Did Fanatics Fest Just Eat the National’s Lunch?

The hype around Fanatics Fest was at an all time high and attendance broke records as well. Now we have the national next week. So should the national be worried that Fanatics Fest just ate their lunch? We'll debate now. Hello sports card investors and welcome to another episode of Cards on the Table from the Arena Club studio inside Cards hq Teapot Carter. We. We survived. We survived four days at Fanatics Fest. How are you guys feeling right now? How's your. How's your energy level? We got the national guys coming up in just a few days. You guys ready for the gauntlet? Yeah. The good news is, Jeff, I got that week of sickness out at the beginning of July instead of coming into the national this year. So you're 100% helped. We're ready to go. Let's see if I is ready to go. You get some sleep on. He's back. This year we're fired up. Energy's at all time high. Couldn't be more excited for next week. Energy is good. We came back from Fanatics Fest a little bit tired because it was a crazy event. This year I've been to all three fanatics fests and to put it in perspective, the first year 70,000 people attended. The second year last year 125,000 people attended. This year 200,000 people attended. They actually sold out two of the days entirely. And you could feel that attendance when you were in the building. It was busy. This year it felt like not just for those there, but also for those at home watching on YouTube or social media. It felt like the hype around the event was at an all time high. In fact, I had a few friends tell me that that they at home opened up their Instagram and all it was was a constant feed of things happening at Fanatics Fest. And they're not even card people. They were just seeing it on ESPN's profile and the profile of all of these different athletes and content creators, celebrities they face, they follow. I should say their feeds were just nothing but Fanatics Fest. They were on the news. What you were on. What were we on? ABC World News Tonight primetime. It was a nice segment. Big long segment. ABC World News Tonight primetime. That Friday night at Fanatics Fest they did over a seven minute segment on Fanatics Fest but also more generally the growth of the sports card industry. And they actually featured Cards HQ extensively in that segment which was pretty cool. So yeah, you had obviously LeBron there, you had Messi there. This year you had a ton of athletes, a ton of celebrities. Of course Tom Brady was There again, tons of hype. Michael Rubin said that they spent 80 to 90 million dollars putting on the event this year just for, just for a four day event. 80 to 90 million dollars. And it felt like it, you know, the event, it felt like a ton went into was from my perspective, very well executed, job well done. And of course now we shift our attention to the national, which is starting here in just a few days, really, I mean, starting here next week. And so my question is, did Fanatics Festival, what did you guys think of it? And did it take any of the luster, any of the excitement away from the national this year? Are we actually less excited about the national because we just went through that Fanatics Fest experience? Teapot, your thoughts? I've got it all broken down. Two different, completely different events, the national and Fanatics Fest. Maybe not completely different, but different. What was the phrase somebody said? Charles mentioned this. I think for our team that somebody told him Fanatics is an event that like brings in collectors and the national is an event for collectors with events or something. It was like juxtaposed. Right? So what's the first thing you go there for? The national is about cards. Fanatics Fest is about experiences and athletes and sightings and photo ops and things like that. The first word that comes to mind is packed. It was packed. Thursday it was packed. I could not believe how busy it was on Thursday. It was busy, it was loud, it was hot. Our booth especially, I think the spot where we were was the hottest spot in the entire building for some reason. It was also the hottest spot because we had a ton of traffic. There was major buzz all over Javits Center. I'm gonna break it down. The great. The event activations were crazy. Some of these events just the experiences were really cool. They put a lot of money into making a great fan experience, especially for kids. It's something that somebody I'd like to bring both of my older two boys to, I know they'd have an absolute blast. We went to an event sponsored by Fanatics with Dick's House of Sport locally and my boys had fun at that. So this was next level. The celebrities and athletes. I talked about this last week when we were what do we want to expect? They seemed very into it this year. Very into it. They had that like walk of fame roped off this year they were stopping photos, shaking hands, talking to people. Another great thing for me, I picked up an all time PC pickup that actually walked up to our Booth at Cards HQ. It's a 2004 Exquisite Limited logos. Ben Wallace, one of my favorite athletes of all time that I'm pumped about. Tons of great feedback from people about sci, about market movers, about cards HQ and the growth and how excited they are for us to come to Detroit. And about spitballing cards, which was cool for Scott and I. And then I gotta give a shout out, even though they won't be watching this, to two guys named Ram and Kush, who run Fler Maison, which just happened to be the little bar and restaurant inside of the Hilton Garden in Times Square, West 37th Street. Those guys legit know how to make a beverage. So that was awesome. What are we doing? What are we doing? Listen, it's a. You got to give your credit here. All right? So some of the. Some of the good. I'm just giving a shout out. Teapot. Teapot. Like, what did you get? Like a Cosmo? No, no. These guys make their. Do they make a mean