The Biggest Month in Sports Card Show History Is Here

The hobby has never seen anything like this before. This month is undoubtedly the biggest month in card show history. In the middle of this month, Fanatics Fest in New York City, the Dallas Card show, and the West Coast Card show in Anaheim will all take place on the exact same weekend. And then, less than two weeks later, the entire hobby heads to Chicago for the National Sports Collectors Convention. That means four massive shows, three different regions, thousands of dealers, an incredible amount of money, inventory and attention moving through the hobby in just a few weeks. But with so many choices, which show is actually right for you? And how should you prepare differently for each of these shows? And will collectors and dealers still have enough money and energy left by the time the national arrives? Today, I'm going to preview all four shows, explain what makes each show different, and help you build a plan for what could be the wildest month the sports card hobby has ever seen. The Jeff Wilson show is brought to you by Arena Club, the official home of SLAB packs. Now available every day, SLAB packs offer an exciting way to collect graded cards with confidence. Plus, every pack comes with an instant offer to buy your slab. Don't miss out. Explore the latest SLAB packs and more by downloading the Arena Club app. Just search Arena Club in the App Store and use promo code SCI for 20% off your first purchase. Hello. And here we go from the Arena Club studio inside Cards hq. Okay, buckle up, ladies and gentlemen. Four enormous shows this month. Three happening on the exact same weekend, and then the national less than two weeks later. Every region of the country gets one of these shows. Unprecedented competition for dealers, buyers and attention. Let's make sense of it all right now. So let's start with the three shows that are taking place in the middle of the month. July 16th through 19th, Fanatics Fest, New York City, the Dallas Card show, and the West Coast Card show in Anaheim. Then we're going to talk about the national, which is in Chicago, in Rosemont from July 29th through August the second. We're going to talk about each show. And we're going to talk about why all of this matters to the hobby as a whole. Because there's a lot of things happening, from major project product launches and announcements to dealers having to choose where to send their inventory to buyers with splitting up their money across these shows, huge amounts of money entering and leaving the hobby in a very short period of time. And the national testing how much demand remains after those three big shows. It all adds up to this month perhaps being the biggest test for the health of the sports card market ever it's going to be a wild month. So let's jump into the four shows. First of all, let's talk about Fanatics Fest. New York City. Fanatics Fest is more of a sports festival than a traditional card show. It does have a good card show element to it, but it is cards mixed with athletes and celebrities and entertainment. There are a ton of interactive sporting setups at Fanatics Fest with all of the leagues represented, but this year a much heavier emphasis on soccer, of course, with the World cup than ever before. Now, if you've ever been to like the super bowl experience or the, the March Madness experience around the Final Four or the Major League Baseball All Star Game experience, what you're seeing there has a lot of similar elements to what you can expect from Fanatics Fest. Interactive games for the kids to play, giveaways, activations involving the leagues and the brands, athlete appearances, just kind of a fun feel to the entire event. Fanatics Fest is going to be your best broad family experience out of any of these card show options coming up this month. This assumes that your family cares about more than just the cards. If you got kids who would be, who would have Fun running the 40 yard dash or testing their 3 point shooting or seeing how many, you know, soccer goals they can shoot in 60 seconds, Fanatics Fest is going to have all kinds of fun things like that for them to do. Fanatics Fest is also going to get the most mainstream media attention out of any of these shows. If you're at Fanatics Fest, you feel like you're somewhere. News is breaking at Fanatics Fest. In fact, last year at Fanatics Fest, the news of Kevin Durant signing with the Houston Rockets, that news broke on stage at Fanatics Fest. So you're going to get a lot of mainstream media, in fact, so much so that ESPN sets up there and a lot of podcasts and radio shows set up at Fanatics Fest and actually do their show broadcasts from the show floor of Fanatics Fest. So it's got a cool vibe to it. It feels on trend. It feels like where things are happening, there's a lot to see. They're doing the Fanatics games again, which is a competition between a whole bunch of professional athletes as well as a lot of amateur athletes who come together and compete. It competed out for, you know, a million dollars in prizes. Right. They also have, they have the card show segment as well. They are saying over 250 car dealers this year. It's going to certainly be cards. You know, cards at Fanatics Fest are part of the experience, the