THWC 429: The National: A Summary

Good morning, everybody. What is up? It is the Hobby with Cage, episode 429. We're gonna call it the National, a summary, but man, it's gonna be way more than that. This episode is brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder. Use code cage. Save yourself a couple bucks if you're new here, because I sent you here over the weekend at the national, welcome. I'm sure there's gonna be a few new people and maybe people signing up. A card ladder. Use code cage. Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly show, which is like the next big show on the calendar. Awesome. Waking up on the Monday after the National. A quick, you know, take a sip and pour one out here for the people we left behind. The weather is pretty terrible and the, the delays are palpable. There are some people who, I know who went to the airport yesterday after the national ended, trying to get back to the tri State area here. And not only were their flights canceled, but they were told that there are no rebookings available for them until Wednesday at the earliest. Sort of like, you know, hurricane season, I guess. But the weather is pretty bad here in the, in New York area, so I can understand that. But to those folks stuck, I wish you a safe return, but that's not what we're talking about today, man. If you listen to my content for the last couple weeks, I know a lot of you did because I spoke to a lot of people at the national who came up to me and said, you know, the, the positivity was amazing. You know, the, the, you know, the, the summary of kind of, you know, why this time, why this season for the hobby is so awesome. You know, when you combine the Fanatics fest and all the sport events and, and lead up to the national and just everybody's energy for it. I tried my best to capture that, you know, in an episode and you know, I wanted to come on here this morning and, and bring that energy as well. You know, come in and, and, you know, continue that and carry that energy forward. It's, it's tough, you know, a lot of steps there. But what's not going to be hard is to maintain the positivity, right? Because, you know, any summary of the national is going to have to start off with a big Yu-Gi-Oh Like, Yu-Gi-Oh The, the national is bigger than ever, more attended than ever. I mean, I'm sure they're going to come out with numbers at some point and tell you that it was a new record attendance, probably even beating Anaheim and it wouldn't surprise me at all. You know, just top line PSA had to basically close. They took in more cards in the first day for grading than they did all of last year's National. And I'm sure they set a record at last year's National. That's a good gauge. That's a good gauge of the health of the hobby. That's good gauge of, you know, of how many people want to get their cards graded, want to get their cards, you know, encapsulated and in the system. And, you know, that's, you know, we could talk about the reason for that in a second. And, you know, how cards have kind of moved into even more of a, you know, a liquid commodity kind of thing once they're in those slabs. But what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to do an episode today, but I have easily 10 episodes to talk about from conversations at the national, from observations at the National. I'm going to talk about, you know, some of them today and do kind of like a summary today and give you guys kind of top line what was, you know, what I saw and what I thought about. But I had multiple conversations about several topics, so I'm going to dedicate episodes to each one of them. Obviously, people were talking about what the national look like versus Fanatics Festival and whether or not, you know, they are gonna. Gonna, you know, eat each other alive or whether or not there's something that can coexist. And, you know, I'm. I'm gonna do a whole thing about that. There was a. A protest that happened at the National. If you were there, you probably heard about this. If you're not, this may be the first time you're hearing about it. And, you know, Friday, I think it was, you know, the protesters came out with signs. They blocked the whole street, the entrance, and there were trucks and all kinds of craziness. And, you know, it was already hard enough to get in to the national at the convention center, but now a protest, and, you know, you're looking at it, you're wondering, who's protesting what, you know, workers who are not getting paid a fair wage, what's the protest? But if you looked at the signs, it was, no more fees. Use fan cash. It turns out that it was a staged protest, a marketing stunt, if you will, by Fanatics, you know, standing in front of the national, which was sponsored by Whatnot and ebay, who obviously have fees. And the thought was, you know, that right after that protest, which obviously garnered a lot of attention, Fanatics Tribute the announcement that if you sell on their platform and accept payment for your cards in fan cash, that you get 100% of what you sell it for, no fees. And we're gonna do a whole episode about that, about that ecosystem, of that stickiness. But it was one of the things that happened at the national that was huge. Also Thursday, I mean, I was flying in and, and messaging with Shine actually, you know, when Topps Tribute the announcement about the dual Otani logo, man, MVP gold being pulled in Boca and selling and you know, then Shine and Secure and Kevin o' Leary announcing that they bought it and ultimately it was an $11 million purchase. So you want to talk about some top