lemon drop teapot? Do you know what a shrub in a lemon. Lemon drop. Do you know what a shrub is? Yeah, rosemary shrub. And your lemon drop. Is that what rosemary shrub is going on? No, no, no, no. All right. They make. Okay, all right. I liked how they actually spread out the card section this year throughout the show a little bit better. That was cool. Obviously, the Javits center is a really nice venue. It's kind of a world class venue. The unsurprising for me still that Groundhog Day effect when you go to card shows. I get it. Every dealer is trying to have the stuff that moves that people are excited about. But every single dealer booth, kaboom, downtown case hits. The big thing is Dynasty is ubiquitous now. Yeah, every booth, which is cool. But if you're somebody going to a card show, FNX Fest, national or otherwise, unless it's your smaller local card show, it's just all the same stuff. All the bigger regional shows, all the same stuff. And also unsurprising. A lot of really, in some cases, really, really over market sticker prices. It's just kind of brutal. It's kind of discouraging. There was a 90s Greg Maddox card that caught my eye that I was really excited about. And it was unstickered and the dealer was busy and I waited and waited, trying to ask him, what's your price? And I finally was just like, I don't even know why I'm gonna ask. It's gonna be 5x what it should be. And I just walked away. Maybe that's shame on me. But I just. I was like kind of Discouraged by it. The disappointing for me. I'm gonna trigger some people here, and I don't mean any disrespect by this at all. I don't really have anything against the Yankees, but I went to the Yankees Dodgers game. Scotty and I went, had a good time. Overall. I was just underwhelmed big time by Yankee Stadium. Like, I've been to a fair number of professional arenas. It's so vanilla. It's just concrete. Somebody else said, yeah, it's a little bit like you're in a prison. There's just ads everywhere. The guy who made my sausage, Jeff, was like spraying water on himself as he was slinging these hot dogs. I'm like, what's happening here? Wait, wait, wait. Are we talking about sausage vendor? This is the whole experience. This is the whole experience. And the bartender to Hilda Garden. People care. People care. What are you talking about? All right, last things. The bad as we know, man, our travel situation was really brutal. Getting out of New York City, that wasn't their fault though. No, it wasn't. It's just canceled flights and that. If anybody ever tells me that New York knows how to do hot dogs again, I'm just like, whatever bar ass stuff they're slinging was not Chicago. Dog Flint Coney, those are great. The other dogs, not so great. You know, I'm a small town guy. West Michigan, Cherokee, Cobb County's in northern Georgia. Great fit for me. New York City, it's just a bit much for a small town boy like me. Born and raised in South Grand Rapids. And I, you know, so New York, it's. It's nice to go, nice to get out. I didn't like being stuck there an extra day, but I was happy to be at Fanatics Fest. It's an incredible event. Great drinks, bad hot dogs. I tell you that. Appletini at the Hilton Garden Inn. Carter, you're the daiquiri guy. I drink real cocktails. I drink real cocktails, man. The $50 slice I had on some street I can't remember. Yeah, terrible. All right, Carter. All Carter, let's. Let's skip the food reviews. Let's get to the meat of the action here. You worked at the cards HQ booth the whole time. You were, you were. You were hustling, selling cards, buying cards from people the whole time. What was that experience like? What were your takeaways from Fanatics Fest? And then, by the way, we've got the national guys. How is this playing into that, man? I went to the first Fanatics Fest I missed last year and night and day card show experience. The card show was one of the best card shows I've ever been to. I mean, honestly, it's definitely a close second to the national from. From a buying, from a selling, from a quality of inventory, from the quality of dealers. I mean, it was the most unbelievable card show I've been to in a long, long, long time. Since, you know, outside of the national, the foot traffic was national level. I mean, our booth was just consumed and we were in a great spot, you know. I know you were saying we were literally in a hot spot for the heat. Well, we were in a hot spot for the foot traffic. It was very hot for foot traffic. Yeah. And I mean, we were in the great. One of the greatest spots in the show. And so everybody came by our booth. It was packed, it was slammed. We did not bring enough staff members. We really did. We brought four people to work the booth. We had two buyers, two of us selling and doing deals at the table, and we were slammed. Next year, Cards HQ is gonna bring more people. I promise. It's gonna be a blast. We gotta put more effort into the booth. It's gonna be fun. For me, though, I had a lot of conversations with a lot of people at the show asking, like, you know, what's the consumer, like, who was walking around? Right. And because there's a census that, like, it's been a lot of newer people or a lot of sports fans. And I'll say this, two years ago, when I went to the first one, I felt like it was all new people trying to get exposed to collecting and they were asking questions. There were a lot of first timers, but none of them were really, like, pulling the trigger. Whether if they had cards, you know, if they were trying to sell, they didn't really pull the trigger. Then if they were trying to buy cards, they didn't really pull the trigger. Like, there's a lot of. There was a lot of hesitancy then. This time I still felt like there was a lot of the newer people that were still recently getting into it, but that hesitancy was gone. Like, people were willing to pull the trigger. People were a little bit more educated, but they were still trying to