Is Greed A Huge Hobby Problem? Is Fanatics Fest Worth Attending As A Card Show? Jeremy Lee Joins

No one goes to Hank's for spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza, Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more@m365copilot.com Work. You survived the Miami weekend, nailed the speech, and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship. Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest and you at least get some of your dignity money back. Someone on Depop wants what you've got. Start selling now, Depop. Where taste recognizes taste. What's up everybody? It's Gary Vee and this is the sports card strategy show. Because you know this. There is no off season, no off season when you get into this game. The reason why you pay someone like Paul Hickey to get your sports card strategy together is because when you're starting out, you need perspective, you need wisdom, you need insights. And so he's been around the track enough times where he can actually coach you up and guide you. Doesn't mean he's going to take you to the promised land tomorrow. But you now have a coach by your side that can advise and kind of even create these pathways where you can get the education yourself. And that's a lot better than dugging it out on your own. What the kids better buy my rookie card now. Cause after this year, the price ain't coming down. Welcome in everybody. I'm your host, Paul Hickey. It's time to sit back, listen, learn and earn with me on the sport Sports Card strategy show. Welcome in Nooffseason.com family. We're so happy to have you with us to help you make money flipping sports cards using data driven sports card investing. On today's show we have a special guest, co host, Jeremy Lee of Sports Cards Live, one of the top entrepreneurs and content creators in the hobby. You can find Jeremy on YouTube at SportsCards Live and Instagram @JLee_SportsCardsLive. Jeremy is creator of the hobby Spectrum.com among other things, he's an author of a new book, Pops and Comps available on Amazon. So on today's show, we're going to discuss one of his latest creations. I mentioned it, the Hobby Spectrum and his new book. I want to talk with him about 2026 Fanatics Fest. Is he attending why? Why not? And then some hobby content creation strategy and a little bit about the international sports card market. Just a quick reminder, many of you have listened to the Sports Card Strategy show for a long time and have thought about subscribing to Nooffseason.com but you've been waiting for some reason. I'm here to tell you that your wait is over. Don't let someone else grab your spot. We've opened up the wait list, so you need to join the wait list now to get in on your. On the next drop. We're going to try to get you in even though we have limited spots available. Join the waitlist now@nooffseason.com Nooffseason.com helps you make real profits flipping sports cards with insider data, proven strategies and exclusive access to undervalued cards before the rest of the market catches on. And one more reminder, Sports Card Strategy show is now powered and sponsored by Slab Dynasty Cards, a next gen sports card platform built for collectors that includes a 2% marketplace fee and a choose your chase feature as well. Start your dynasty today using code no off season for 20% off your first Slab Dynasty purchase. All right, we're gonna have some fun today. Jeremy, how you doing, man? Good to see you. Yeah, buddy, it's good to be back here. Always enjoy hanging out with you, talking hobby. So thank you for having me back. Absolutely. Likewise. Likewise. All right, so it's actually kind of ironic because I've been asking guests on this show how they identify on the Hobby Spectrum, but here we have the creator of the Hobby Spectrum himself, Jeremy Lee. So I wanted to ask you real quick, tell, tell us about it real quick. And, and what inspired you to create it? What does it do and how's it going? Well, yeah, well, what inspired me to create it was, you know, on, on my, on my show, my Saturday night flagship show, Sports cards live on YouTube. I, you know, we, we get into hobby discussions, philosophical discussions, a lot around collecting and mindset, motivation, behavior, all these sorts of things. And we often talk about, you know, collecting and investing and, you know, we all fit somewhere on that spectrum. And one night after talking about that on my show, I was out walking around the neighborhood and I thought to myself, you know, I talk about this abstract concept a lot. I wonder If I could make it into something more substantial and actually bring it to life. And, and so that's what happened. It ended up becoming a, a tangent, a somewhat tangible sort of product, if you will. It's, it's, it's based on a 50 question diagnostic assessment that you take on hobby spectrum.com and, and then it spits out your result, puts you somewhere on the collector investor spectrum, which I'm really now referring to as the Hobby Spectrum. You know, a score, which, you know, A score of 5 is no better or worse than a score of 95, but it puts you between the purist and the tycoon somewhere. And there's five other archetypes in between. So it plops you into one of seven archetypes, gives you your score. And that was kind of the initial idea was let's just create a survey that people could use to kind of better understand their collecting behavior. So we developed the assessment, the archetypes, the description of the archetypes. But then, Paul, it became, okay, so now what, now what? And as I was talking to the developers, we decided, you know, some sort of a directory where people could opt into, to actually show other collectors, hey, here's my, here's who I am and here's my score. And okay, great, but then what do you do with that? So we added a whole discover a suite of discoverability features so you can add all your links. So Paul Hickey, you are on the hobby spectrum. You can go, you can go to Paul Hickey's profile and you can see what, what his score is, his archetype and then all of his links to all of his prep, all of his various presence on different platforms, Whether it's no offseason.com, instagram, YouTube, your own, of course, any website, you have your podcast. And so it's a discoverability feature where you can go through and you can sort by archetype if you want and find people who create content or you can just find people who are maybe on Instagram or, or Twitter or Facebook and reach out to them because you have something in common. I'm hearing a lot of stories from people who are actually going out and finding people to connect with. So it's all about connectivity, discoverability and, but it doesn't end there. I've got two initiatives for the Hobby Spectrum that are currently in development. I'm hoping to have both, if not at least one of them, ready by the national at the end of July, working with our developers at Inferno Red Technologies. And so it's it's really cool. I'm super excited about it. It's something that no one else has really done. The most recent feature we rolled out, Paul, is the ability to not only add all your. All your links, but also to add the sports teams and players you collect. So now you can go in and you can add up to 10 players. You collect seven teams and seven sports. So, okay, maybe I find someone else who's a tycoon like Paul Hickey, but I want to now go see. I want to now go see. Well, who do they collect? Because maybe if this person's a tycoon and they either collect or, or have Michael Jordan cards, well, maybe this is someone that I can sell to or buy from. So, again, building the connectivity, the discoverability for the