line, you know, items, you know, from the national itself that happened, you know, as it opened. So you had psa, you know, shutting down their grading, you know, at the lower level to start the show off before, basically before I even got there, which is amazing, you had this $11 million sale, you had a protest staged by Fanatics the next Topps basically shutting down everything for end of show returns and telling people that they are going to mail their cards back to them and cut the price in half. Think about how many cards PSA had to have graded. That would be a nice number to know. You know, I'm a pretend journalist, but I may actually reach out to PSA to try to get that number. You know, it is amazing because leading into the national, PSA's backlog went from like 12 million up to like 14 million or something like that. Their backlog went in the wrong direction. So, you know, it's, it's, it's amazing to see and I'm sure taking in this many cards at the national isn't going to help them, you know, with the backlog either. And, and I'll talk about PSA and that kind of stuff, maybe a whole episode as well, because that, you know, that, that is a real take a temperature of, you know, the health of the hobby and just how many people are there and the whole deal. You know, a big topic that everybody was asking about is Mike Baker, you know, are those Mike Baker stickers worth it? And I think I could do a whole episode about that one too. You know, there a lot of other fun topics. One fun, does anyone want the card? That's a fun one too because there's so much flipping going on. So much, you know, selling the card to the person, you know, just to try to sell it for another dollar. Dealer to dealer exchanges on cards, repacks, you name it. And, you know, a lot of these cards I look at and I question, who's the end user? Like, who's the one who actually wants it? And then, does it really matter? So we'll talk about that one as well. But the national itself, let's talk about, was different this year. You know, one of the topics I will actually talk about is, you know, the improvements in a National. And maybe I can just kind of, you know, roll with that one a little bit here is they did a very good job of expanding it. The main Fleer was not hard to traverse at all. All right? There were people there. Trust me, it was Beckett But if you wanted to get around the main Fleer you could. There was not like blocked rows. You know, you. You Goldin pass through your backpack hitting other people. You know, it's difficult in and of itself, right, because everybody's rolling around with basically suitcases filled with cards and backpacks filled with cards. So, you know, we're. We are. We. We are making it hard to get through those rows. Upstairs, however, was a new addition, the National. I got to give them a lot of credit. A lot of credit. There were some people who didn't even go downstairs, some people who went upstairs only. And the overstairs was sort of like a Dallas show. It was a lot of, you know, buying stations and you see some. Some funny content out there talking about, is anyone buying at the National? Or, you know, why even put up a buying sign when everyone has a buying sign? But that's what you see at shows. That's what you see at, you know, shows now. You know, people buying cards, and everyone up there was a buying cards. And you had this cool area that allowed, you know, new people who had not been at the national before to kind of come in and set up, right? Fanatics who actually had a spot up there. Card hobby had a spot up there. Ghostwrite, you know, Josh Luber had a spot up there. You know, it was. It was an interesting thing. Those were kind of like the vendors on the side, but then you had just tables. Those rows were crowded. And it kind of tells you a little bit about, you know, where the. The space is going because that's an addition this year. You know, you had more Pokemon up there. You had more, you know, case hit kind of stuff up there. You had more cards up there that. That are, you know, this flippers vortex I like to talk about, but different energy up there than the room downstairs. A completely different energy. A lot of energy. We got some shaking going on behind us. Everybody's excited. So, I mean, it's, I got to tell you, it's fun stuff up there. And that's something that national hasn't had before. You know, it captured sort of an energy. And I'll do a side by side with PSA with Fanatics Fest and this for a whole episode, but it captures some of the energy that sort of the collector zones had at Fanatics Fest. A lot of deal flow. And I'll make my joke now. One big change at the National. I will tell you that the average Whatnot at the national, this is very unscientific in my years past, looked a lot like me, old and fat. And that was part of the reason it became hard to move through the aisles because in addition to our backpacks and our bags, we were all fat and overweight and old. Not this time. There were a lot of kids running around, a lot of teenagers running around. You know, the, the average Whatnot looked a lot more athletic and younger this year, if I, if I dare, if I dare to say it. And it was, it's fun to see you have a lot of, a lot of people flipping cards, a lot of people running around with different energy, you know, buying and selling, buying and selling in the room. And it was. It definitely noteworthy. This, this whole new room that they put upstairs. Always crowded, always crowded up there. The downstairs. They did a very good job of putting sort of like this Whatnot breakers area together. You