Built for the Hobby: What Sports Executives Understand About Collecting with Dan Kaufman of Sports Business Journal

Foreign. Welcome back to another episode of Built for the Hobby presented by my good friends and Inferno Red Technology. A very fun episode to get into today. I'm joined by Scott Locke, but I'm also joined by Dan Kaufman, managing director at Sports Business Journal. And we talk about the intersection of collecting, sports media, fan engagement and the business side of sports. Dan's perspective is unique because he is a collector and a leader covering the sports industry. His work has centered around sports media technology innovation and the future of fan engagement. And we get into a lot of that and how it applies to us as collectors. In this conversation, if you want to show your support for stacking slabs, hit the follow button, tell a damn friend, run on over the Patreon Group. Shout out Inferno Red Technology for making this conversation happen. Built for the Hobby. Let's get into it. All right, we are back. It has been a minute, but we have another episode of Built for the Hobby here and a unique one. We are bringing in a outside guest to to chat about interesting topic, talking about sports, talking about collectibles in the intersection. And I'm joined by Scott, as always from Inferno Red Technology. Obviously shout out Inferno Red for putting on Built for the Hobby. But I'm also joined today by Dan Kaufman of Sports Business Journal. He's going to be part of the conversation talking about kind of what he sees in his role in this intersection. But without further ado, Scott, welcome. Dan, welcome for the first time. How are you, Dan? Doing great. Thanks for having me. Brett, excited for the conversation. Thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely. This is going to be fun. Maybe before we dive into the conversation, I'd love for you to spend a second maybe giving some background info for the audience just on your role, whether it's in SBJ or just historically how you've been involved in sports. Yeah, let's see. I mean I grew up playing sports, love sports, played baseball through a little bit in my first year in college. And then as most of us do, we realize at some point that it's not going to go anywhere beyond that moment. And, and so kind of put, tried to put sports in the back of my mind in the rear view mirror. And I went to law school and actually was interested in entertainment law was where I thought I wanted to be because it was around the time of like Grokster and Napster and file sharing and music sharing, all that stuff. And I thought that was really fascinating. And so I took courses and then took some steps in my career to try to get me into the entertainment world and there's definitely overlap with entertainment and sports, but I just kind of fell into sports. I was. I was working at a big law firm, and I was poking around on a job board, and I saw that there was an opportunity in D.C. for a junior lawyer at a sports agency. And I applied and miraculously got the job. And that was my first job in sports. And that job, primarily at first, was to be the secondary attorney for two collective bargaining negotiations on behalf of sports unions, so the NBA records union and the MLB umpires union. So within two weeks of that job, I was on trains up to New York to sit across a negotiation table with David Stern and his team of lawyers and then Rob Manfred and his team of lawyers. And I was just like, this is crazy. I can't believe I have this opportunity. So that was how lucky I got to be in the sports world. And I did that for a few years and then learned a little bit about the agency world player representation side, not just representing unions, but the. Literally the player representation side, and had this crazy idea to go out and start my own agency because I had some connections to some decent players on the baseball side. And I had a friend who was out doing his own thing. And we connected and we had this crazy idea to start our own sports agency. And it actually had some traction, ended up getting investors, and our investors were based in Dallas and I was in D.C. and it just really didn't make sense for me to continue staying in D.C. and traveling to Dallas to get the work done. And so eventually I was able to negotiate an exit from. From that sports agency. And I was looking for my next opportunity after that. And I saw. I saw this company, Sport Techie, which. Which I thought was interesting. And I subscribed to the newsletter and the founders emailed me and said, hey, you have an interesting background. Would you be interested in talking to us? We think we've got something here. I said, sure. And so they hired me. I was the first employee. And we grew Sport Techie from just a newsletter with a bunch of subscriptions to an event business and a healthy subscription revenue business. And then ultimately we were acquired by Sports Business Journal to fill their tech vertical because we had built this sports tech crossover intersect from a media perspective, growing during the time this is 2016 to 2020. And sports business Journal realized that we could fill that void and help them. And so we were acquired by Sports Business Journal and we grew the tech vertical within Sports Business Journal. And now here I am. Now I work across all of our events at Sports Business journal. We do 15 plus events a year. Sports Business Journal has a sister company in London called Leaders in Sport, and they do multiple events, including Leaders Week London, which is a major event internationally. And so I'm involved across all those events. I also oversee our weekly webinar show called SBJ Live. And then I oversee our video and audio strategy at Sports Business Journal. So that's my career in a nutshell. Awesome background. And I love hearing kind of the beginning of the intersection between sports and tech. And it's interesting because Scott and I have so many of these conversations and we're constantly talking about the intersection of tech and sports collectibles. And I think this is going to be one big mashup where we cover everything. But maybe. Scott, I'll, I'll kick it over to you. Just in terms of listening to Dan's background, I find it interesting just like that adjacent path of sports and tech and then what we've been talking about with sports collectibles and tech, like do, do you see kind of where we're going just in, in the hobby, in the industry, in a similar path that Dan described just on his career path? Well, I don't think, I don't know that we're starting all off as lawyers, so like, that's it. So that may or may not be where the base is. And, and it's always fun hearing Dan. I've heard the, the, the, the lineage and legacy of, of his career, and I think