card show by itself, it's a pretty good regional card show is how I would describe is akin to like a Dallas card show or something of that nature. That's the card show experience. It's nowhere near the size of the National. It's not even as big as the west coast card show in terms of a pure card show experience, but it's a good card show, a solid regional card show placed amongst a really incredible overall sports fan event. So if you're looking for the mix of the two, this is the right event for you. And of course, what Fanatics Fest offers that none of the other shows offer is because it's an official Fanatics event. Topps drops special releases during the show. Certain products that you can get at Fanatics Fest that you can't get anywhere else and by the way, flip opportunities because those Fanatics Fest exclusive releases like Topps Chrome Baseball Fanatics Fest Edition, people will buy those at the show and they'll immediately flip them for significant profit, often on the resale market. Tops is also doing a trade night at the show like they did last year. Now this year's Fanatics Fest is going to look and feel different than the Fanatics Fests of the past. First of all, this year's event is going to be four days instead of three. They've added an extra day to Fanatics Fest also. Fanatics Fest this year is built around the World Cup Final weekend. The World Cup Final is taking place in New York in the New York area. Well, technically I think in New Jersey in the, in MetLife Stadium, but right there, right in the New York City area, it's taking place in that area on the Sunday of Fanatics Fest. That's why Fanatics Fest is what it is and that's why it's going to have a soccer feel. In fact, the official press conferences for the two teams in the World Cup Final will be held at Fanatics Fest on the Friday and on Sunday. For those who don't go to the World cup game, they're going to have a huge indoor World Cup Final watch party. They're also mixing some other things up this year, such as making the celebrities and the athletes a little more accessible on the show floor. They're going to have a walk of fame that goes through the show floor where you can see them, you know, kind of walking between appearances and everything of that nature. So should you go to Fanatics Fest? If you can, let's say, only pick one of these shows that you can go to over the Course of the month. Is Fanatics Fest the one that you should pick? Well, if you're a family with kids with different interests and not all of them are necessarily like as hardcore into Cards, then yeah, I would actually pick Fanatics Festival. That's going to be your best mix of entertainment for a family that has different interests. If you're a fan who really prioritizes athletes and experiences, then I would pick Fanatics Fest. If you're a collector who likes the card component but also thinks you're going to love the entertainment component, I would pick Fanatics Fest. If you're a content creator who seeks an opportunity to capture athletes and maybe even some, you know, athlete or celebrity interactions or major moments in your content, I would pick Fanatics Fest. If you're a big soccer fan or soccer collector, I would pick Fanatics Fest because it is during the World Cup Final weekend. Although at the national there is the Soco Expo, which is a really good soccer event as well. There are drawbacks to Fanatics Fest, of course. First of all, it's an expensive New York City trip. Even more expensive this year the because it's during the World cup finals weekend, so hotels are more expensive. The city's going to be more crowded. Fanatics Fest brings massive crowds. There's many distractions. It's harder to focus exclusively on card deals. This is not your best pure Card show. Paid signings, celebrity programming may end up taking large portions of your day. So if you're going to go to Fanatics Festival, you got to have a carefully planned schedule to make sure you can bring it all in. But overall, Fanatics Fest is an awesome experience and I will be at Fanatics Fest. That is the show that me and my Cards HQ team are choosing to go to in that middle of July slot I'm not going to be able to get to. That means I have to sacrifice the Dallas Card show and I have to sacrifice the West Coast Card show, which are also incredible shows. But I am choosing Fanatics Fest for some of the reasons that I just mentioned. And I'm going to be bringing my entire family with me to Fanatics Fest this year, which I'm really excited about. Now let's talk about the Dallas Card show taking place the same exact days as Fanatics Fest in the middle of this month. If you've been to the Dallas Card show before, you know it is a great show for pure buying, selling and trading. And if you haven't been, what you should know is that it's a big show. 700 tables and some of the high, some of the real high end cards, they get transacted on the Dallas show floor. The Dallas show show floor. Every time there's a Dallas Card show. For a show that is not nearly as big as the national, it sure commands a lot of money, a lot of heavy, heavy transaction volume, serious collectors, big dollars. The Dallas Card show is always a spectacle, not because it's that big, because it's not that big, but because the quality of cards