know, this has been, this has been evolving from the Breakers Pavilion. It's been evolving for a very long time. And, and what they did this year was it became sort of like this one section of the area where it was almost a carnival. You know what I mean? And it's great because a lot of these breakers would tell you, you know, if they're being honest, they are carnival barkers. Like, it's what they do. You know, they are, you know, the Don west Topps the, you know, 101 different beanies, you know, and they're trying to bring people to their, their table. They're trying to bring people to their, you know, to, you know, to their space and, you know, excite them. You had the boom guy walking around again, you know, the, the, the, the, the father son, you know, chocolate chip cookie eaters from Costco. I forget their names. I kind of don't care, but they're everywhere. And you know what? Not had like driving simulator set up and we're giving away $5,000 a. Because, I mean, I could do 4,000 episodes on this because, you know, Every time you look, there's something cool from Courtyard with their basketball activation that always had a line to Alt. I'll give Alt some credit. Alt gave out over $15 million in cash. They took in over $25 million worth of consignments at the national alone in person consignments. Think about that for a second. We've talked about this at shows past and in years past. What the Alt auctions are going to look like over the next couple of weeks are going to be amazing cards that probably haven't seen the light of day in a while ago. And to come to auction. They took in $25 million worth of cars that they're now going to be auctioning. Right. You know, if you look at their auction today, their auction is led by a PMG red Jordan that is almost a million dollars. A Otani orange Bowman Chrome, which is over half a million dollars already and several other high end cards. And that was an auction that started basically before the National. You know what I mean? It is, it, it's not just that these high end cards come out, it's why they come out because people get basically 70% of the value of the card up front as an advance and cash and all that cash goes and gets injected into the room. So think about that for a second. Not only are they providing a platform to sell the cards, set $25 million worth of cards, but up front they're providing $15 million in cash. They're putting that cash in people's hands to use at the National. That's an immediate liquidity injection into the room in cash that people are going, buying and selling. You know, that's the kind of thing that happens at the national that makes it a different show because that's $15 million more in cash in the room. If you're a dealer there, you know that there's a baseline, you know, not only people coming to, you know, to spend their money, they're coming to spend their money that they're going to get, they're going to get this infusion of cash that there's at least there's 15 million that's being provided by one company to spend in the room. Now the flip side to that is some dealers not upstairs, but some dealers mostly downstairs. Mostly the people who have been there for a long time, their prices are high because of that. They come to the national thinking someone's going to overpay, someone's going to spend more money than they should because this is their vacation, this is their one trip A year, they're going to come home with something, and they don't mind overpaying for it. Just like the guy walking around with bottles of soda in a cart for $6.50 a soda and $14 a beer. It's sort of like being in Disney World or at a ball game. Where else would you pay $14 for a can of beer or $6 for a soda? Well, when you're a captive audience, like in Magic Kingdom, and you have no opportunity to, you know, to drink a soda anywhere else, you got to pay that for a soda. When you're walking around this national, you're not going to leave. You pay $14 for a beer or $6.50 for a soda. It's the same thing with the cards. You know, dealers price their stuff pretty high, and for that, I heard a lot of people saying it was hard to buy at this show. I guess it depends what you're trying to buy, because, I mean, there was plenty of buying and selling going on in the room upstairs. And we could talk about, you know, what kind of buying and selling and that kind of stuff. I'm ready at 15 minutes, and I have. I'm gonna be doing so many episodes this week, maybe I have to do who episodes a day. But I'll sum it up with this. The best part of the national is something that remains the same. The best part of the national is catching up with people, seeing people in person who you don't see during the year. It's your hobby friends, your Instagram friends. You know, the people who you bounce ideas off of, the people you've made deals with, the people that you've bought cards from, sold cards to, traded cards with. You know, catching up with folks. I had so many great experiences, so many great stories, so many people that I talked to and met with, people who I made card deals with that I was picking up the cards, people who I was dropping cards off for that I sold cards to, but I got to give a lot of credit to. Card ladder. Their booth is like no other booth at the National. They are not selling anything. They have to be one of the lost leaders at the national, and they love every minute of it. They're not taking a dollar in. They set up as a meeting place. They have a couch for people to do content at. You know, you have Brett from Stacking Slabs kind of set up. I posting in the couch