absorb and learn. And that's what is, like, so encouraging to me going into next week and then the years to come with the hobby is that we have a sports fandom base that is getting exposed to cards. And now it's getting to the point that Topps now has football and basketball, and now people are fully into it, but they're still wanting to learn and grow inside of it. And that's what's the most encouraging part to me, what I saw from Fanatics Fest. I think the national has a lot to learn because I think the national can play into that more. I really believe they can. I actually think the national has a little bit of a bigger opportunity than Fanatics Fest in some ways. And I think if they play more into that education than getting those new people in that sports fandom and target those people, I actually think that the national could be an even bigger thing than what they could ever imagine. I agree with that. That's the number one thing I got from feedback then people that came up about sci content, about Market Movers content was the education has been so helpful and including one moment that was like, almost like tear, literally tear jerking for me. One guy during a video we were doing, it'll be in next Monday's Market Movers video, insane story, like came up and just pumped me up, made me feel pretty, pretty good, which was really flattering and very nice about that education piece. And I'm really grateful we get an opportunity to do that. It's been very impactful for some people, especially this young guy who came up to me. So that's excellent. Yeah, it's good to hear. Kim's been on the content a little. My wife Kim, right. She's been on the content. She's a star. There were several women who came up at the show, moms, women who came up and said, I love your wife being in the content. It brings a different perspective. And so that's cool too because you're seeing, you know, you're seeing moms come with their sons to the show and they're, they're a little curious to learn a little bit more about it and. And so they kind of gravitate towards that content, you know, where Kim's in the episode. So that was cool to see as well. Education certainly absolutely needs to continue to be just a hallmark of what we do at Sports Card investor at Cards hq. I think your comment was dead on, Carter. You said, you know what's interesting is the first year Fanatics Fest, it was really a fan event with a mediocre card show and the national is a great card event with not a lot of fan experience. This year, Fanatics Fest moved from being a fan event with a mediocre card show to a fan event with a really good card show. It moved this way. The national still over here as a really good Card show. I think the Nash. The best card show. The best card show still. Absolutely. The National. The national would benefit from bringing in a little bit more of the fan experience, just a little bit more of the fun and the experience. Experience in general. They don't have to be what Fanatics Fest is. They should never be what Fanatics Fest is. But I do agree that if they. If they played the national, leaned into the experience side of it a little bit more. And when you walked. I'm going to say it right now, when you walked into the front door of the national, the first 80 booths you see weren't dealers who have been dealing with the same 1940s and 1950s memorabilia for the last 40 nationals. If that weren't the first 80 tables you saw, then perhaps the national would be able to move a little bit closer to Fanatics Fest and really amp up that experience and make the new collectors coming in feel, right off the bat, more welcome, rather than coming in right off the bat and feeling like, oh, is this like kind of an old swap meet here? As I walk right in the front door to the National, Fanatics Fest did a really good job of making their entrance very engaging. And wow, you walk in that building at the Javits center, and it's like, oh, my God, this thing is amazing and awesome. Right off the bat. Bat. You don't get that same feeling from the National. You got to walk into the national, you got to go past some of those booths at the front that are, you know, have all the. Just the really old vintage memorabilia stuff. You got to get back to more of the corporate areas, to more of the ultra modern tables. You got to go upstairs to where a lot of the ultra modern is, and you start to get more of that feeling of energy and excitement, and that's what a lot of the new collectors are coming in for. So I do feel like the national could ramp that up a little bit. But both are absolutely awesome events, and both are absolutely worth attending. But I will say this. If there's one thing I want people to do right now, if I want you guys to do this, too. Pick up your phone. Pick up your phone. Call your congressman. Call your congressman. Pat. Pat. Call the president. Call. I don't care who you guys. Just call people. Just start calling people. Start dialing phone numbers until you find Michael Rubin's phone number and you tell them, pass a law. I want a federal law on the books that prohibits Fanatics Fest in the national from ever being scheduled within 30 days of each other, ever Again in history. Because I need to sleep. I need to get on that right now. One week between these events is not good. It is. It is just too little time. Your voice still hasn't recovered. My voice hasn't recovered. People, we need time to sleep. We need time for people's wallets to build back up. We need time for people to feel like they can do both events and afford both events. Let's space these things back out. Federal law. That's what we need. All right, pass that right now. And the good news is, I understand that Fanatics Fest next year is going back to June, so I think next year we'll get the month plus break between the two, but. Awesome. Awesome. Fanatics Fest. Great job. Honestly, great job to everybody at Tops and Fanatics who were involved in that event. Great job to our Cards HQ team for showing up so well. It was an absolutely awesome experience. Okay, I got to show you guys one thing. We're going to talk about the national next. Look what I got. Look what this is. Look at this right here. Look what I'm bringing. Look at that. Look at what I'm bringing to the national. You know what that is? You know what this is right here? There you go. This is every single slab that I opened in an Arena Club slab pack on this show. Wow. Over the last year, there's a few of them. Every single one. Every single one. There's some big one. I mean, these are. These are literally week by week. Every single one. I got a black one. One Noah Fant black 101 Prism prison. Was I here for that? I guess I'm. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you're here that week or not. Yeah. I mean, every single week, I got every. There's some big ones in here, actually, that some of them have gone up in value a lot since I pulled them. So that's a really good. I love the design of those ones. Anyway, I got. Look at my. Dr. Jacob. There you go. So you know what? That's my. So now I got it. Now I got to build my supply for the next national. By the way, the reason why I got all these, I got all these from Arena Club. I said, you know, I did the vault outtake thing to ship me all the cars. I'm bringing all these to the national. I'm gonna have all of these available to trade at my cards, at my sports card investor booth for people in the National. By the way, if you want to trade with me at the national or if you have a collection to Sell a high end collection. I'm talking like $250,000 collection or above that you want to sell at the National. Scan the QR code on the screen, use the link in the show description below. You can book an appointment with me and we can try to do a trade deal, or we can buy a big collection. I'm going to pull Carter over for that. You're going to have to okay the collection box. Oh, am I. Okay, got it. All right, I'm available, but we need to rip another couple slap packs because now my Arena Club showroom unfortunately has many less cards in there because they're all here. So we got to build back up for the next national. So let's. Can we rip a couple slap packs? Please do. You guys ready to rip a couple slacks? Okay, I'm going to go first this time. I'm going to go basketball because their basketball emerald pack had three grail cards in it that I thought were outstanding. It has a. It has a Michael Jordan Natural Born Thrillers. That is a cool card from 1995. It has a all. You know how I love the all Aces. Cooper flag all aces in a PSA 10. And it had a Kobe 2012 Prism auto. Beautiful, beautiful card. So emerald basketball slab pack. Let's rip it. Let's go. Let's go. Is that edge? Okay, that's a good one. Vj. There we go. That's a good one. I didn't. I didn't hit one of the grails. What is this? Show me what this one is worth. It's pretty good. There you go. So it's worth 420. Arena Club, give me 378. That's not bad. That's not bad. All right, that plays. Let's see. Let's see. Teapot, if you can beat it. I did football. Emerald football for Teapot. American football. Yeah. Hey, mvp. He's one of my favorite guys going into this season. I just think. I think he's come down a lot. So. Yeah, Prescott. What's that one? Those are really short printed too, by the way. $350 card. Okay, so I'm in the lead right now. I'm holding that one. That's going up into the season. I did baseball. Carter got baseball. Yeah, we're still in baseball season. Oh, the man. There we go. In the 10. In the 10. Aaron Judge first. Bowman, what's that one go for these days? 330. Okay, so I took home the victory this week. I took home the victory. All right, so none of. None of Us hit a grail. Yeah, but three, three and two, I think for Scott as we're tallying the the contest. All right, we'll see. We'll see who's got the hot hands going forward. But guys, if you want to rip one of these Arena Club Slab packs, promo code SCI at checkout, get you 20% off. If you're a first time Arena Club customer, all you got to do is download the Arena Club app or go to arenaclub.com and then check out with the Slab Pack promo code sci for 20% off. And oh yeah, by the way, next week during the National, Arena Club is dropping a special edition sports card investor $100 slab pack. So that's going to be pretty cool. Keep an eye out for that on arenaclub.com and in the Arena Club app next week as well. Okay, let's talk about the national because this is our last cards on the table until the National. Yeah. And I could not be more excited. I am unbelievably excited for the national this year. For me, actually, even though I'm still a little tired from Fanatics Fest, the momentum is going to carry forward. I got a ton of cards I'm bringing with me to trade. I'm going to buy some stuff. I've actually sold a lot of stuff. People saw that on the YouTube videos at Fanatics Festival. I got a lot of money that I bring to the National. I'm gonna buy things teapot. I'm gonna shop around to buy some big stuff this year. I'm excited about it. And of course the national may very well have attendance record set this year. We don't know for sure. But what we do know is that the national is completely sold out of VIP tickets. They're completely sold out of like the five day pass. All they have left is individual day general admission tickets. That's all they got left. And it seemed, although they don't officially state this, it seemed as though that they have sold out faster of those things than they had in any prior year. Of course, last year we believe it to be the most attended national ever. They don't release their official attendance figures, but we believe it to be the most attended national ever. It was the third straight year of record attendance. We know that for sure. And this year they're expanding the show floor. This is going to be the biggest