it's amazing what he's done. I think his Persona and his profile at SBJ is, is much bigger than he's, than he's giving credit for because he's, you know, he's got the voice for radio and the face for tv. So this guy's, you know, a former former collegiate athlete and he's, you know, he, he hosts. I've been to many of the SBJ events and, and he just does an incredible job there. And what I like about working with Dan is he's, he's got a genuine perspective on, on the topics. And so for the last, I don't even know Dan. I've, I have been, I have been a massive advocate of collectibles and the crossover between collectibles and sports. And I think there's a lot of, a lot of continuity there to talk about, obviously, because without sports, there are no sports collectibles. And more recently, like you were saying, like the path of where things are and do they correlate, I think that technology is playing a bigger and bigger role. We Are we just. I guess in my, my own shout out, we just recently put out a call for ideas for an event that's happening at the national called Inside the Inferno. And that's, you know, that's where you know these concepts of ideas and technology and things. Now with AI being making software engineering and product development much easier, we're going to see a lot more flood into the market and a lot more flood, flood into the hobby. And not only just from a collectibles perspective, but like you're going to see fans creating their own fan experiences. I think you're going to see a lot of interesting things come out of this new era of entrepreneurship. And so I feel like that's where the crossover is beginning and where the technology launching pad is happening as we speak. So I'm excited to see. We'll see what we have the call for submissions and we're getting a lot of great ideas. Seems to be a common, a common vein and many of them, but they're still great ideas nonetheless. So I'm excited. Awesome. I am excited for that event. I've been trying to tell everyone I know to, if you got an idea, pitch it. This is a good opportunity, but let's maybe start with cards. That's what we like to talk about around here a lot of, a lot of the time. And I think, Scott, when you first mentioned Dan to me, you mentioned this awesome, you know, story he had with collecting with his dad. And Dan, you're here to maybe share that perspective. So maybe tell us a little bit about collecting baseball cards with your dad and just like the impact that has had on you. Yeah, I still have 130 plus Cal Ripken cards. I think so. So grew up idolizing Cal Ripken in Silver Spring Tone Park, Maryland, and man, I, I spent so much money buying baseball cards as a kid. I, I would be interested to know what that amount is, but there was plenty of joy that it gave me. So I don't regret it. And I definitely remember conversations with my dad and he supported it. Certainly I don't ever remember him being critical of, of the money that I would spend, but I definitely remember having conversations with him about the cards that he wishes that he had still. Right? Like, oh, I had the Mickey man on I had this, that and the other and I'd put them in my, the spokes of my bicycle and, and just I like the noise that they would make. So I definitely remember conversations with him about that. And then later in life, like certain. I can't remember when I stopped collecting cars when it stopped becoming something that I was really interested in, probably like, maybe 14, 15 years old or maybe a little bit before that. But then my dad preserved everything and, like, had it in his. In his attic. Attic. And I remember in my 20s or so when they were cleaning stuff out, that he kind of said, like, hey, look, do you want me to save all this stuff? And I said, yeah, we definitely should. And that was also a moment where I remember he showed me some cards that he had that were very old and, I presume of considerable value, although we don't yet know the exact value. But it was really nice of Scott to be able to kind of tell me, like, hey, look, we should really think about these cards and. And find a way to. To see what the value is. And these cards were. I don't even know how to describe them, Scott. You probably can describe them better, but they date back to, like, the 1910, 1915, 1920 time frame. There's a Babe Ruth in there. Maybe that's the most prominent thing to say. But my dad found them at, like, a house in Tacoma park that was doing, like, an estate sale, essentially, and he got them, and then that was. But that was, like, maybe 30 years ago. And then he just held onto them and then brought them to my attention recently. And then I approached Scott because I knew he was in the space. And that's, like, the biggest piece of my collection right now that we're anxious to see what the value is. I'm. Now I feel like I'm involved in the story with hearing it from you and hearing it from Scott, and I'm definitely interested to see how it all shakes out. And best of luck for the collection, and we'll speak good high grades into existence. Hopefully those things get preserved the right way. But I'm interested. You know, you've pursued this career path in sports and thinking back to collecting and playing sports as a kid, did you. Like, when was the moment when you realized that you had an opportunity to, you know, maybe not just be a lawyer, as in people thinking about lawyers, but you had an opportunity to actually work in sports as someone who played sports and someone who collected sports cards as a kid, I never thought it would happen, to be honest. And I thought it was just too challenging to get there. And like I said, I always love sports and then went to law school and kind of had this dream of working in the entertainment field, which also is daunting and difficult to do. But I never thought I could. I could get into sports and so it really was just a luck moment, I think. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it was in the back of my mind, as it'd be, it'd be great to do. But when I saw this job posting that was like, for a sports and entertainment lawyer, I was like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. And I applied and I got lucky and I suppose there was certainly preparation and maybe I'm being too modest, but it really was a lot of luck. Now what I would say to other lawyers or young folks out there who want to maybe get into sports is that it's very challenging to do, but you have to bring the skill sets that are going to be relevant for the industry. I see plenty of people, young kids, it's not just lawyers who say to themselves, oh, I want to work in sports because I like sports. That's not going to get you the job. Just not. And you know, in other industries that might be true. Right? If you just love to, you know, you love to do computer programming, although that's becoming more obsolete with AI now. But if you love to do computer programming, then, you know, get a job in computer programming. If you love to cook, then get a job as a, as a chef. But if you just love playing sports, you can't just say to yourself, that's why I want to work in sports. So that's maybe one, one thing that I learned in my lifetime. You have to actually position yourself to add value. And there's plenty of ways to add value in sports. It could be that you have tons of knowledge about tax, or you have tons of knowledge about finance, or you have tons of knowledge about the legal elements of it, or you have, you're just a great salesperson and, and you want to go out there and sell season ticket passes. So I was lucky to fall into sports. And then once I was in it though, I made sure that I could stay in it and work my butt off to get to where I was able to get to today. I think what you're saying is like, I think is the sports is a business. So I mean, when somebody loves the fact that they played sports, I mean, that's the athlete side of the correct, the equation that they're, they're considering and not the business of sports. And like what you just described, like those are all functional areas of a very large business or even small, depending on, you know, you know, which league or team or group that you join. So, you know, it's, it's probably more think about what you'd love to do as a, as a career. And then the industry that you want to work in is sports, because, you know, that dream of being a major league baseball player is limited to, you know, just several hundred people in the planet. Right. You know, and smaller if you go into different, you know, leagues and. And so on. Yeah, that's well said. So I want to take us to the point in that intersection between sports business and the hobby, I think. And Scott, in talking with you, you're. You have an interesting position because you are working with executives at the league level. Dan, I'm sure you have conversations probably every day or almost every other hour with some executive in the sports industry. And I think as the hobby becomes more mainstream, as fanatics continues to promote the hobby, it becomes a more part of kind of in stadium experiences. We're seeing ads we've never seen. We're just seeing sports cards show up in new places. I think there's a lot of curiosity from collectors, and maybe one of the questions I want to dig into first is just like inside the mind of the sports executives, like when sports Executives today in 2026 think about sports cards like. Dan, like, what comes to mind? Like, what sort of things have you heard? Yeah, fanatics comes to mind immediately. I mean, they're dominating the market. That is the biggest brand in the collectible space, from licensed merchandise to collectibles to even betting. And they want to make a big play into data all around that, to really understand the fan. So fanatics is the first thing that comes to mind. The other stuff that comes to mind is stuff that, that Scott and I have talked about before. And I have to credit Scott for, For talking to me about it and really bringing it to my, to my mind is, is like, you know, the, the, the breaks, right? The pack breaks. The, the, the. The moments of opening a pack of cards that are not just shared by my friend and me when I was a kid, but are now shared by millions of people on YouTube because I'm live streaming this. What is it? A. What do you call it, Scott? Breaking. Dan, let's give you the inch. The, the one. The, the. The 101 on breaking. Yes. So go. So live. They have live breaks. We have, we have reps. So you have a mix of both of those things. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, we have. I've spent way too much money on breaks, but had a chance to, you know, had a chance to. Sorry, I think if I pause for a second. Had a chance to. To get some good things from that, yeah, but it's, it's, it's a good part of the, I mean, look at the size of, of whatnot. That's their livelihood. So, yeah, I guess, like, there's this common conversation around fans and collectors and a lot of the narrative is we're trying to, from big entities like fanatics is we're trying to convert fans into collectors. I'm curious, just what does the sports industry understand, well, about collectors right now? Like, what, what sorts of things are you hearing, Dan? I think it's probably important to like, maybe segment the sports industry a little bit. Like, certainly the fanatics is huge part of the industry and it's a element of the business that the NBA and MLB and European football all operate within. They all understand the importance of having a relationship with fanatics and, and monetizing their intellectual property through fanatics from the license. But then there's a whole lot of other stuff that goes into the sports industry that a team representative has to do on a daily basis if they're in ticketing or if they're in marketing or if they're in, on the, on the performance side. Right. If they're a coach or a trainer, etc. So it's hard, I think, to say like, just what the sports industry is thinking about when it comes to collectibles. I think though, that there's a recognition that collectibles from the 50s, when my dad was collecting initially or when he just. I wouldn't even call it collecting at that stage, it was like they just had cards because they wanted the gum that was included within the pack of cards. So for the progression from there to when I was a kid to when it was like, okay, we're collecting these cards because we really like the cards and there's valid, there's value here. I'm getting Beckett baseball card monthly every month because I want to know how much these cards are going up in value. And then I might have thought at that point that that was going to be it. But like, the progression is still going. We now see everything that fanatics has done. We now see the opportunities, I think that we have through technology to make collecting an even bigger deal than it ever was. Even if that's just a YouTube stream being at the ability to show a break like that. So I just think that it's going to continue to grow. And if you had asked me like 20 years ago if I'd be talking about collectibles still in the sports industry, I might have said, I don't think so. I think it kind of is it right here and it's not going to get any bigger, but it seems to be growing even more. We were talking before this just about some of the opportunities that exist, and we're seeing it now with debut patches from, you know, players like Paul Skeen selling for an ungodly amount of money. But it's just this idea of taking the moment of a key athlete taking a patch off