hobby, it's. It's not meant to create a new home on the Internet for you. It's meant to help you use the platforms you're already using more effectively in a more rewarding sort of way. So, and then the, the initiative that I do hope to have, the, the primary initiative I hope to have ready by the national. I'm not going to disclose it yet, but it's super exciting. And you and, and Paul hickey and. No offseason.com will definitely be a part of it. I can't wait. I can't wait for you to text me or call me and tell me it's ready and I can go check it out and talk about it. And I love the hobby spectrum.com because you mentioned you talk on your show Sports Cards Live about collectors and investors. But as you know, and I think the Hobby Spectrum has, I think, educated everybody that there's actually a lot more than that and that there's actually like quite a bit of overlap between collectors and investors. You know, I think through my experience in the hobby and specifically meeting people, whether they be hobbyists that don't create content or whether they be hobbyists that create a lot of content, I've learned that some of the best flippers, if you will, are really hardcore collectors because they are really good at understanding. Yeah. For those of you listening on Apple and Spotify, Jeremy's pointing at himself. And I totally, totally agree. It's like, because you can't have. You can't be a good flipper or investor without a ton of knowledge. You know, you. You can't just come in and make money flipping sports cards or investing in sports cards without knowing what you're doing and understanding what's desirable and understanding timing. And I think, like there's challenges that collectors face that I don't really face because I don't. I'm not really a collector by definition. I think, like, there's, there's things that, there's traits that I have that are collector traits. But I think to be a really successful person at making money flipping sports cards, you have to have knowledge. And some of the top collectors in the world have the most knowledge. Therefore, they can become the best flippers without even really identifying as an operator or a tycoon. Through the assessment of the hobby spectrum, they can be more of a purist, nostalgic, precisionist, et cetera. But I think a lot of people are hybrids and builders, you know, and so, so it's a great, it's a great platform. One thing I want to mention really important, first of all, you mentioned timing, and that's something that I learned from you. Will you really put the framework around something for me, which is your concept of a selling marker and having a goal out ahead? I've heard you talk about that many times. So I think that's really, really important. The other thing I want to mention is that, you know, on the hobby spectrum, there's seven archetypes that have been created and that you fall into one of them. But it's not, it's not as if, if you, if you fall into the purest or the nostalgic or the precisionist to the left side towards collector, it doesn't mean that you don't dip your toes into the builder, operator, or tycoon. So the hobby spectrum isn't about painting anyone into a corner. It's about identifying your core archetype, your core set of motivation, mindsets and behaviors. But it doesn't mean that you're not dipping your feet elsewhere, that you're not some hybrid between several of them. So that's another evolution of the hobby spectrum that is coming this year is to further indicate people's various. Like. Like how much are you each of. Within each of the archetypes. It's not just, it's again, it's not about putting somebody into a bucket and saying, oh, I'm simply a tycoon or simply an operator. Well, that. Does that mean that I can't have any purest tendencies? No, you certainly can. So I don't want anybody to think that this is about, again, putting someone in bucket or painting you into corner. It is going. It is. We are working towards building out a function where now you can see how everybody, how deep they get into each archetype. Versus just identifying their core archetype. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. 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Join the wait list now@noallseason.com and get in on our next drop. Yeah, that's actually a really good point because I kind of think of, think of like any hobby, right? Like, like let's say golf. Golf is a hobby. Millions of people play golf. You play golf for like decades. You're not necessarily going to only be someone who is a, is a long driver. You know, you're not necessarily going to only be someone who has a good short game. You might go through phases of putting really well, you might go through phases of improving your mid range game, those kinds of things. And, and I look at the, I look at the sports card hobby as something that kind of has its own version of that where you might be, you might collect a certain team or a certain player or a certain parallel. You might be chasing specific cards for a diff like for a specific, specific time period. But then you might want to either liquidate that to achieve a different goal and, and that requires maybe being more of a seller, being more of a flipper to try to fund something else in your collection. So I think it makes a lot of sense that you can compartmentalize different things within your hobby archetype and thus have multiple hobby archetypes depending on what phase you're in. And yeah, I appreciate you saying that about the selling marker. I mean, to me that's key because I think a lot of people will hold cards for a long time. That's kind of the difference between my sports card strategy and a lot of other people's sports card strategy is that, like, I think people will hold a card for longer than I would hold a card, and you see a pattern where the value of that card goes up and down through the time period that that person's held the card. And there are some exceptions. Like sometimes you sell a card, it's so rare that you're never going to have a chance to get that thing back. But there's, I would say most cards, you would have a chance to get it back because there's mult. There's enough copies of them available. So my point to a lot of people is like, why not time it out and make money along the way where you can sell it when you're up on it and then buy it back later if you want, when it's less money. So anyway, I want to ask you, like, what is your. What as a, as someone who basically does all of what we just talked about and you've done it for a long time, what is your sports card strategy? It can be just your overall sports card strategy that you've established throughout the years, or it can be something that you're dipping your toe in now, you know, or more recently that that's different from what you've done in the past. Well, I mean, I'm a, I'm a collector first and foremost. I love owning these things and having a, a collection of cards that I enjoy looking at. But I don't just like I, I divide. I have basically two mindsets when it comes to collecting. When I buy, and I always refer to when I'm spending what I call it significant money. So it's going to be different for everybody. But if I'm spending to me what is significant money, I'm going to think a lot more about the exit than I am when I'm buying a card that is not significant money. So just pick a number. 