and the quality of dealers and the volume of transactions that take place is really significant. So I always recommend the Dallas Card Show. It's one of my favorite card shows to go to. I also like the fact that they have a hotel connected to the convention center. Super convenient. But you need to make sure that you get a room in that hotel and that hotel sells out typically a couple of months before the show. So if you, if you don't book early, you may not get a room in the hotel that's connected to the show and then your experience is less convenient because you're going to end up being a little ways away, you know, with whatever hotel you're in. Dallas has a lot of modern cards, a lot of ultra modern, a lot of high end, not as much vintage, more ultrama. Think, think bigger, ultra modern cards and they have some TCG there as well. Now of course, the Dallas Card show takes place six times a year. And this particular show this month is not going to really be much different than any previous Dallas Card Show. So for me, although I love the Dallas Card show and I like going to as many of them as I can possibly go to, missing this month's Dallas Card show makes sense because of the other two options. Fanatics Fest New York City happens one time a year. The West Coast Card show happens twice a year. And only one of those two times is it in Anaheim, which is the bigger of the shows and in my opinion the better of the west coast card shows. So the Dallas Card show, unfortunately this month is up against the best west coast card show of the year and the Fanatics Fest New York City. So I think this is the Dallas Card show probably to skip. And I hate to say that because I love the Dallas Card show, but that's just the reality of the calendar. Get to another Dallas Card Show. If you can't make this one later in the year, I think you'll enjoy yourself. Also worth noting about the Dallas Card Show, a lot of trading takes place in the hotel lobby after the show's over. It's a really cool Environment. In fact, they have an official trade night every Saturday that runs until 2am so people trade late and I've seen people in the lobby at 4am trading cards at the Dallas Card Show. Actually I should say I haven't personally seen it. I have been told that the lobby is still busy at 4am with people trading cards. So. So you know, you can go to the Dallas Card show and stay up all night trading, which is a fun experience. Also Beckett grades on site at the Dallas Card show which is pretty cool. So if you're a serious buyer seller, if you're a high end ultra modern collector, if you've got a lot of inventory you want to move, there's a lot of buying that takes place at that show. If you love late night trading and you're really all about the cards, Dallas Card show is always a great option for you. Then there's the West Coast Card show, the third show, the third major show taking place the exact same weekend. And this West Coast Card show is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center. Once a year the show takes place in Anaheim in the summer or early fall like this one. And then once a year it takes place in Ontario, California. Typically that one in like January or February. But this is the Anaheim show and, and the Anaheim show in my opinion is the better of the two shows. It's a huge show, 1,000 vendor tables. So a good amount bigger than Dallas and a good amount bigger than the Fanatics Fest card show experience. 220,000 square foot floor, big show floor. Still less than half the size of the national because nothing compares to the national in terms of people. Pure Card show, but bigger than almost any other show that exists outside of the national and outside of Fanatics Fest New York City. So the West Coast Card show is a significant show. It has a lot of sports. It also has a lot of Pokemon and tcg. One unique thing about the West Coast Card show is you get a, you get a heavy presence of dealers from Asia. So you get folks, dealers and collectors from Asia who will make the trip to the LA area and come over for this card show in particular you get a lot of sports, you get a lot of tcg, heavy emphasis on buying trading and high end cards. And there are also, you know, late night after hours trading at the hotels at the West Coast Card show like you will typically find at Dallas as well. In the past, the West Coast Card show has also done some kids workshops and a scavenger hunt. I don't know what their exact plans are for this One, but typically it tends to be relatively kid friendly. Not as kid friendly as Fanatics Fest by any means because they've got all the, you know, all the activations there with all the different sports things set up. But it does tend to be generally a kid friendly show. I would say the West Coast Card show is probably more kid friendly than the Dallas show because they do some of the kid, you know, know the kid activities there at the West Coast Card Show. The West Coast Card show is great. I wish it was not the same weekend as the F. As Fanatics Fest in Dallas or I would definitely go to the West Coast Card Show. But it is unfortunately the same weekend. So you gotta, you gotta, you know, pick your journey. Now I will say another cool element of the West Coast Card show if you have a family, is it is