their jersey and embedding it into a card and putting it in a pack, which is something I think collectors have desired for a long time. And I think about the collaboration between sports and collectibles, and that's a great example. And this is only going to continue. Scott is like, are we just getting started with this collaboration between sports and collectibles? Like, there's got to be more opportunities. Like, how do you see this? Like, how are you thinking about this partnership between these two worlds colliding over the next, you know, three to five years? Yeah, I mean, I, I don't see them. I, I don't know that I would use the word colliding. I mean, I think that they, they have been in lockstep and have been symbiotic as long as, as, you know, Dan just described from, you know, the early, you know, 1900s and before, up until the modern day cards, because again, one doesn't exist. Well, collectibles definitely doesn't exist with sports, but sports exists without collectibles. So I think that, you know, as we continue to see the hobby grow and the, you know, it's not all about the value of the cards, like the skins and things like that. You know, it's about, you know, my son works in a hobby shop in Virginia and it's seeing like the, the parents come in with the kids and, like, it's the first time they get a chance to, like, buy a player that they know, right? They're, they're in their minds. Like, my son was asked this recently on a, on a different podcast, Christopher, on Sports Cards Live. You should go listen to him. He sounds like an amazing, amazing adult. And he's 20 years old and he's an expert in space. Sorry, Brad. I got to put it in there. As a dad, right? As we get to Father's Day weekend, it's insane. I was like, literally cannot believe how good he was doing he did on that podcast. But he's, he answered this question of, like, when he sees, like, the connection between, like, kids and their dads. And then when a kid, a young collector or just A fan of the game comes in and finds that a card of their favorite player, they're not like, you know, especially at the earlier ages, they don't care about the price. They don't care about any of that stuff. They're not flipping it. You know, as they get older, they kind of come in and start to have that, like, oh, my God, I can make some money. But when they're young, they're like, you know, oh, my God, that's, you know, that's LeBron. Or like, that's stuff or that's messy. And like, they, they, they get these cards and they're just like, it's the most important thing that they have. Walking out of the store. And you can see, you know, usually the parents are like, I can't believe I paid that much for that card. But, like, because to your point, then you're like your dad asking you how much you paid. I'm like, oh, I'm curious to know, like, if you did that same thing today, yeah, you would be different. But I, I, you know, I think, you know, companies like fanatics, I'd be remiss to not shout out upper deck and what they're doing with the digital and like, tech on their side for hockey and, and, you know, E cards, which everyone said was like, oh, this isn't going to last, but it's like, absolutely one of their, their biggest pieces of ip. So I think as time goes by, we'll see like, that, that, that fan engagement aspect of sports. Like Dan was saying, you can't just, you can't just say it's this, you know, single industry or things. Like, I think that sports leagues and teams know their customer incredibly well, and what they're seeing is the impact that, like, that engagement opportunity with collectibles has. And they're starting to invest a lot more into that. That's why, I mean, why does Michael Rubin have this, you know, opportunity with Tops and fanatics? Not just because he bought Tops, it's because they're, they're creating an engagement experience and a model that resonates with an industry that's been around for like, 70, 75 years, which is the connection to the sport, to the player. You're not buying a card because, like, you know, a major league team has an incredible accounting system, right? Like, they're buying because, like, the product that's on the field, the players that they connect to, you know, the time when they go to the arena and like, if, and now it's like, you go. And it might Be like, you know, baseball card day and they get a pack of cards and like now they're, you know, and they're bringing it all together over the last several years, you know, and then when those debut patches, like that's a, that's a treasure hunt. Like that's a chase. And like, so now by the way, side note is shocking to me how valuable like the patches but like game used jerseys, like sold on like Sotheby's and these other places where they have these, the deals go for like a fraction of what a card in a patch goes for. Like it still blows my mind. Like I'm like, that's incredible. But yeah, that's what I think. I think that's good perspective. And Dan, I don't know if you've seen the numbers, but I. We've been tracking just the numbers on the industries aside, according to Card Ladder and month over month, the online sales totals in volume and in dollars continues to go up in May of this year. So last month there were $680 million in online sales of sports cards across all the platforms tracked by Card Ladder, which is insane. And I look at a number like this and it's continuing to go up month after month. I continue to see these insane sales and I'm watching the industry forming and the infrastructure is still forming as the sales volume is going up. I mean I've talked with Scott a lot about just like the opportunity inferno Red has just with tech, like there, there's tech needed in this space and it's, it's exciting and it's very much a part of the conversation, which it wasn't three years ago even. And I'm curious just like we're talking sports in the business side of sports. I'm, I'm curious. Just like we as collectors turn to other industries for inspiration, whether it's the tech space, whether it's the sports industry to, just to try to get some understanding of like where we might be headed, I guess like on the sports business side. Like what are some like key themes or key trends right now that the executives are thinking about on the sports business side that we as collectors might try to understand as things progress and those themes might end up in the collectible space. Like what are you hearing just on a, a day to day basis? Like, where is the focus right now? Yeah, I don't, I don't know how we tile this to collectibles, but I'll leave that to you guys. But I can tell you what, you know the biggest things that we hear are there's a heavy emphasis on premium experiences at venues. So bringing in the premium fan to a venue and giving them