national ever upstairs. They've expanded the whole upstairs area to now have many, many more, hundreds of more dealer tables than they did last year. And they're going to have More corporate sponsors upstairs as well. So overall, the show floor, biggest ever by far. I'll start with you, Carter. As you think about the national here this year, what are you most looking forward to? Hot dogs? Lemon drops. The excitement for this national is actually. I've realized this week is a lot higher than I ever expected. Have you guys seen what VIP passes and early entry passes are reselling for right now? People are reselling. They are reselling. They are the hottest resell items in the hobby today. What in the hobby? This is the thing today, ladies and gentlemen. Flipping national passes is flipping national VIP passes right now, guys. On Facebook, on Instagram, I'm seeing them everywhere right now, selling for 800 to $900. Early entry passes are selling for 600 to $700 today. And there are outstanding offers in so many groups and so many story posts. It is happening. The demand is through the roof right now for the national. It is going to be an unreal show than anyone can ever. So it is crazy. I can't believe you. To market movers. I want to see the chart of the national VIP ticket resale. It is. It is one of the, like, biggest flips of the year. That. That is what it's being called on social media. I'm surprised you guys haven't seen. I've seen it all day today. That's crazy. It is an unbelievable time. I'm super excited for the national. That is what's telling me is like, holy cow, people are coming to play at the national. It is going to be unbelievable. We're bringing the most people we've ever brought this year. I'm afraid it's still not going to be enough. So I think it's just going to be crazy. I mean, we're on the cars issue side. We're buying, we're breaking. We got two different booths for that. We're going to be working around the clock. We brought a lot of team members. We're going to be selling as well. We're going to be buying cards and selling them instantly inside of our showcases. I just think the foot traffic is going to be more than we expect. I really do. Like, I look at the national and I feel like sometimes there's less controls on the madness. Like Fanatics Fest, there was actually some controls on the madness. Like they have infrastructure around the athletes, the celebrities, right? The. The overall, you know, how many people they let in the door and stuff like that. Like, the national has some tickets, but like, once you're in there, there's not the infrastructure to, like, maintain the mat. Like, if there's just a bunch of people in one area of the show, it's just going to be slammed. So I think it's going to feel pretty crazy. I'm pretty excited for it. Okay. All right. Wow. That. That's, that's. That is wild. I did not know that Teapot, does this. Does this news. Are you more excited? Are you concerned? Is it going to be insane? Are we going to make it through the week? Are we going to survive? What do you think we'll survive? I feel pretty confident in that we might be coming back on our. On our last breath. But, you know, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it last year. I mentioned I was ill last year and couldn't make it, but. So I can't compare this year to last year, but this will be my third time going to the national in Chicago. And overall, the venue, everything historically has, I think, been better than Cleveland and significantly better than Atlantic City. And so I'm. I'm happy to see it back there this year and next. Obviously looking forward to Detroit in a few years as well. The one biggest ask I have, and I don't know how feasible this is, in fact, I guess it's not feasible based on their current model and how they grandfather people into specific locations at the show. But I would love to see the national take the initiative to actually organize the show better by categories. They obviously have done like the spinoff with soccer and whatever, but man, if you could do that and you could walk into the national and have half of it be sports or basically broken up sports and TCG and non sports start at that level. Some dealers, I understand they have both. I don't know, put them in the middle or put them by what they have more of or something along those lines. And then, man, if you could know, you could look at the event map and go, for those people who are into WWE or F1 or hockey or soccer and like, no, like, I can go back to this section and those are my people. Those are what I want to go after. I can. I can wheel and deal. The biggest, most daunting thing about the national, especially for those who haven't been there, is just you get in there and you're like, where do I start? The number of times I turn around and I'm like, which direction did I come from? Because you'll have like four sided booths that you're walking all the way around. And then you're like, crap, did I. Which. Which way do I go? It's daunting. So just coordinating, organizing and helping funnel people in. Maybe if it was like high end, mid end value box section, something along those lines. Are they going to do it? I don't think so because they would upset a lot of their historical legacy grandfathered in folks. But I would love it. That's. And then I would say like a big thing I think people just underestimated a little bit is there are experiences, there are things you can chase down more than just going to dealer booths. Like, if you like that. But you're like, I need a change of pace. There's our friends, sports card couple, Caitlin and Joey. They are great at like hunting down the like giveaways and the freebies and like getting all the swag and all this stuff. They're always coming up like, hey, I just last. I think it was two years ago. Joey walked up and was like, I just got this free Larry Bird autograph from Pristine Auction, like for, you