100 bucks. Let's say if I'm buying a card for under a hundred dollars, I'm not going to think too hard about getting out of that card. Whether I'm going to make or lose money, I'm going to enjoy. I'm going to, I'm going to gain utility and, and enjoyment in life from owning that card when I do. And if I sell that card down the road that I paid 100 bucks for, if I sell for 40 or 50 or 80 bucks, I'm not going to lose any sleepover that loss because I've enjoyed owning the card. However, if I'm going to spend significant money, and I mean I don't think too personally, I don't think too hard about spending a couple hundred bucks on a card, but as soon as I hit that like a thousand, five thousand, especially higher than that, I'm thinking very hard about is this a good long term hold, is this a good store storage of value and can I not only store value but make money on it? On the exit? And then it comes down to relying on my experience, my gut, my intuition on what that, on that card's future value and I shouldn't say on its future value, on its ability to go up in value over time. To what extent, I don't know. The other thing that I do, and I've been very successful at this for the past 15, 20 years, is trying to be ahead of the curve. And you know, you hear the terms bantered around all the time, undervalued, underappreciated. Well, is anything really undervalued or underappreciated in its time in a, in an efficient market? No, that's the value of it. Today. It's not underappreciated. It is appreciated to the extent that is right now. This is how people are tuned into it. So I actually, it was just this past Saturday, or maybe it was even Sunday. Anyway, I realized that it's not about something being undervalued or underappreciated. It's having the intuition to recognize what, what might gain appreciation in the future or gain value in the future. Not because it's underappreciated right now. It's time just hasn't come yet. A critical mass of people haven't noticed it or clued into that player that set, that insert that parallel, whatever it might be. So I have in the past or again over the past 15 years I've been able to identify future trends and I, and I've, and I've executed upon it and, and done okay with it. So. And every time I do, I'm always a bit nervous. I'm not 100 certain, but I have been pretty successful at it. At the same time, Paul, I have identified what I think might be a future trend and then a year or two go by, it hasn't caught on. I've sold and wouldn't you know it, six or 12 months later, bang, it's all of a sudden it's in favor and I'm like, damn know, I, I just, I wasn't, I didn't, I didn't rely on my intuitions long enough to. To. To. Because these are items that either, you know, I. I purchased because I like them, but after a couple years or whatever, maybe it's like, you know what? I don't like him as much. I'm willing to let him go. I don't really. You know, in many cases, I don't care if. If the. If the trend catches on down the road, I'm happy owning the cards. As a collector sometimes, and I give myself permission. I think people should. We can fall out of love with cards as collectors that we own. As an investor, it doesn't really matter. You know, you are. You. You don't gain any emotional attachment to the items unless you do. I do. I gain this attachment to my cards, and if I lose that love for them, I'm willing to let them go, take those proceeds, redeploy them into the next thing. That. That tickles my fancy, if you will. That's awesome. All right, so I want to dig into that a little bit further, because I think it's super interesting. So you're a hockey guy, and you live in Canada, and so the mar. And the market is a little bit different in Canada than it is in the United States in terms of, you know, what. What sells a lot, like, at card shows and online and stuff. I would assume that a solid percentage of what you're talking about has been hockey cards. What. What's an example of, like, maybe a trend that you thought was gonna come to fruition in the future and maybe make you a little bit of money while enjoying the cards during that time that you held them that you just mentioned maybe didn't work out, and you sold early, and then, like, can you think of why you sold early? And I'm talking about. Because when I think about this kind of stuff, it's definitely happened with me as well in the past. And it's like, sometimes I sold early because I just was scared that it was gonna go all the way to zero, and I wanted to get. And I needed some money for the family for something. So it can be something like that. But like, any kind of. Any kind of specific scenarios you can think of where it was, like, a particular player that you thought was gonna do well that didn't do as well. Maybe anticipating a selling marker that didn't happen, Maybe something with. With a special parallel or insert that you thought collectors were gonna gravitate to that didn't quite happen. Anything you can share specifics on would be. Would be awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so okay, first of all, I am in Canada and hockey is my, you know, if you look at my overall sports card holdings, I would say 90, maybe 85% of the of the cards I own are hockey. Probably more because I got several binders of like undocumented cards. But value wise I've got probably 40% of my collection is, is not, maybe even more is not hockey is, is vintage baseball, basketball, 90s inserts. So I collect all sports, I collect some non sport, I don't touch tcg, but I do collect non sport. And, and, and, and you know, hockey, basketball, baseball, football, a little bit of golf, a little bit of boxing, etc, so the, the, the best success I had, I would say, I would say and here's the, here's the key in terms of, I mentioned like spotting future trends. Let's say as a hockey collector, when I put on that hat you can, you can take signal from other sports. And this is something that, that I don't know if this game is over yet, but we know that 90s inserts and parallels have become kind of one of the key classes of sports cards as far as value goes. You know, you've got, that, you got vintage, you got 90s and then you got like the modern day commodity cards and then the like the auto patches and RPAs and all that among some others I'm sure. But basically in like 2018 I'm noticing that a lot of these 90s inserts are starting to gain favor. I entered the Michael Jordan market at that point in time and bought a bunch of Jordan cards for a couple reasons. I noticed that the trend was, was jumping up but I also thought like okay, it's Michael Jordan and the hobby was still pretty immature at the, relative to today at the time. And then it was, it was, it was the present. But so I started buying a bunch of Michael Jordan cards and then Covid hit and things went really well value wise for those cards. I mean I, I bought some cards at 10x in value over a couple years. But to get closer to your question, I started noticing things like PMGs, essential credentials, rubies, all these high end inserts from the 90s that were, that didn't exist in hockey in the 90s to, to force for the most part. And I was realizing to myself, you know what, hockey has these things but they didn't come out till 2012. But that, but they were licensed FLIR Retro in 2012 hockey was licensed. It wasn't licensed in basketball and football. I think they did football, I know they did Basketball. So I started buying up a bunch of not only like 2012 FLIR retro essential credentials and PMGs, but also 90s hockey inserts. And because they weren't quite there yet, and I thought, what's going on? People are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on these baseball, basketball, cards, football from the 90s, but they're not doing it for hockey. I'm like, this has to get. This has to catch up and just grow, you know, for my whole life as a Canadian, Canada's always a like