an experience that they will never forget, but at the same time recognizing that you still have to offer an experience for the the at the fan that cannot afford that or does not want to pay for that. I think there's still a lot of questions around the collection of data on fans and how we use that data to improve the fan experience, whether that's in the venue or on an app or watching in a connected television environment where we know who the fan is. Who is watching wouldn't be the lit the traditional linear environment, but maybe through a smart tv. And then speaking of television and consumption, I think there's a lot of discussion about the next generation of fans, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and how they consume sports content. That is probably one of the bigger things that we hear people talking about all the time. The decline maybe in watching on a linear television, the standard television, and the increase consuming content through social media and becoming a fan through a feed. I was on a panel just recently where we literally said that line, right, Fandom starts a feed. And it was in reference to Z and Gen Alpha fans or potential fans that that's the way that young people now are discovering sports content. And within that there's also the question of am I becoming a fan of the athlete first and then the team, or the team first and then the athlete, or does it matter? And I think that that question right now to me is more important than it was 30, 40 years ago. Yes, you could become a fan of a team because of the athlete, but I felt like it was very. Fandom was very much driven by your parents in the army were in. So I was in Maryland. So I was an Orioles fan. My dad actually was a Yankees fan, but we were going to so many Orioles games that he became an Orioles fan because we were all right there. I don't know that that same locality has as much of a draw. It still has a draw, but it's different given the ability to see so much other stuff with this device right here that might attract my attention. That's interesting. And Scott definitely want to help you, maybe help us bridge the gap. And I zeroed in on like the premium experiences and creating experiences in stadium and on this collectible side, there's a conversation about premium experiences, there's a conversation about engagement, there's conversation about, you know, creating moments. And I know teams are spending millions of dollars investing in these fan experiences in stadium or outside of stadium. Scott, like based on what? You know, on fan engagement and being a part of these conversations. Like where, where do sports cards fit into all of this? Well, it's interesting, like when Dan was talking about that, I think one point you made at the end that like the, the, the locality doesn't matter. I think like the fans in New York City might argue that that's not the case. Fair enough. I mean there's Knicks fans everywhere, but like if you're not from New York, like it's almost like it doesn't matter. But so I, I, I feel like geographic association, the teams is still pretty strong people tied to their roots into the, where their home is. But you're not wrong, I think, I mean I have two teenage boys or I guess one's not teenager anymore but, but that's how they consume content. I mean that's how if they miss a game. But we'll sit down and we'll watch a lot of basketball full games. And it's crazy because when Christopher and I watch basketball games, you know, we're watching the game, he's on his phone like like half the time. But you would think like, oh, he's not paying attention. No, like he's like, he's swiping through cards first. So he's like looking at like should I invest in a player that he's watching? Like he's like looking at like what their cards, their rookies are worth. He's pulling up highlights of something that just happened and it's on Instagram. He's seeing the comments of like a dunk that just happened or a play that just happened. And that's how fast the data and the media moves across these different platforms. I know, I overheard it in SBJ event this year of like whether or not AR digital experience had replaced live sports experiences. And I think it definitely won't replace it, but it can augment it for sure and create a better experience. And as far as the premium experiences goes, like collectibles are already doing this, right? I mean like some of the cards that were that Topps dropped into their products this year about where you can win a meet and greet or you have a fan engagement experience and you have, you know, they put like 10 different, you know, redemptions in for these premium experiences. That's one way I think in, in the hobby itself is trying to connect to a premium experience in the hobby shops with like VIP breaking areas and like high end almost like a premium suite style experience in a hobby shop. And because when you, to be honest with you, you get into this like price point where you know, some of these boxes are like 10, $15,000 each. And the people who break those boxes in a hobby shop like, want that level of experience that's going to be different than the people who are buying, you know, the $4 pack of Pokemon cards, if there are $4 packs of Pokemon cards anymore in the hobby shop. But like, so that's, that's starting to like, carry over and where you see like, you know, what is a premium experience at a venue and what is it like in the hobby shop? And then lastly, I think in my opinion there's a huge opportunity. There's, there's a lot of conversation around like the mixed use around arenas, especially in NFL and football, because they have to share the, the, the revenue for inside stadiums. And so they're buying and they're investing in the properties around it. And so there's, there, I feel like they're, they're, right now they're focused on connecting like the fan who's not inside the venue with like through apps and things like that. But there's other ways to do that through collectibles and memorabilia and fan engagements outside of the arena that tie those things together so they feel like they get a piece of the game. I, I would love to see like what that turns into. I haven't heard very many people talk about that. So if you're listening out there, stadium builders and leagues, like, that's, that's one of, one of my ideas. Can I ask a follow up question of Sky? So you're the description of your son watching a game on television with you, but looking through his phone for the cards that might be relevant to the player that he just saw make an amazing play and deciding whether to buy that card, invest in that card because he believes that that athlete is going to perform because of what he just saw. That. And again, I'm paraphrasing that I might have gotten