near Disneyland. The Anaheim Convention center is right near Disneyland. And I actually went a couple of years ago, took my family and we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and we did the card show for a day and we did Disneyland for a day. I think we did the card show for two days and then did Disneyland the day after before we headed back home. That was a hit with the kids. So actually the West Coast Card show with the Disneyland aspect added in gives Fanatics Festival a real run for its money in terms of, you know, being just a great overall family and kid event. So that is a look at the three shows taking place that same weekend in July. If you have to choose, hopefully I gave you a little bit of guidance on which one might be the better show for you. And if you are going to try to hit one of those, let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. But. But now let's talk about the national because the national is two weeks later and I can't believe that the national is only two weeks after those shows. I'm going to be exhausted. My team is going to be exhausted. But we're going to do it and we're going to have a great time. The national is the traditional center of the sports card hobby. It's been going on for a long time. This is the 46th annual national, the National Sports Collectors Convention. The full official name of it. 46 of them have taken place this year. It's the biggest ever, 500,000 square feet. It dwarfs every other card show out there. And it's, it's even bigger this year. So one thing that's different this year is an expanded card show floor. We'll talk about that in a minute at the national, you get the manufacturers, you get the graders, you get the auction houses, you get the marketplaces. So it's more than just the cards. All the cards are at the national, tons of them. But you also, the national has by far the biggest corporate setup. So you get all of the big companies in the sports card space. They're, they're all set up at the National. So not just do you get to see all the cards, but you can actually go to the tops booth, you can go to the panini booth, you can go to the whatnot booth. Of course you can come to the sports card investor booth. Of course you can come to the cards HQ booth. Of course you can come to the market movers booth. We're going to be there as well, along with all the grading companies and the marketplaces and the auction houses and the manufacturers and the live streamers. All of it's at the National. And of course the national has the best overall breadth of inventory and eras of any card show. This year's National I mentioned is going to be the biggest ever. They have added additional free floor space, especially upstairs. You may remember last year was the first national ever where at the top of the escalators they took a small portion of an additional room up there and, and added some extra dealer tables. Well, this year they've taken the entire additional room for extra dealer tables as well as extra corporate sponsors. And that will make a big difference because it is a big room upstairs that adds a lot of extra dealers into the fold at the national. And that's a nice thing because it is hard for new dealers to get into the National. It's very hard. Big waiting list, a lot of legacy dealers who just lock their same tables down year and year and year again. So by adding all the new tables upstairs, it is expanding out the show floor space that allows newer dealers to get in, which means a lot more ultra modern cards because typically the newer dealers are the ultra modern ones. Where the dealers that have been the national legacy dealers that have been, you know, set up at the national for 20 or 30 years, a lot of them are the vintage dealers. So we're going to see more ultra modern than ever before and just more show floor in general than ever before. They have a collector's lounge set up again this year. They're advertising it as 50,000 square feet this year. That might be bigger than last year. That sounds big. I, I actually didn't make it to the collector's lounge last year, so I don't know exactly what that experience entails. But I think it's bigger and better than ever before, if you're into that. Of course, they're doing their massive trade nights again, just like they did last year. Three nights of trade nights. The Thursday night, the Friday night, and the Saturday night. They're doing official trade nights on the second floor of the convention center above the show floor of the National. These trade nights are epic. It's a massive ballroom with thousands of people set up to trade. And then, of course, in some of the hotel lobbies, there are unofficial trade nights, which naturally take place not in all the hotels, because some of the hotels got real fed up with that a couple years ago and banned people from trading in the lobbies. Cause they got overly crowded and there were too many people. And so some hotels now are very, very aware that people may try to set up in the lobbies to trade. So they, like, instantly ban it. If anyone tries to do that, they'll say, absolutely not. But not all the hotels do. In fact, I think the Hyatt still had a lot of trading going on last year. And so you can find some spots to trade. But certainly the