know, just like showing up. So there's a lot of that kind of cool stuff. If people like to score, score wins and get giveaways. A big thing that I did notice while I know I didn't have the greatest food experience at Fanatics Fest, like that is a big thing. You need to like be able to take care of yourself while you're on site. It's a long day. You're on your feet. I would like to see the nationals step up their food game and maybe have some food trucks outside in that little roundabout area or do something. Cause that can be pretty sparse there. But overall, I too am really excited. I got some brand new hokas, so I'm now an inch taller and we do comfortable. Since he's sponsored by the trying to get us new sponsors. Are you sponsored? Sponsored? Why not? I hope you got those for free. Yeah, no, I wish I was. Send us some shoes. Hit me up. I got to meet them up. Send him some shoes. Send this man some shoes. All great points. I'm totally with you. I wish the show floor was a little more organized. That's what I was saying a while ago about like how I wish when you walked in the front door, it wasn't just based on, you know, how long they've been a dealer. I wish they could like put in some of the kind of cooler to look at Grayling booths up by the front door and kind of like get you excited right when you come in the floor. For sure. I think you're seeing improvement of that with the upstairs though. Like, I think yeah, the upstairs you're gonna see a lot of the newer dealers that have been that got in the game, the rest, you know, five years or so that have not been able to get in. They've been on the waitlist and so now they're not going to have these big booths, they're going to have a dealer table. But you know, if you're into ultra modern, it's going to be on both floors, but you're going to see some of that newer stuff. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing that. I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, that expanded upstairs. I'm excited about the national and look, for any of you guys coming to the national next week, we've got our big Sports Card Investor activation. We have the Card Kids Trade Zone again. So if you're bringing kids to the national, bring them to the Card Kids Trade Zone for sure. Cards HQ has a big presence at the National. We are going to be buying cards like crazy. If you want to sell cards, come to Cards hq. And we're also going to be selling cards there as well. So come see us at Cards HQ and Sports Card Investor would absolutely love to do business with you this year. That'd be a lot of fun. And if you can't come to the national, watch the content because we're going to have videos coming out every single day. Multiple videos a day. It's going to be a Movie on this YouTube also on the Market Movers channel. We're going to have a lot of fun. Card crew reason we'll be doing videos from there. And then we're going to be breaking from the national and we're going to be breaking from the national and whatnot. Cards HQ breaks at all the channels. Cards HQ Blitz Hoops, Cards HQ Shop will be at the national live. All kinds of stuff going on next week. So we look forward to seeing you guys there. Okay, let's talk about the Tops Gold Logo Man Dual Card. So Topps Chrome Baseball just came out yesterday and one of the big chase in there is the redemption for these dual Tops Logo Gold Logo man cards for the back to back winners. These things are on. These things are sick. So sick. These things are sick. And the Ohtani from last year's, you know, Topps Chrome, the Ohtani Gold Logoman Auto sold for over $3 million. Now this year he's got one with two patches. One patch from 2024, one patch from 2025. Celebrating two MVPs signed twice, including both in his English signature and his kanji Signature. Also you've got a judge with back to back and you've got scubal. Your boy, Teapot. Well, maybe not. I mean probably. Maybe your boy for a few days. He's still my boy. No, I will be more days. He's my boy no matter where he goes. Okay, then he's got the back to back as well. What do we think about these back to back logo man cards? Is this the right change to kind of keep expanding this, this, this program? And what do you think about that Ohtani One in particular, Teapot? I don't think I've seen a cooler card in my entire life other than that card. And I'm not being hyperbolic ever. It ticks all of the boxes, all of them. It's historically significant. It's an insanely cool design. It's an all time great athlete. It's game used and game dated with dual relics. English and kanji. Auto is extremely unique. You don't get that in athletes because most athletes don't have a reason to sign in a different way. This is going to be a multi seven figure card. 5 million, 6 million, 10 million. I have no idea. I have no idea. It's only going to take two people. For all we know it might just be a private broker deal that goes to some person who's just like I've got to have that card. If the other one went for 3 million, this is a better card. This is a better card and I think it's insane. So I, I hope to get to see it, at least a picture of it. I hope it doesn't somehow never show up like the Triple Olympic Auto or all these other cards that we've all wanted to see. I would love to see it in person. These cards look spectacular in hand too. If you've ever seen any of them. They look really cool. That skool. I still love Scooval. I'm going to love watching him. Pictures are my favorite. Wherever he goes. That would be like an all time dream card. I'm not going to get it. That's probably going to be a six figure card for some big whale. But that would be absolutely insane. And then just more broadly speaking, I know you didn't ask this but Topps Chrome. This set is amazing. It's a good set. Amazing. It's actually tempting me. It's right at that price point for a hobby box where I'm tempted. It's such a good set. Tops has come such a long way. We've