singles have been. This is their first case set that they made back in 2022, or at least to my knowledge. And I think just as like I am not more partial, I'm more partial to baseball than I am football, basketball. I've always leaned more towards downtowns rather than kaboons. I have a full LeBron James Downtown PSA 10 career run set and now it's like it's something that money can't buy. I. I am trying to get a full PSA 10 of every year of every home field advantage. Not necessarily the 101s, but with those at least it's like, okay, I can find a random popcorn on ebay, a random pop too. And it's like I'm so enthusiastic to pay the 150 bucks or whatever with that's around the. Around the market or whatever. But I've been picking up the one of ones appropriately when I can. I paid quite handsomely for the Bobby Witt home field advantage. Super. And I'm glad to reconnect with you after meeting you in Toronto. Awesome. Cards. Max, you. You and I are both big fans of the home field advantage. What is it specifically you like about this subset? I like that it's a relatively simplistic design and not just being, I don't want to say slop as that's a very popular word I think especially with how I know this is applicable to all case hits. But not every player is featured every year. Which although sounds obvious in, you know, in hindsight, you know, when saying that out loud, it's like this is a 40 car checklist for this year at least. The older years are 20 and 30 player checklists. Not every single player is featured on the checklist. So it's like when Bryce Harper will fade to relevancy or Trout fade to relevancy or Kershaw. Even Kershaw has I think only a 2024 home field advantage. So that will be his only home field advantage. And just like how we're looking at Minama only having two kabooms or two different years of kabooms or James Harden having some Rockets kabooms and he doesn't get them now as a clipper in 76er, I think it's a chapter of that year's set and it's sort of like, you know, as a chronicle of like what cards and what sports were like in that specific year with those adaptions year after year. So yes, Bobby Wood Jr. Will have home field advantages for a very long time. But it's cool to see how and how unfortunately Trout Trout is going to be later. Career stuff. It's just a chronological chapter of how like these players age, how these cards age, how the designs become more and more modern and more and more cater to the be current. But you know, even that this being three years old, it's cool to look back in the past. Yeah. So many different ways to collect. You made some really great points. Are you. So you mentioned off air you have about 10 of these now, is that right? I think I have about 10 of these or so. I think I started with the Bryce Harper that's I bought last summer, then got the Mike Trout and then I've been slowly picking them up here and here, here and there when appropriate. I'm not trying to do the full 40. I'm not going to be buying, buying Josh Rose and Green Kaboom's $30,000. But when it, when it, when the shoe fits, I've been making the jump on them. I think it's been a fun project. Amazing. Last question. You know, there's a Lot of big shows going on this weekend. Why'd you choose Fanatics Fest out of west coast card shows going on, Dallas card shows going on. Why Fanatics Fest for you. Best modern card show in the world at least has its hands right now. Dallas, I love. I said up there every two months. This is once a year. And west coast is a bit questionable. I'll leave it at that. I'm going to west coast tomorrow, so I'll check it out for myself. But hey, it's a big sports and TCG combination, which they do once a year. So I mean, that should be exciting for you. Amazing. And I'm glad I did this deal because it was a fair deal and also I knew I was going to a good home because I love what you're doing here. It's like I am putting this. If I put it out here, it's for eye candy purposes, but I think I had some eye candy that I'm already sticker priced to sell. So it's like I just goes home in the case. Amazing. Appreciate it. Good to see you, man. Thank you for pairing it up. Asking questions. All right, that was Max, and he's been at way more shows than I have, so it's interesting to hear what he thought of the three shows that went on the same weekend as Fanatics Festival and why he ultimately decided to choose Fanatics Fest over the West Coast Card show and the Dallas Card show, which he seemed to like in the past. Speaking of which, that was one of the main questions we had going into this weekend, which was, is the hobby large enough to sustain three shows on the same weekend? Now a little spoiler alert. I can tell you that Fanatics Fest seemed to be doing record numbers this year. West coast card show, which I'll talk more about in part two of this week's episode. That show is really busy too. There are lineups each day I was there and just a lot of buzz on the showroom floor. Now, I didn't go to Dallas, but I did hear from one person saying they heard that the show didn't do as well as they thought it would. To be fair, I don't know how true that is. I was looking at the Dallas