one season behind the US Whether it's fashion, entertainment, whatever it is. You know, I went to Australia in 1990, Paul as, as a high school graduate, and I noticed that Australia, everything was the season behind Canada. So it's kind of like you got everything comes out in the States first, comes to Canada a little while later, then goes elsewhere in the world. So anyway, I was buying up all these cards and one thing leads to another, and these cards started catching on and the trend hit. And I was very fortunate from a value perspective that I jumped in and I went crazy buying all these PMGs and essential credentials in hockey along with some in, you know, some original 90s stuff as well. And like, for an example a way a 2012PMG green Wayne Gretzky out of 10. I bought this card on eBay. The one night I'm up late, the guy lists it for like 1100, buy it now or best offer, 1100 bucks. I put in an offer of 900. I start panicking because I know so I just forget. I hit the Buy it now is. Is what I think happened back in the day. And you know, that card I paid under a grand for, I once turned, I, I, like an idiot, I turned down a bona fide offer of over 200, 000 US dollars for that card. Now I can't. Now I don't, I don't think I'd get half that today, but I turned that down. I still own the card. I love the card and I don't plan to sell it, but that's an example of kind of reading other mark, looking to other categories for what could happen in the category of the year. And I think soccer has been a place where there's been so much opportunity and, and that, you know, to answer your other question, like, soccer is an area where it, it hit, but it hit a little bit later, you know, 2012, I think it was, or 13 prism came out and it was just sitting on shelves. I remember going to the LCS and Ignor, you know, and, and then it's like, well, maybe this is something to, to get into. So you get into it and then a couple of years go by, 2014, 15, 16, 17, nothing happens. And all of a sudden if you would have hold that, held on five more years, you could have been very, very successful from a financial perspective. Yeah, that, that Gretzky. And I mean everything you said is a great example, but that, that using the basketball trends with Jordan to identify. Okay, we've got the same cards in hockey. Oh, by the way, they're licensed. Gretzky, kind of the Jordan of hockey. Let's go ahead and make that play. I have to ask you real quick about that card because I think not, not to dig into your personal situation too much, but this is something that fascinates me about collectors versus myself. Who's flipper investor, right? Like if fascinates me that someone. And again, it's not just you. Like this stuff happens all the time. The love for the card overshadows the monetary gain that you would get for something. And like, I think it's safe to say like some people might be listening to this or watching this and thinking, oh my gosh, this dude. If you don't know, Jeremy, you might be thinking this dude passed up that much money. Like he must be independently wealthy. But like I don't like, you're scrappy, you're an entrepreneur, you're grinding. Like you. I mean like I think it's safe to say that US$200,000 would help you very much in your, in your life. So like explain. Just, just leave for me. Like why, why, why did you pass that up? Marvel Television's Wonder man. An eight episode series now streaming on Disney Plus a superhero remake. Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar winning director. Action. Simon Williams audition for Wonder Man. I'm going to need you to sign this. Assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work again. If anyone found out. My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder man all eight episodes now streaming only on Disney plus. You know what? I can give it. I'm going to be very honest here and very transparent. And, and, and Paul, it really comes down to one word. And that word is greed. I thought, you know what? I thought this was gonna be a million dollar card one day. And Paul, you know where that I received that offer maybe the day that you and I, I received that offer at the whatever casino we were at. Oh yeah, Collective. That's right. Yeah, Mint Collective. It was the height of the COVID craze in the hobby. And I, the offer was a, like, when I say bonafide, I mean the, the, the wire transfer was happening. Had I accepted? The offer was actually $210,000. And, and why did I say no? Greed. I thought, you know what? No, this is going to be worth 700, 800, $900,000 one day. Well, and I still might be right about that. But not yet. Not yet. So, but really that. And the other thing is, yeah, I loved the card. Plus at that point in time, you know, my collection was worth quite a bit because I had a lot of stuff. Since then, I've had two rounds of selling chunks of my collection. One was for personal reasons. In 2023, I needed to raise a bunch of cash for personal reasons. And then in 2025, I actually did a major consolidation play where I bought a big card at auction. Six figure card. And I had to fund it with cardboard capital. So I basically traded away 330 cards for one back then. But no, I'm not independently wealthy. I mean, I'm doing okay, don't get me wrong. I live comfortably, but I'm not in a position to retire and, and live the life of luxury. So I, again, greed and, and love, love for the card as well. You know, it's, there's only 10 of these. And I, you know what? I, I do think to this day that eventually I may get that dollar for the card. You just never know. Yeah, like you said, there's only 10 of them and it is Gretzky and it is a pmg. I mean like the green pmg. That, that's, that's something that could come back around. I was like, it's pretty reasonable to think that it could come back around to more than what that offer was at the Mint Collective. But greed, That's a great story. Are you sick and tired of getting slaughtered, ripping wax and buying into breaks? You want to actually profit? Flipping sports cards will join no offseason.com now for less than a dollar a day and make between 30% and 130% ROI consistently on flipping singles. Using our tools and advice, Nooffseason.com helps you make real profits flipping sports cards with insider data, proven strategies, and exclusive access to undervalued cards before the rest of the market catches on. Check out nooffseason.com now to see if there are any spots available in our limited member community or join the wait list to get in on our next drop. All right, so there's two huge card show like the two biggest card shows coming up this summer, they're both in July so of course the national and that bleeds into August a little bit but the last week of July and then this year this will be the third year in a row that the Fanatics Fest NYC has occurred and it's actually the third year in a row that it's a different date on the calendar. So for different reasons they've kind of moved it around. I'm not sure if they're trying to establish it in July now, but it is in July 2026. So I want to ask you like, so you and I have met up there at least the first one and we've met up at a bunch of other card shows. But Fanatics Fest 2026, are you attending and why or why not? Yeah, it's undecided for me at the moment if I'm gonna make it or not. I will be at the national, you know, in Chicago at the end of July, early August. So that, that, that's a, that's a for sure. And I'm working with the national so I've got, I've got some duties, some content duties while I'm there. Fanatics Fest, you know I do work with Fanatics. They are one of my clients as far as I produce