official trade nights at the national, the three of those are what I would check out first. There's also events that happen around the national, which is, you know, which is something you don't really get at other card shows. Tons of these companies will invite their top clients, their top customers. You know, whether it's auction houses or marketplaces or live streaming platforms, they'll invite their top customers out for dinners or out for parties. There's a lot of stuff going on around it. Some events that are open to the public, other events that are invite only. And then you also have even a card show, a separate card show. The SOCO Expo, which is a soccer card show, has. Has established itself as its own independent show outside of the National. So that is taking place if you're into soccer cards. It's a massive show for soccer collectors and all the big brands in soccer. So I definitely check that out. And there's like, a Star wars trade night that people have organized, including one of our collector friends here from Atlanta. So a lot of stuff happening around the national, definitely. The national is definitely the granddaddy of them all. So if you could only choose one of these four shows, and if you're really into cards and you're really into, like, going to a big card show, I would choose the national, without a doubt. Without a. If you could only choose one and you. And. And you're super into Cards go to the National. If you're super into the experience, I might consider fanatics fest. You know, if you're more a sports fan, like a general sports fan experience. But if you're super into cards, the national is where you want to be. There is nothing like it. If you're into vintage, definitely choose the national because you're going to get a lot more vintage at the national than you're going to get at the other three shows. Probably more vintage at the national than the other three shows combined. The national is the complete hobby experience. Also, the National I should mention has the biggest selection of on site grading, which is a bigger deal now than ever before. With PSA shut down at their value levels, being able to, you know, grading options are a little more limited with turnaround times with the grading companies and everything being at all time highs as well, you can bring your cards to the national. PSA grades on site. Beckett grades on site. CGC grades on site. I'm not sure what SGC is doing this year. The last couple of years they did not grade on site, so I'm not sure they're going to grade on site. But check with SGC if you're interested in them. But there's more on site grading options at the national than there is any other show. That said, they charge premiums for that and you got to get there early because the lines can get absolutely crazy and, and the on site grading can also sell out early in the show, like early the first day of the show. So get there early if you want to do on site grading. Now, there may be some reasons to not go to the National. First of all, it is overwhelming in size and you really need multiple days to take it in. You know, going if you only have one day, it's going to be hard to really, you know, get through the National. You're not going to get through all of it by any means in one day. No chance. So, you know, if you're going to go to the national, you want to be able to dedicate some time. If you only have one day to quickly hit a card show, I might not choose the National. You know, maybe you go to the national instead next year when you can dedicate three or four days to it. Also, because the national is so popular, getting hotels around the national can be difficult. Traffic getting in and out of the convention center can be tricky. You know, wait times to get food can be long. I mean, it's a really big show and with all those people crushing the show, you've Got all of that that goes along with it. Right. So there's some downside to the national as well, but it is certainly the granddaddy of card shows and I absolutely love it. Cannot wait for the national this year and we are going to have a massive setup for sports card investor market Movers Card Kids Trade Zone. We're doing again this year dedicated area at the national just for. Just for kids to trade cards. Something we do every year. We pay for the space. Just a free service for the community. So if you have any kids coming to the show with you, bring them to our car Kids Trade Zone. They're going to have a great time. So you got four great shows to choose from this month. Hopefully you get to choose more than one, but. But at a minimum choose one because these are great shows and it is never before happens that you've got such great shows all lined up together in one month. So if you're trying to figure out which one to go to, I'll go through a few of the high points once again. If you want the best sports spectacular spectacle. If you want the best sports spectacle, pick Fanatics Fest. If you want the best traditional card show deal making feel, pick Dallas. That's going to be your most kind of traditional card show. If you want the best sports and TCG mix, pick the west coast card show. You're probably going to see more TCG there than you will at the national or Fanatics Fest or the Dallas Card Show. If you