and doing episodes and interviewing people there. They have chargers. They're giving away, you know, portable chargers, you know, power banks. They're Giving away fancy sweatshirts and T shirts all day, every day a different drop. Christina did a really good job with that. And then obviously see this on my head here. I'll do a whole episode about the car ladder hats because that was a really fun activation. You know, on Friday, you had everybody come in there. They. They did like a blind bag of the hats, you know, and. And here, this one on my head is the one of one. Check that out. So there you go. You know, only one of these bad boys, guys, you could be jealous. I know you are. I'm going to rotate the hats because I completed the rainbow of card ladder hats while I was there. And as the weather gets colder and I get a little thinner, hopefully I can fit in the sweatshirts that I took home. So we'll see how that goes. But, I mean, at one point, you know, there were just so many people over there. You want to talk about bringing it together? I've, you know, I love the content of Adam Rail 27 guy, but I've jokingly said he has the most punchable face in the hobby. Adam and I actually get along, but I was walking the show and I found a fun junk Wax box of 94.95 Fleer basketball. You know, I'm like, let's chase Jordan. Not even remembering that Jordan's not even in the product anymore because he was playing baseball that year. I buy it, and you're talking about the cost of the box is like, less than a pack of some of the modern stuff now. But I brought it over and I bought some 92.93 Upper Deck McDonald's packs. You know, the packs that really hit home with me because they were free with your meal at McDonald's. And I remember going to McDonald's with my dad and buying, you know, a meal and getting those packs. And it was Shaq rookie year, and there's Michael Jordan in there. So I bought a bunch of those packs, and we had three Shaq rookies. No Jordan, though. So that was kind of no fun. But you bring this box over to the card ladder table, and everybody, you know, Josh is opening packs. We had like a young lions. We had a Freddie Hardaway for him, and we're like, Yu-Gi-Oh that's a cool card. And then there were four of them in the box. You know, talk about great collation. You know, Adam, real 27 guys open him up looking for John Stockton cards and, you know, talking about how this one's foil. That's like one per box. This was a rare one. And Hose was opening them up and he, you know, got a Charles Barkley with foil. But the best part was after we were done, I was about to throw the cards away and I look over and there's Chris and he's like collating, putting the cards in stacks, taking out the different inserts. And you can see that this is obviously something that he did as a kid. You know, I would have tried to make the whole set, you know, what inserts did we get? And I just kind of walked away. I'm like, I'm not throwing these out. You know, he's having fun with them. I'm sure they're going to get thrown out eventually, but this is just what you do with the cards. And that was a fun thing to see for me because there's a lot of flipping going on, there's a lot of card transactions going on. But one of the biggest questions I have is, where's the love for the cards? You know, this national is supposed to be about that. Like, you know, people collecting, you know, enjoying the hobby, enjoying the cards, you know, buying stuff that they want to own. And it doesn't have to be something you take home, cards. I mean, you could spend money and open a box of cards that, that immediately Transports you back 30 years or more to when you were a kid opening these type of cards. It was fun watching Adam saying, I opened so many of these. You know, look at this. I remember this one. And look at this card. That was one of the highlights of the, of, of the trip for me. There are many of them, though. And I'll leave you with this. As I hit the, you know, 20 minute mark, I leave the national possibly more excited about the space than I was going in. There are many reasons to be excited. There are a lot of people involved. There are a lot of people who are excited to be here. And there are more new participants than I even realized. And a lot of father, son, a lot of young kids, a lot of people coming into the space. And, you know, the last time around, I'd be nervous about that because, you know, what are they here for? And as soon as it hits, you know, the skids, as soon as there may be some bumpy roads, are they going to leave? The companies involved now are doing everything they can, injecting so much into this space, from liquidity to great ideas, to innovation to new cards, to new ways to buy and sell that I think the, the new blood coming in, you have a better chance of more of them staying this time around. And that's just good for everybody. So, one-of-one the national this year, great experience. I miss it already. I had a great time there. I have so many stories that I'm going to share with you over the next couple of days over episodes. But you know me, I like to give you 20 minutes. You can jog a little, do some chores around the house, you know, get ready in the morning, and we'll keep it there. So stay tuned for a bunch of post national episodes because there are so many great stories to tell. Good to be back, guys. Enjoy your week and I will talk to you soon. That's episode 4 29, the National A quick summary brought to you by Card Ladder Use code cage, Save yourself a couple bucks, Arena Club and the Philly Show. Take care, everybody.