content for Fanatics and but I, I cover the, the, the fanatics collect auctions. I do, I do a live stream once a month for their premiere show and I do two or three live streams for their Sunday night weekly auctions. So I'm not, I'm not involved in any of the, I don't do a lot on, I do some on Fanatics Live but very little. So I'm not yet sure the reason, like it would be a, it would be a no brainer for me Paul, but for the fact that it's during World cup and it's going to be very expensive to book a hotel room. Never mind it's, you know, it's expensive to travel to New York anyway. But now you add in World cup and hotel room prices are extremely high. So not for a lack of wanting to be there. I'm currently undecided. It's gonna, it might be a game time decision for me to come to Fanatics Fest this year but I was at the first one, I saw you there. I didn't make it last year. I had a conflict so I couldn't make it. And if I don't make it this year like I'm definitely going to be back but World cup is a, is a. Puts a bit of a wrench into, into it. Into the, the cost of travel. So that's kind of where I'm at. How about you? Are you going to be back? You'll be back, obviously. Huh? Well, you just nailed it. Like, I, I looked at the hotel prices and they're, they're at least three or four times the amount that they've been in the past. And probably because of the World cup, like you're saying, and it's, it's. I'm looking at, you know me, right? Like, I'm, I'm looking at, okay, how much money is this trip going to cost me versus, like how many cards could I buy with the amount of money that I would spend on this trip? And when I'm thinking about the. So you weren't there last year, but the price of cards at the vendor tables were way higher than comps. And from talking to some of the vendors, I got some whispers that that's kind of the way that the show wanted it because the audience was a very different audience than any other card show, which, which I think we don't necessarily have to unpack why that is, but it's definitely not your typical card show. So for that reason and the reason of just the expense of getting there, what I'm actually debating doing, I'm undecided as well. They haven't opened up as of the recording of this. They also haven't opened up their media credentialing yet. So I haven't been able to secure a media credential for that, which would bring the cost of my trip down by a few hundred dollars. So for all those reasons, what I'm debating doing is staying home and doing a show where I literally go on ebay and I bid on the, the amount of cards that I would have spent going to the show. So we'll see that. That's where I'm at right now. We're. That, that's. That could be a fun piece of content for sure. If would have cost you three grand, let's go shopping and spend three grand. But then you have to think about the opportunity cost and the intangible benefits of going, the connections you make, the networking, picking up more subscribers, clients, whatever it might be. So you can never really know how that would have, what sort of results you would have had by going. But that still sounds like a fun piece of content. Very true, very true. So, still undecided. Let me ask you real quick, since you mentioned fanatics collect and you Cover their auctions. I'm always curious and, you know, I'm familiar with Fanatics Collect used to be pwcc. I think you've covered them from back the time when they were PWCC. But a lot of our premium members at no offseason.com ask and we've tried to do some experiments about like should XYZ card, is it better to auction it off on ebay or is it better to auction it off on Fanatics Collect? Talk about that real quick from your standpoint, your experience on like, what types of cards make more sense for Fanatics collect, I guess, versus eBay, I think, you know, Fanatics Collect, they have, they have three marketplaces in one, right? They've got the fixed price, they've got the weekly and the premier auctions. So the premier auction is meant for cards that are, I think, $5,000 and up. So they put a lot of marketing behind it. They do. They do a pretty good job of marketing that, that auction. I mean, part of their marketing is engaging myself to, to cover, to do the, the premier auction show. We've done, you know, 60 months in a row. It's been five years. I've been doing that show from back in the PWCC days. So obviously I'm a little bit biased because I, I work with them and I, and I see these cards selling and they're setting records regularly over there. So is that good for buyers when you're setting records as the buyer? You know, you mentioned when you were just talking about the fanatics fest and how a lot of the comps are, the prices were above comps. I think it's important for people to realize that the le. And I'm, I'm sure you talk about this, Paul, but the less liquid a card is, and by that I don't mean that it's not a good holding. I mean, there's just fewer copies out there. So the less of a commodity, maybe a certain card is, the more you might have to pay to get it. Especially if there's only 10 or 20 or one or two of them made. You can't always expect to get them at comp or less than comp. Sometimes you have to. Sometimes, yeah, you have to be brave and say, okay, the, the latest comp is 5,000 bucks, and now I got to pay seven to get it. Well, that might be the best move you've ever made. And I'm speaking from actual experience where that's happened, where I've set records before buying a card and done very Well I once, I once bought a, I mean listen, it's easy to say in hindsight, but this happened. I, I paid the most ever for a BGS 9.5 Michael Jordan jambalaya first year jambalaya from 9. I broke the record on that card. I sold that card for 250 more than I paid for it. A few years later I was, I was bold and brave enough to, to pay the all time high work couldn't have worked out any better. Well it could have, I could have held it even longer. It could have, it could have. But that, that went in 2023 when I had to raise some money. So you know, comps or comps are simply a data point in my mind they are but the more liquid a card becomes the more you need to rely on them. So a lot of times people will ask okay, could I get more money auctioning this card off on Fnatics collect over ebay? And I think what it comes down to is like if, if it's liquid on ebay and, and you've got, and it's, it's more accessible then ebay is probably the better option. But if it's, if it's a little bit less accessible, there's not as many comps and maybe over $5,000 in terms of like it's, it's value estimate or its, its possible sales price then or even like what you're expecting to get for it then fanatics collect like I think rarity might be, just to be concise, I think rarity might be the factor between like where, where you would consider going to Fanatics collect over ebay. Well also has a lot of, a lot of cards that aren't, that aren't high end cards. So that's where it gets a little tricky, right? Absolutely. And I mean so, so first of all I'm not a wizard. I, I can't, I can't predict and I get asked the question all the time is this better for ebay or fanatics? And it's like I don't know, 100 what's going to be better? I can tell you that ebay gets all the eyeballs. I think no matter if you're, if you're shopping on any platform every, everybody is watching ebay except for the people who've had a bad experience that I don't buy anybody anymore. That's fine. Right? But everybody watches ebay so you're gonna get all the eyeballs there. One of the, one of the advantages that fanatics collect has is their Vault. Ebay doesn't have a