that wrong, but that is very interesting to me. I'm wondering if you feel like that's a typical experience for a teenage boy right now or if given your interest in collectibles, your son. Yeah. How many other kids are doing that? Well, I think, do. I think it's a typical. Probably not typical, but I do think if, like, if kids between the ages of probably like 15 and I'll say 25 as a, it's not a child, but like, yeah, half my age. Right. And if they're in the hobby and if they buy Sports cards, like, they're doing that, right? They are absolutely doing that. And it's funny because like we were just watching World cup and, and Chris, you're sitting there and he's like, same thing. He's flipping through and he leans over, he's like, I think we should like buy our first like really high end Mbappe card. I'm like, we don't buy high end Mbappe cards during the World Cup. Like, and that's like, that's the trap, right? I'm like, I'm not suggesting that like when, you know, we see in the, in the, during a regular season, we'll say the NBA and somebody has a breakout game. The interesting thing about sports and collectibles and especially cards, the value of these cards are associated to the performance of the player very heavily, right? So you have like, you have like the retired leg legends level. Like the liberal broad's not retired yet, but say Jordan and you know, Shaq and Magic and like those, those folks. And then you have the, the historical figures like Ruth and, and, and Maze and, and Mantle. And those are like kind of like the bookends to everything that's kind of happened or will be happening in the middle. And so at the edge of that is what we'll call modern or ultra modern. And that's like active players, real players. And like that set of, of cards and, and memorabilia and everything related is heavily influenced by what have you done for me lately? Active play. And so like the, you know, the old saying in, in our, the hobby is, you know, like Pikachu never tears an acl, right? So like that, that value kind of like ebbs and flows with the market of like what people want to collect. But in sports collectibles, like a breakout game, I mean, look at. I have a horrible story to tell you. We owned probably some of Jalen Bronson's like best cards on the planet. We had multiple PSA 10 Gold Prism rookies. We had one of ones. We had like, we, we were, we actually put an offer of $200 on the Nebula. That's the one of one Prism card for Jalen. I mean we had dozens and dozens of his rookies because when he came out, like he was not like who he is today, like he wasn't the best player in Nick's history, right? So like, but once that he took off, we started to like sell those cards at a little bit of a gain. And like, if we had known now what we. Or knew then what we know now, obviously like we, we gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars in, in potential value. But it was all driven by performance. And I think, you know, there's a lot of platforms out there that track like Brett just mentioned, like card ladder and other tools that try to track the value of the cards. But you know, it's interesting to see like I know that there's concepts and ideas and maybe even products that are like kind of breaking through where they try to associate those things in real time. So when you're sitting there and you're watching a game, you make it, you can make a decision, you know, should I collect this person? Depending on your. Where you fall on the hobby spectrum. Shout out to the hobby spectrum. But if you're a flipper, like you might say you might be able to see like if any. And you know, basketball, because you're a fan, you can start to see like, well, based on the performance of this player, he's having a great game, he's out. You know, they all, you know, the NBA data stats are crazy, right? Like it's Tuesday and it's 7pm and in the history of the NBA, no one has scored 27.3 points at the age of 12. Like, you know, it's like these like random NBA and NFL stats. When you tie those things together, like you can start to make decisions. And I think honestly, like this is what they talk about. These are what the kit. What these people are talking about in forms on Instagram. Heavily, heavily, heavily on Instagram and TikTok. And you know, if you're just stuck to ebay, like kind of filtering for listings, then you're missing the entire conversation that's happening in this kind of this like subreddit, for lack of better term, because this is where the decisions are made. And frankly, Brett, like you also caught out like the value of the market that doesn't even count the private sales where the, you know, the hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars worth of cards get sold. So I mean it's. There is a lot of room for growth. So sorry for the long winded. Are people literally like if people are watching a game and they see a basketball player tears ACL like that effect 4 like tanks. Tanks. Like when Tatum went down last year, his market just like plummeted. And like it isn't because like Tatum all of a sudden was a bad player, right? It's just like he's off the court, he's no longer producing like the, you know, the Celtics chances. Like everything that gets associated to Tatum just like starts to fall and then, and it's not always just in injury. You have players who are just injury prone who are still like, like I think like Zion as an example. Like the hype on Zion was so high and heavy when he, him and Jock came out in the same year and like their cards and you've, I can't even put in perspective how many of their PSA Silvers, Prism rookies there are. There's tens of thousands and they were selling for like 2, 3 grand each and then just like they, they fall through the floor once the first injuries happen and or they have off like you know, Ja has some off court, you know, issues and those things affect the performance. So it's heavily driven by performance. Unless you're a, you know, like Messi's hat trick the other day. Like Messi was already expensive and the hat trick just like cements another legacy moment and it just keeps just getting you know, Richie Rich, he's about to become the all time World cup leading goal scorer, right. So I don't know unless he doesn't score another goal for the rest of the. What are the odds on that? I, I doubt that I in listening to all of that and Scott tell the story of his son being on the phone buying cards while sports are happening. I would say for the younger generation that is the typical way they participate in the hobby and that's growing as more people enter through the promotion of fanatics and getting sports cards and placements that it's never, they've never seen before. I think there's one other way. There's. I'll start to interrupt. There's one