been talking about it for years, about the Inserts, designs and how that was the thing they needed to execute. They've done that and so much more. And I know people accuse it, they say like we're, you know, being top shills or whatever, but I'm just being honest. I'm honest and about everything, for good or bad, hot dogs or otherwise. And Topps is knocking it out of the park, especially with these insert designs. Alter egos are sick. Ultraviolets are sick. Glass canvas are sick. All kings and all aces, every part. There's so many good cards coming out of this. It's a problem. Like we've. And our shelves are stocked and we're, I mean we don't have any Chrome out here yet, but it will be soon and it's going to be tempting me and my paycheck to keep adding to my PC. It's really, really good stuff. It's going to be fun. I agree. Card. Are you as excited about these as Teapot is? I'm just happy that they didn't just do like the same card. Yeah, like, you know, so I think the cards Kanji Auto is a big deal. The others are a little like less exciting for me, but it's still like they're still big deals and I'm just happy they didn't just do like Ohtani and judge by themselves again. So now I'm really curious if Ohtani wins again, what do you do for the third year? Right. But to me this is showing that they're still willing to innovate and not do the same thing over. Like they're not taking the easy route. Like they're actually thinking this through. They're like, okay, how can we really make this different? How can we really make this exciting? Like these guys keep winning these awards. So this is encouraging to me and I agree with you. These cards are going to go for big, big, big dollars. Right. Once they're pulled. I mean these are life changing cards. It's making these sets exciting. I mean the price points for the sets to get in on this and just have a chance on this are great right now. So overall very encouraged by this. But it's the innovation aspect that's most encouraging to me long term. Agreed. I, I agree with all that. I'm excited about these cards. I know I'm going to go. I ripped one Jumbo so far of Topps Chrome Baseball. I had a pretty good experience with it. Pretty good cards out of it. Just nice looking cards this year. The design really works good. Yeah. For Topps Chrome I'm gonna. There's been a lot of hype for Topps Chrome Update Basketball. Yeah, and Topps has really come through for Topps Chrome Baseball, though. And really at the last minute they threw some more information that really hyped it up here at the end and right before release. But I know Chrome Update is going to be kind of said it's like the product of the year, but this Chrome Baseball is also going to be remembered as a great set. Go buy another box. I'm going to say, I'm going to say at every release, every time we talk about a release from now on, please tops print the name of the card on the back of the card, the parallel and the name of the insert. There were inserts. We were like, what's this insert called? We don't even know. You don't even know the pack odds. And then make sure the pack odds are out before release day, please. Well before release. So we know. So when we look at it well before checklists out before release day, please print the name on all the things. One last topic, guys. World cup obviously just came to an end this past weekend. Great World cup. Particularly good, I would say, for the hobby, because you had a lot of the big names featured. I mean, obviously you had Yamal and you had Messi in the championship game. Ronaldo, you know, made it into the knockout round. Holland obviously had a great World Cup. Mbappe had a great World Cup, Jude Bellingham, a great World Cup. So a lot of the stars, Harry Kane, a lot of the big names made it deep into the tournament. A lot of goals scored. And at the end of it, you've got Mbappe winning the Golden Boot, you've got Yamal winning the World cup, even though he didn't really only scored, I think, one goal the whole tournament, but he still won the World Cup. And you've got Messi making it to the finals, bowing out without the victory or goal at the end. How do you think, what is the lasting implication here, in your opinion, Teapot? I would say just to start at the end, probably it was a really good final game, really good game. Obviously Spain got that stoppage, that overtime goal, and then Argentina finally decided to turn it on and try to get some opportunities. But that last match didn't leave us with what we wanted. We wanted one of two things. We wanted heroics from Messi, we wanted heroics from Yamal. Everybody wanted. Or both. You know, we're kind of hoping to see that. All the stuff going on, which we got in the four years ago, you did you had heroics from Mbappe and heroics from Messi. That's right. Total heroics from both. Yes, that's right. So if I look at the overall winner, like the hobby won within the soccer space, big time, this really put it into the collective consciousness. I said this. I think some people. There was fervor around it for the last month in Cards hq. Not one time did I walk out from the back out here and not see at least one person standing in front of our soccer showcase. I've never seen that. And it was more like other sports that don't move as much. Historically, there were still people out there today looking at soccer cards, even after the World Cup. But the international impact is like, Cards are here now. It's getting momentum now. More. I had so many people. I had a guy come up to me and say, he's going to be starting doing Spanish media, Spanish language media, covering the soccer card market out of. I think he was in Puerto Rico. That's really exciting. As athletes go. Erling Holland was by far and away the winner in terms of, like, gaining the public, you know, collective consciousness. He gained like 20 million Instagram followers or something during the World Cup. Absolutely