vault. Fanatics collect does. So for a lot of people, it's not really a matter of where can I get the most money. It's a matter of convenience. And that convenience saves them money on, on other, in other aspects of the overall transaction, the whole process. So people can easily store their cards in that vault and then with the click of a button, list it for sale. They don't need to take delivery, they don't need to scan it, they don't need to list it, do any of that stuff. It's more convenient that way. So fanatics, it's like some, you know, Paul, it's a great question. I wish I knew the answer. But there, I don't think there is a pure answer. I think it comes down to many other factors. You know, that's one of the, and that's something I talk about in pops and comps, is that, no, there are very few comps that are truly reliable that truly indicate a card's absolute value. Because no marketplace, even ebay, has every interested buyer watching. If we had, if there was one like, like the stock market, where there are, where there's really one place to buy the, the exchange, that's it. Every interested buyer is watching the stock, the price on one platform. In the, in the card market, there's dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of marketplaces. Some of them even I'm not aware of, you're not aware of. So you can get deals. Fanatics collect might be an opportunity. Not everybody's watching. Fanatics collect like everybody watches ebay. So it might be an opportunity. And I know people do this, they sit there and, and they wait for every Sunday to come and they, they, they search from cheapest and they're just picking off cards that nobody's watching. So that's, that's a potential opportunity strategy. Whereas ebay. The same strategy exists, however, it's different. You got to look for spelling mistakes, poor listings. I had, I had somebody reach out to me, Paul, just yesterday, get an email from this guy. You maybe got the same email. There's a new company, a new entrepreneur, and they have a new service which is basically helping you find cars that are poorly listed. And they want me to beta test it. So, you know, I don't know if I'm going to or not, but you might want to. You know, it sounds good to me. I love what you just said in the last, in the last couple of minutes where it's like, those are all great strategies to find deals. Maybe you're watching fanatics collect for the deal and you're selling on ebay. I think it's always going to depend on the card and it's always going to depend on the timing. Like look to list something in a fanatics collect auction, it's different timing than listing it on ebay if you want to be in either like their monthly auction or you know, different things like that. So I think it always depends on the scenario, which is basically that's why I exist because I like to get into the details. I'm trying to bring value to the no off season community here. Yeah. How do. Okay, how much did you pay for the card? You know, like, do you need the money? How much money do you need for getting into that like almost financial advisor esque area of everything. And so everybody that listens to the sports card strategy show knows how much I love ebay. I also have love for fanatics collect for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned. It's different services, different strokes for different folks for sure. And it depends on your goals. So you mentioned pops and comps real quick in there. And I want to ask you about hobby content creation. So you've been creating hobby content for a long time. How much hobby content do you consume from other, from other content creators? Fun question. I mean there were, there were. There's been years and months where I'm. I almost feel like I, I need to consume it all. I don't want to miss anything. I go, I go in kind of cycles though. Paul. Like, it just depends. I, I probably like, I go, I walk just about every night unless I'm sicker traveling and I walk for about an hour and I listen to podcasts and, and I listen to them at like 1.5 so I can consume more of them. So I'm, I love, I, I find lately I'm more into podcast than YouTube content. I'm finding YouTube content to, to be just a little bit. Not as interesting to me as it used to be. And there's a, there's a lot of, I don't know, just it seems like a lot of content is about other people's content, not about coming up with anything original. And I like original. I like philosophical discussions. I like diving into the, the mindset. That's what I really get off on is, is not only that but also having my mind open to something I've never thought of before. So I'm very influential. Not influence, not, not whatever. If you're an influencer, I'm the person that you can influence me by opening my mind to a theory, an approach I've never thought of before. And so that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking to have my mindset shifted because I'm open minded. I wanna, I wanna think of other ways to look at the hobby. Look at collecting, look at investing in the hobby. Maybe I'm missing something. So I'm open mind. I like that type of content. I, I do consume quite a bit still, but it's, you know, 90 minutes a day maybe on average, which is probably a lot, relatively speaking, but I used to consume a lot more than I, than I do now. So. Yeah, all right, so you mentioned in there originality and that really resonates with me because I feel like without trying to be too negative here, I do feel like there's so much just regurgitation of other people's content. And I think on one hand it's a good sign for the hobby that so many people are interested in, like what we would call hobby news. But I mean, you see stuff that just gets reposted and regurgitated over and over again. And it's gotten to the point where a lot of the stuff that I, as I'm scrolling through my Instagram feed, for example, I'm just seeing the same stuff over and over again from different people posting it and it just becomes a little bit uninteresting. So what you said in there about originality, I really like the thought leaders of the hobby, the people who are coming up with their own original content. And I honestly think the recipe for that is really simple. It's just like talking about your own experiences. And like you mentioned the word mindset, like I love that too. I think that everyone's mindset is unique to them and it's a fascinating discussion to have with anyone else in the hobby. Like, what is your mindset? What is your sports card strategy? What is your hobby? Why? How do you identify on the hobby spectrum all these different things? So I think like the opportunity to create compelling hobby content always exists because everyone's going to have experiences if they're participating in the hobby truly that people can resonate with whether they're learning something brand new, which I love, or whether they're just sort of validating each other. Remember that no offseason.com is the only place on the planet with sports card rankings updated every Friday, sorted by the ROI percentage you're likely to make in the future your competitive advantage in the sports card market. Nooffseason.com gives you the data, tools and insider insights to flip sports cards for profit faster and smarter. Check nooffseason.com now to see if there are any spots available in our limited premium member community or join the wait list to get in on our next drop. There's two types of hobby content that irks me. One is people who basically don't have any originality and two, people who, I would call it misleading for lack of a better term. So a good example is like there are