other way too which is. Which is shows like, like these card shows are packed like in the smallest venues to the like to the national. Like they are filled with this generation of, of kids like walking through and looking and buying. I mean it's amazing. I did be that. I remember that you can't be in an old dingy low lit mall show that I think most of us probably were a part of as kids. But I was curious Dan, just as, as fan engagement is such a theme on the sports business side as you alluded to hearing the stories of kids on their phones spending a lot of money on cards while sports are going on. That's a high level of engagement. Like do do people behind the scenes at leagues with teens do do they. Do they understand that that sort of engagement is going on? Because to me that sounds like this is like the ultimate fan engagement. Watching sports and spending money on collectibles Yeah, I think without a doubt they do. And I, obviously, I can't speak for them, but. But my, my instinct is that they absolutely do, but maybe not as much as they will even a year from now or two years from now. The story was really interesting, Scott. I mean, it's a great, it's a great symbol of the ability to have a fan interact with a sports team or an athlete on multiple devices at once to, to monetize that fans experience in the moment, which is important for driving revenue for a sports team. And if, if collectibles is the way to do that, then I mean, you know, the industry needs to lean into it even more heavily in particular, because all the things I talked about where fandom starts in the feed where like you might go watch the highlights on X Twitter later, there's no direct monetization there like that the teams and the leagues like that the fans going to Twitter and that you're following them on Twitter. X. Excuse me, but the direct monetization piece on TikTok, for example, is still in its infancy. How is TikTok going to the Chicago Bulls and saying like, we want you to do more stuff on TikTok and this is how we're going to help you monetize those interactions on TikTok. That's still being. But the monetization of buying a card or buying a jersey while watching the game, it's right now. So it's a, it's a good point. They do, Topps has, you know, this product called Topps now that they do to try and capture like momentous moments and in sports. And so, you know, like, they'll, they'll create, they'll create a mini product in almost in, in real time of like, you know, when Brunson's MVP or like the Knicks win, they'll have these kind of like mini sets. And they did that for like the, the Olympics. And I don't know if you know this, but there is, there's this triple autograph. So they can create the products without any of the actual autographs. Right. They'll get the autographs later. So they, they create. And that's where redemptions come into play, where you, you get the redemption for the card and, and what have you, or they get it signed and then they send it out later if it's on card. So one of like the famous ones that happened during the last Olympics, Summer Olympics was there was a, a triple auto of Steph LeBron and KD that went, that had a million dollar, has a Million dollar bounty, actually, I don't know if it's still a million, but like it's, it was like it was tied to the event, was tied to the, to the players. And so when, when Topps now creates this subset, they, they put it out on social media. They put it out and so they're kind of instantly generating a product to sell for a moment like of, of, of an athlete's performance or of a game or of a league or whatever. I can tell you this is my opinion in the hobby, I don't know how well received Tops now is like as a general product. I don't like my, the, the people that we are in our circle, I think it's cool. But they don't collect it. You know, they like, maybe they'll go and they'll buy like, you know, $10 worth to see if they can hit a number card or something. I don't, I'm, I've. I can't speak to what Tops numbers are on those things. I have no idea. But I can tell like, I definitely know like unless you have like a print like one of like a triple logo of something, you know that card market is pretty soft. So you know, that's good for Tops. But like what about the, to your point, what about the cities, the leagues, the teams? Like what can they do? And I guess it, you know, it comes to a question of rights and who owns the rights to be able to create these things. And frankly Tops is in a position to like to generate something like that because that is their product. I mean they can, they can, you know, create, print, ship all the logistics associated with putting out a product and apparently instantly. So yeah, it's an interesting question about the team side. I, I know that Tops now is definitely a cash machine because everyone's trying to hit those high number parallels and printing on demand is. Do you think they, do you think they like. I don't know anything about the numbers. So I, I should be clarify that. I'm not, I am not. They're doing just fine. They're doing just fine, Scott. They're doing, I guess on the secondary market. It's an interesting, I mean, well, we, you can trace it all the way through because you know how many they print, right? Like, yeah, because to get printed. So yeah, it is definitely a, it is a cash grab for sure and it's cool and interesting. I just don't. When we're talking about the hobby and like things that have value and persist over time and then are then end up actually getting traded or sold again on the secondary markets. Like, I just don't know how well that does. Like that's just my opinion, my personal opinion. Totally. I want to be mindful of time here, but I definitely just maybe a couple more. And Dan, I'm just very curious because we, we talk a lot about tech on here and how tech is impacting and changing the landscape of the hobby. We've never really discussed tech from a sports perspective is and I want the, this audience, which is an audience of collectors to maybe get some insight from you just regarding tech. Like what is, what is a big theme just regarding tech and sports. Like this year, like that's happening right now, that's a focus just so we can kind of wrap our heads around how that might, you know, trickle down and translate into collectibles in the future. Yeah, off the cuff here. I mean, I don't think I can talk about technology this year without talking about artificial intelligence. So I mean we have to talk about how that's impacting the sports industry. And I think I want to clarify when I say artificial intelligence, like I'm really talking about like generative artificial intelligence or agentic artificial intelligence, which is really where chat, GPT and anthropic and others are going