crazy. I would have Jude Bellingham at number two. He. He obviously had a lot of heroics many times for England, carrying them. Messi. It's amazing. Like, he makes it to another final or to a. You know, to a final, to another final. Argentina got some help along the way, you know, to kind of get there, I would say. But he didn't have the heroics. I would say Ronaldo is the big loser in all of this. Just especially coupling his last few World Cups, or all of them really combined, is kind of like. It reminds me of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, where it was like, who's the goat? Who's the goat? Who's the goat? And all of a sudden it was like, it's Brady. And it's been the same thing with Messi and Ronaldo. The one thing. And I won't go into a full tirade about this, but it's been very, very clear to me. I'm not a soccer expert. I'm not a soccer expert, but I think I know enough about it and I watch it. The number of people who now after this World cup are like, lamina males. Overrated lamina males. Cards shouldn't be this expensive. That is the craziest, craziest thing like that. I think this would be like people saying Connor McDavid, like, a few years ago shouldn't have been expensive. Like, he is the next guy up right now. He's done everything. He's outpaced every one of those guys I just mentioned thus far through his career. And if you look at what he did in the World cup, yes, he only scored one goal. He had one assist. He had a couple other goals overturned because of offsides by, like, this much and an assist overturned. He led all the World cup in dribbles, completed dribbles and take ons. He had so many other things, so many opportunities where if they were tracking second assists like they do in hockey, he would have been in the mix for those. This kid is. He is elite and he was coming into this World cup off of an injury. So it's possible. We didn't quite get the best of Lamina. He's 19 years old and just won the World cup with his team, and he's one of the best players on the best team in the world. So I. I am very, very bullish about Yamal. I still have that Yamal card that I bought from you at front row and I'm holding on to it. I'll bring it to the National. But he's insane. And I think all the people who are, like, hating on him after this or I think it's crazy. It's totally crazy. I do think Jamal's market probably dipped some. It did after this. So I was looking at the data. So. So over the last 30 days, Yamal down 22%. Yeah. In spite of winning. Ronaldo's down 16%, Messi's down 8.5%, Bellingham's up the most, 13%. And Holland still up. So maybe there's a Yamal buying opportunity coming up in the next month or two. Maybe, maybe, maybe at the SOCO, at the National. We'll see. Just turned 19. Carter, your thoughts on the World Cup? Oh, man, it was. It was an unbelievable tournament. I agree. I think Haaland's the biggest winner. I think. I think. I think Norway wasn't in the last World cup, so Haaland didn't get to be in it. And, you know, he's had a great career in the Premier League so far, but the world stage has not seen him at this level. Right. And so. And he was just an absolute stud, so his cards are obviously still gaining a lot of traction. The biggest losers to me. To me. Is anyone on the German team? That's fair. Point blank. Point blank. Point blank. Brazil. Neymar. Yeah. So it's not the big names. I actually think, like, I agree, you know, you know, that, that I think Ronaldo probably sees a dip. But once like people really figure out like this is. We're getting to the end, he's going to come roaring back a little bit. So it's really. Yeah, Germany, the guys on Brazil, I think Vinnie Jr, Vinny Jr. He had a good tournament, but like, because they bowed out so early, I think he's a loser in this. It's going to be really interesting to see what Soccer Cards does because the overall viewership stats just here in the United States were absolutely massive. And I think there's a lot of people that are appealed to cars that are sports fans right in the soccer area. But are they going to really stay in and how long they're going to stay in? I'm very encouraged that Tops and Fanatics is getting licensed eventually in the2030s and I'm sure they're going to put a lot of effort into it. I mean, they sponsored the FIFA World cup halftime show. You know, they did this big presence with FIFA at Fanatics Fest. So they're obviously going to be investing in this. You know, there's, there's all these debut patches planned, but they're years away. So what's, what's the soccer market really going to be between. Between now and then? Right. Like the next four years. Yeah, I think we're going to be. I think we'll be talking a lot about the soccer market over the next four years. The ups and downs. I think there's me both. And then I think in the 2030 is going to be a lot of, A lot of excitement overall. This. I think you're right about Neymar. Neymar is a good caller because he's at the tail end. He's basically announced this is his last World Cup. He kind of. He's kind of gonna go down as like a. More like a Carmelo Anthony or like an Iverson. Right. Like without that championship. But like incredible offense, incredible scoring. It's interesting to see how some of those players will rank all time. This was a long episode. I feel like we needed a Powerade power break for hydration like they had. We needed hydration. I wanted to get one more. You wanted a hydration break just to go back to your boy at the Hilden Garden Inn and get a little. Yeah, whatever that was. Let's go. All right, there we go. Alright, guys, thank you for watching. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Hope to see you at the national next week in Chicago. And of course, don't forget to go grab an Arena Club slab pack with promo code SCI at checkout for 20% off your first purchase at Arena Club. Thanks for watching. We'll see you soon with the next one. Take care.