people who will post things about getting a big hit out of a, getting a case hit out of a hobby box or getting, you know, get, getting like a $200 card out of a hangar box and like, and you just, you see those kinds of like success stories posted so often and talked about so often. But the reality is that the, the odds of that happening, like you're seeing that in a curated fashion. And so that's why I call it a little bit misleading because I think people's expectations when get so high for that to happen to them. And the reality is it doesn't really happen that often. You're just seeing it on social media. So what's your take on that? Do, do you agree, disagree with that? Those kinds of content being annoying? Yeah, I mean it's the way the world works. It's the way capitalism works in America and all that. I mean, you know, any, any pro, any consumer product that is marketed to an audience is going to, there's going to be this positive spin put on it. Like just anything from, you know, buying milk. But there's some like very attractive woman drinking milk in the advertisement right up to, you know, you go buy a big Mac and McDonald's, the picture on the drive thru menu looks like some elaborate hamburger. You get it? It's squash. It looks nothing like the picture. Every consumer product, it is souped up sort of thing when it is sold. The marketing is, it's a, it's all marketing really is what it is. So when any breaker or card company is trying to market their product, they're going to show you the best product, they're the best hits. They're going to show you the highlights of the breaks. They're not going to show you the, the dud boxes. Why would they do that? It makes no sense. So it really comes down to understanding marketing. As a consumer you have to understand that, that everybody's out to, to get into your wallet. So under, just understand that and proceed accordingly. And understand that not every, not every box is going to have some hot woman coming out of it like you see in advertisements, right? You know the saying, Paul, sex sells that. That's true. That is absolutely true. It applies to the hobby too. But in that case the sex is, is the one of one logo man coming out of the pack. And that's what's going to help people, that's what's going to help the company sell more products. So when it comes to content, we see that all over the place. And that's one type of. There are several types of content and for example card show vlogging, deal deal vlogging where someone just has a camera on them at their vendor booth the whole time you and you see them making deals. People love that, that type of content and I think that type of content resonates with a very general population and maybe especially with the younger population. You know that 12 to 30 year old type of demographic. They love that because those are, that's a demographic where people are still trying to figure out what are they going to do for the rest of their lives to make money. And they see this happening and they oh, I can do cards because look, I can go set up a booth and I can do these deals and I can buy a card for 1500 and sell it for $1700 and 10 minutes later there's content out there like that. So I don't actually mind that content that I find it's entered that is entertainment to me. It is not educational to me. It's simply entertaining in my mind. You got the, you've got the, the news content, talking about what the, the, the hobby headlines. Every, everybody, there's 10 or 12 guys I follow that, that, that share that. I don't need to watch all their videos or all their podcast one is enough to find out what's going on. Unless you enjoy hearing people's takes on things. Hey, even on my flagship show on Saturday nights, we talk about some hobby headlines, but it's not what the show's about. We are about, it's about ideas and my, and, and just different, all sorts of different things. So yeah, hobby content, I think, listen, it's, I think it's as good as it's ever been, but I think it could always be better and I think it's always going to get better as more creative minds get into the place they, they identify a hole or, or a gap in content and say I'm going to fill that gap. A lot of people, Paul, as you though, as you well know, just love to complain and Bash everybody. Well, why don't you, why don't you put some, you know, I'm sorry about your, sorry for your life. But why don't you put something positive out there? Maybe create some content if you think everyone else sucks. And that's what some of us have done and some of us continue to do. And those are the kind of people that I would support. Where you're actually trying to bring value to the audience, to the hobby and help the hobby level up, I can support that all day long. It's hard to support just the, where it's, it's just all about drama all the time. And I've, you know, curating your content, curating what you consume is almost as important as curating your, your collection or your, or your holdings. That's well said, man. That's well said. Value, value, value. That's, that's what I try to challenge myself to bring. And that's what makes it fulfilling really to me is like challenging myself to, to try to help people through bringing value. And that's great stuff, man. So, real quick, last question. Being based in Canada, but doing business basically worldwide, but I would say primarily probably in Canada, in North America, for you, what challenges are there, Challenges that you face that people need to know about? When you know the hobby you mentioned, you collect everything, you dabble in everything. Well, other than soccer and hockey, pretty much everything else you mentioned is United States based. Baseball, basketball, football, in terms of the primary pro sports leagues in the world, being in the U.S. so what challenges do you face being in Canada and doing business in the U.S. well, when it comes to cards themselves, they're the only real challenges are getting cards across the border. If I buy a card from a US seller, I need to get that across the border into my collection. So that, that's a challenge. But there's ways. So you know, you've got things like ship my cards, com, C, mailbox, those sorts of services that allow you. I've got a brother in Arizona. I have stuff shipped to him. I go to Arizona once a year. I pick it up. You know, it's, there are ways to deal with that and there's like, hey, that's a, that was a, a service gap that a couple entities recognized and filled it for international buyers. When it comes to what I like, I am a content creator. That's what I do for a living, is create content. And I'd say of, you know, of my 20 or so clients, most of the, I think 18, 17, 18 of them are based out of the U.S. so there's really been no challenge there at all. The, the biggest. I don't know if it's a challenge as much as it's a disappointment. Whenever I go to a show in the US I don't take cards with me anymore. I come without cards because I once got held up at, at customs and, you know, they saw cards. What are you doing with them? The guy knew what some of them were and he's like, yeah, you know, you, you can't just bring them across the border to set up at a card show. You, you need to follow the, the protocol. And the protocol is a bit of a hassle. I just decided like, I'm just not carrying. I'm just not going to carry if I'm not carrying. I can't, I can avoid all the hassles, but the challenge there is that now I don't have trade bait. I don't have ways to get money at the national to go buy other cards. So I deal with that. I just deal with it. You know, I, I load up my PayPal. I sell, I sell from