right now. That is having an incredible impact across all of businesses, including sports, from the perspective certainly of being able to streamline operations and get that things done faster and theoretically cheaper. So that certainly is a buzzy topic across sports. Maybe it's within artificial intelligence as well. There's some AI elements to it, but I don't know if I, if, if, if I'm describing it properly, but the ability to take video and use the video, use technology to scan the video for everything that's within the video and then deliver very quickly a synopsis of everything that went on in that video. And then also in particular to think about how video technology might allow us to take large quantities of people within an environment like in a sports stadium and understand their behaviors and their motions and their movements and their eyeball location as well to even think about, you know, what are they paying attention to what's on the field? Are they paying attention to what's on the court? Are they paying attention to the sponsor activation? Where are they looking? Those types of things are interesting to me or anything else when it comes to sponsor valuation. I think technology used to improve the ability to value a spend from a brand within sports is going to become more and more important as more money is spent within sports. But also those Brands are demanding a better understanding of the return on their investment. That's incredible. I, I'm def. I'm going to the Fever game tonight and if Caitlin Clark is drilling threes, I, I don't even want to see the video of me and what I look like at this at the stadium. Scott, before we get out of here, is there anything you want to you bring up just regarding all of these topics in this intersection, like anything that you think is important to kind of close us out with. I've never heard of AI before, so I'm curious what that is. Not at all. I think, I think Danny buried the lead. I think that the. At the Spec SBJ Tech Awards this year, like the, the thing that won the prize of like overall best in tech at the the awards was a device that allowed and helped people with vision challenges or blind, full blind vision experience a game through tactile essentially controllers with using your hands in a custom device that did use AI to capture the motions and movements on a game and essentially replay that so you could feel it. And it's incredible. Like that was built by two college kids, graduate students, but still college nonetheless. And I think like that's. That there's the opportunity to use technology to work with people who. Or to take opportunities to create experiences for people who may be not able to experience it the same way as like you know, somebody going to a game or seeing a live game. So that was super exciting. I think that's like a mission that should be invested in personally. And so I hope you know that that's where technology kind of drives us. It's so it's. There's obviously like in the hobby it's just so much talk about like the value of things and like I just, you know, I. And I'm part of that. You know, I definitely fall into the, you know, the collector and more on the. The flip it side. And you know, you and I have talked about that and I get it, but it's not always about that. Right? Like I'll share very quickly just because I want to put it out there in the world. Like we pulled out of signature football The 1 of 1 Tom Brady Auto, the product hit. And what was crazy was as good as that is and that card is like a five figure card. Like it's crazy. Like you didn't text me about this. Chris immediately put it on Instagram. But like it's insane. We were like, we had offer, we have offers of like 40, 50 grand already. Like and it came out of a 600 box. But what's. And what's. Nuts. That was cool. But the way it happened is still, like, fundamentally the best part of the story, because I had the pack in my hand. Morgan, my younger son, he's 18, is like, over my shoulder. Christopher is sitting across the table. He's opening. You know, we split the packs in half. And he's like. He's like, I got this. I got that. And I'm like, oh, here's the. Here's an auto in each pack. And I slide over. And Morgan's, like, over my shirt. He's like, that's one of one. I'm like, I didn't even hear him. Like, I'm like, oh, okay. And then he's like, that's a 101. And I slide it back on the other way, and I'm like, oh, it's. This is, like, pinkish. And I slide down and I see the Brady, and I know it's auto just from. I was like. I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And Christopher's like, what? He thought I was messing with them. He's like, I'm like, oh, my God. And Chris, Morgan's like, it's a one on one. It's a one on one. I'm like, one on one Tom Brady Otto. And, like, we just start jumping. Like, I jump out of my seat. We're, like, literally hugging and jumping in the same spot. My wife comes over, who hates collectibles because they're everywhere in her house. And she's like, what just happened? And I'm like. And she's like, what? And I'm like, one on one, Tom Brady. And, like, Christopher is like, immediately like, oh, my God, what's that worth? And, like, the whole, like, we literally have been talking about it as a family moment for, like, still days, right? He's just like, do you remember that time we pulled the one on one Tom Brady? And, like, that was like, yes, that just happened. And so, like, Christopher, like, in Morgan and my wife Laura, like, we just had this, like, family moment that was tied to all of this and the excitement of doing something like that. Like, I mean, I don't even. I care about how much the card's worth, but, like, I also can't put a price on, like, what that moment was like. So, you know, it still comes back to ripping packs. Like, that's what it is. We book in this conversation with some family stories of collecting, and we had a whole lot in the middle. Scott always appreciate our conversations. Dan, it was great to meet you. Appreciate you sharing your perspective on what's happening on the sports business side. I think this conversation would be very insightful to everyone out there listening and hopefully we can do it again sometime down the road. Thank you, Brett. Thanks, Brett. Appreciate it. Thanks Dan. Awesome getting Dan on the show. That was a fun conversation and it is really good, I think, to get outside perspective, especially perspective from individuals who are spending their full time covering sports, to find that bridge between sports and sports card collecting. And I think we did that in today's conversation. Shout out Inferno Red technology for making this conversation happen. We will have more built for the hobby coming very soon. Appreciate all of you. Take care. Talk to you soon.