want the best overall selection of sports cards, definitely pick the National. That's by far the biggest. If you want the best family entertainment, either pick the either pick Fanatics Fest or pick the west coast card Show. If you're going to double up with Disneyland. If you want the best late night trading culture, pick Dallas or the west coast card show. Although those official trade nights of the national are pretty spectacular as well. If you want the best vintage selection, pick the National. If you want the best mainstream athlete access, pick Fanatics Fest. If you want the best industry networking, pick the national or if you just want to go have a great time, pick any of them. Because they're all going to be awesome and I hope you get the chance to go to some. Okay, I'm going to end with with a couple of things I'm going to have my eye on this month at these card shows just in terms of like how this is all working. So the first thing is, will three shows all on the same weekend cannibalize each other? They've got to to an extent dealers have to make a choice. And I'll. I mean, just as an example, Cards HQ in previous years has gone to the Fanatics Fest, the West coast card show and every single Dallas show. Every single one, never missed. But guess what? Now we got to pick and choose. We actually are going to split some people up. So we're going to actually, believe it or not, we actually will have some presence at all three shows. I think we're going to have an official. We're going to have a big table of Fanatics Festival. I think we're going to have a smaller table at the west coast card show and at Dallas we're going to have a buyer walking around. I don't think we're going to have like an official table at the Dallas show, although it could be wrong. I could be wrong about that. So we're going to try to hit all of them, but to a more limited degree than what we normally would because we are unfortunately having to split our team across all three shows. I'm going just to Fanatics Fest. I'm going to miss west coast and Dallas and which, which bothers me. So there definitely will be some, you know, cannibalization which takes place. Dealers, a lot of dealers are going to have to pick and choose. And so what does that mean for each show? Do we see smaller crowds than we would normally see at the Dallas show, for example, because of the competition from west coast and Fanatics Fest? I think Fanatics Fest will be busier than ever before because of the World cup weekend and it's New York. But I could see, I could see the card show aspect of Fanatics Fest not being maybe quite as good as previous years because it might lose some dealers to the other two shows. And I could see Dallas maybe getting not quite the same attendance, not quite the same dealer spread. Or maybe the west coast card show isn't quite what it was in prior years because of just the fact that they're all competing with each other. So gonna be paying close attention to that. Hopefully all three shows continue to get amazing turnout and the hobby proves that it is so strong that it can easily support all three shows. So that is. That's one thing I'm gonna be looking at, you know, just for, you know, for sure how that goes. The second thing is how do those three shows then affect the national? Is national attendance affected at all? Because people went to one of those three shows and then they're not gonna go to the national two weeks later. I don't think it will be because I think the fact that the national is kind of the granddaddy of them all. But will there be any effect? Will collectors have less money to spend at the national because they went to one of those other shows two weeks prior? I don't know. It's gonna be interesting. I don't think it's gonna have a huge effect, but it maybe could have some somewhat of an effect, maybe especially on the dealers. Because the dealers are, are going to be, you know, if they're doing a lot of buying two weeks earlier then now they're, you know, now they're at the national two weeks later, maybe they can't be doing quite as much buying. Of course you got travel costs that are hitting attendees that they're trying to go to two shows in a month. So that will be interesting to watch. And then the third thing I'm going to be watching is just in general the health of the hobby. Across all of these shows, are we noticing any changes to dealers willingness to buy or cash first trade activity or are the submission grading submission lines or the demand for the new product releases at these various shows, are we noticing any changes to what we would normally expect to see because of the fact that all of these shows are happening in such a close proximity to each other? Can the hobby handle it all? I think the hobby can handle it all and I think this might go down as one of the greatest months in sports card history with all these shows happening. But it's going to be fun to see. What do you think and which shows are you going to let me know in the YouTube comments? And don't forget, these full length episodes of the Jeff Wilson show are available on Spotify, on Apple podcasts and on YouTube under the Jeff Wilson Show. So make sure you are subscribed everywhere. Thank you and we'll see you soon with our next one. Take care.