here, leading up, and then I load up PayPal so I can just spend money instead of having to bring, to spend cards. The other challenge is bringing cards just to show friends. You know, I can't do that. But that's not a business challenge, it's just a hobby challenge. So these are, I would say at worst, these are like minor inconveniences. There are ways to deal with it here. You know, even going to the Toronto Expo, which is the second biggest show in the world behind only the National. Like there is so much non hockey there. It's maybe 40 hockey now. It used to be higher, but basketball, football and baseball are all huge up here. Huge. I mean, you know, we have the Raptors, we have the Blue Jays in Canada. Those are Canada's teams. But you know, if you were just at the. Even Dr. Beckett, who I hosted at the Expo this past, a couple weekends ago in Toronto, he did a podcast leading up to the, to the Expo, which, with a friend of his who's been to the last several, who said that it's 90% hockey. And I'm shaking my head going, no, no, it isn't. It absolutely isn't. But Dr. Beckett then came to the Expo and I remember asking him in person, I said, so what do you think of your buddy who said that it was 90% hockey? He's like, he, he was completely wrong. He said it might be more like 40%. And he was there working the aisles. Dr. Beckett, you know, he wasn't just there to, to do interviews. He was there digging through dollar bins incognito, walking around the show. So he had a good gauge and I talked to him after he said, yeah, he was wrong. It's there, there's way more non hockey than, than people think at the Toronto Expo. And it's, you know, the proofs in the pudding. Some, some big time influencers, tick tockers and all that are there doing deals and, and they love it. It's some of them, it's their favorite show. Including, you know, the bit. I think the biggest guy in the whole hobby now from a reach perspective is Kyle at King of the Cards and it's his, it's his number one show. So the Toronto Expo, the Canadian market is vibrant. It's not nearly only hockey. And I think a lot of people have that misconception that are based out of the US Right now's a great time to quickly hit pause on this episode so that I can tell you about a solution to all the issues that you guys have been having with your PSA vaults. We've heard some horror stories from Lefty and from a lot of our premium members who use the PSA vault. Many of them have said, look, PSA has lost my cards. They're not offering me good solutions. Their customer service doesn't get back to me for months. I can't see the cards that are in my vault, so I can't list them. When I list them, there's a glitch in the listing. There's all these nightmarish stories that keep coming in from the PSA vault. We have a solution. It is our end to end solution for premium members@nooffseason.com what do I mean? This is not only a great solution for domestic people in the United States of America, but for people who live abroad as well and want to do business from other countries with American ebay buyers and sellers. Okay, all you need to do is instead of using the PSA vault, you can drop ship your cards to no offseason.com you can use our shipping address with our grading services as your address in whatever marketplace that you're buying your cards from. Whether it's ebay with my slabs, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, whether it's X, whether it's discord channels. Wherever you buy your cards, you can use our shipping address as your shipping address. All you need to do is include your name on the name line with our address and we will receive your cards for you. We will grade them at the grading company of your choice. When we get them back, we will consign them for you in a strategic way, way more strategic than any other consigner out there. So consider no offseason.com's end to end solution. This is a great solution for any of you that are struggling using the PSA vault due to their customer service, due to their technology glitches, whatever it may be due to the fact that they've lost your cards, which has happened a lot. So consider using our nooffseason.com solution for this. I think it's best for people who live abroad. Okay? Because these people want to do business with American ebay accounts. They want to buy from American sellers. They want to list their cards to American sellers. Because for many, many sports, the market is stronger in the United States of America, helping out the international market through our end to end solutions and the domestic market, the United States of America residents who are just simply struggling with the PSA vault consider the end to end solutions@noallseason.com all right, let's get back to this episode of the Sports Card Strategy Show. I'm gonna have to check it out one of these days. Thanks to Jeremy Lee of Sports Cards Live for being on the Sports Card Strategy show today. Check out Pops and Comps on Amazon. Check out the hobby spectrum.com don't forget to check out Jeremy's show. It's amazing and it's Sports cards live on YouTube and you can get more information on Jeremy on Instagram as well. J. Lee, underscore Sports Cards Live. Jeremy Lee, any shout outs you want to give or anything else you want to add before we let you go? Well, thanks for having me, Paul. I just, I want to say like, I, I enjoy our conversations, you know, like it's, even if I'm, if my mood coming into the conversation is more subdued, I, I just get energized talking to you and that's your energy wearing off. And just knowing you now for, I don't know, five years or so, it's just so much fun getting to hang out. I really enjoy the time shout outs. You know, I, I would shout out my, my fellow panelists. Sports Cards Live has evolved a lot over the past several years and I have regulars that come on the show and I wanna, I wanna show them out. I want to shout out my buddy Joe Perot, my buddy David Chase, Chris Hoage, Chris McGill, founder of Card Ladder, is a regular every Saturday night. Josh Adams, Leighton Sheldon from Just Collect. These are, that's my, my roster of regulars and then I bring on a special guest or two during the three hour show. So I want to shout out my chat as well. Who the loyal chat members come in and, and drop their knowledge or comments or questions. I have a very live and interactive show on Saturday nights and I want to invite your audience as well, Paul, to come check it out. It's free of course. And yeah, that, that, that, those are my, that's what comes to mind. So thanks for the opportunity. Do you like the content on this show? Do you want more? Go premium@noallseason.com now to get unlimited advice answered on our Friday podcast for premium members called the Premium Pod. Check out no offseason.com now to see if there are any spots available. Join the wait list to get in on our next drop. You got it man. You got it. This is, it's always just the beginning of us continuing to create content together and just innovate in the hobby, my man. So thanks again. Great seeing you. Thanks so much for being here with us on the Sports Card Strategy Show. If you enjoyed the content on today's show, there's plenty more waiting for you@nooffseason.com just go to no offseason.com right now. Get our formula based sports card rankings, sports card school inventory tracker, the ability to grade with us and the premium podcast where we answer an unlimited amount of your questions. Check it out right now@nooffseason.com for everyone@nooffseason.com I'm Paul Hickey. Thanks again for being here with us on the Sports Card Strategy Show. We'll see you again soon. Have a great day.