Card show Instagram page and it seemed like there were collectors around and it didn't seem dead by any means, but I suppose everything is relative. And if I'm going to wager which of the three was most impacted by having all these three shows run at the same time, I'm gonna bet it was Dallas. But that Being said, it does seem like the Dallas Cart Show. It's a well oiled machine having shows I believe once every two months. And the September show is already being announced on their IG page. Okay, let me go back to Fanatics Fest to end part one of this episode and let's focus back on the cards because in my opinion there are more modern cards at that show. Some vintage scattered around the floor, not much, but they were scattered. So if you're a modern card collector, I think you'll be happy coming to Fanatics Fest. TCG obviously represented well with the boom in Pokemon and One Piece cards, and it wasn't uncommon to see booths have a mix now of sports and Pokemon cards. Now one thing I did notice, and maybe this has more to do with the type of show Fanatics Fest is, with the pro athlete and celebrity culture baked into it. But there seems to be more of the bigger hobby influencers that came to New York City. So for instance, you got Jeff Wilson. I saw him walking around AKA Sports Card Investor King of the Cards Kyle was there. Mama Breaks Stephanie, she was there. And Car Collector two Ryan, he was there as well. It could also be the fact that tables here are multiples more expensive than the other card shows, so you'd have to be probably a bigger store or influencer or content creator to be able to set up here to make it worth your while. And some of the cards that I stumbled upon were absolutely insane. Like they were big, big cards. For example, the Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani Rookie Auto card, the one I talk about on this pod that I traded way too early. I saw the red refractor number to five and it didn't have a price tag. I didn't even want to ask, but you could bet it went for a healthy amount. There's also the Juan Soto 2016 Bowman Chrome rookie auto again number to five. And many of us who are into baseball cards, we know the story of the Juan Soto Super Fracture of that year set which is apparently out of circulation, which makes the Red the most valuable Soto card in existence to date. I also saw the Jackie Robinson 1948 Leaf rookie card in a PSA9 on display. That's an easy eight figure card right there in the same booth area right beside it there was also the Aaron Judge, his first Bowman Chrome Rookie Auto Super Fractor on glorious display as well. Now I ended up selling more than buying at Fanatics Fest and since I was there for one full day, I didn't get many opportunities to see how cards were priced, but from what I saw, the prices seemed reasonable. You know, other than the high end Ohtanis. For example, there was a Connor McDavid Future Watch Auto Card BGS9 auto 10 and it was priced at 7,000 US. I'm sure I could have made a deal for that card, maybe 6500 which seemed to be fair recent comp value. That was just one example. And I'll definitely have more to say about how the hobby is pricing some of their cards during my West Coast Card show experience as I was looking to spend more at that show. So hold that thought until part two of this episode. But finally, I'm talking about the crowd itself, like I mentioned before, seemed pretty diverse. You got both sports fans and collectors alike in attendance. And I also noticed there were a lot more soccer fans, which of course comes as no surprise with the World Cup Finals being played in the New Jersey New York stadium that same weekend. And yes, there seemed to be more booths that had soccer cards as well. So all in all, Fanatics Fest, it's always a good time three years in a row. Enjoyed it each time. See how it's growing. There's one person that said they might have to move out of the Javits center because it's been growing so much. We'll see about that. It's a pretty big place, but it will be certainly impressive if they had to move to a bigger location, a bigger venue. I could have definitely used one more day there. And honestly, it's an event I'd be happy to bring my family to, especially my two young boys. So hopefully next year we can make that happen. And it should be better in 2027 because there's no more World cup that year. And the hotel prices I'm hoping won't be a thousand dollars a night, as I saw some were on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night this past week. Okay, if you were at Fanatics Fest, let me know about how it went for you. You can always DM me at 5card guys or at cardstothemoon on Instagram. Appreciate you guys. And look out for part two this week where we'll be recapping the West Coast Card Show. Bye for now. Hey, thanks for listening to Cards to the Moon. We'd really appreciate you subscribing to our podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. And you can also connect with each of us on Instagram @5Card Guys. Or you can follow Hyung at Integrity Sportscards or John at TradeYou at recess. You can also check us out@fivecardguys.com thanks again and hope to connect soon.