THWC 432: When Is It Gonna End?

What is up? Everybody happy with Cage Episode 432. 432. Getting, Getting Up There. Episode Today is Friday, August 7th. Brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks. And by the Philly Show. All right, so what are we gonna talk about today? Nice and easy one. Still kind of putting content together for my conversations and my experience at the National. And this one's an easy one here. The question that I got asked the most, there are a couple, couple of competitors for this, but this one clearly was number one. When's it gonna end? Because as we stand there in Chicago, Ney Rosemont, and the atmosphere is palpable. You know, people are asking me this question as cheering is going on left, cheering is going on right. Someone's hitting a basketball shot to one-of-one a freebie. Someone's winning a box from Walmart. Someone just broke something open and got a monster card in their box break. Someone just got a big grade reveal. You are there, you know, in hedonism, with the Tower of Babel behind you and the, the Mecca, whatever biblical phrase you want to use of collecting, you are there standing in the middle of it. And, you know, everybody has come to this place for, you know, hobby madness and hobby craziness. And it is impossible to miss, you know, the excitement of everyone, the energy in the room, the amount of people that are there, how bad everybody smells. It's impossible to miss all of it. And to ask at that moment, when, when's it gonna end? I mean, it's an interesting question, but it makes a lot of sense, right? Because especially there in that moment, you think to yourself, this has to be the top, right? Like, we, we can't sustain this. And the underlying, you know, background to it is not just all the craziness that went into the national, the amount of people who are at the trade night, just the hundreds of thousands of people who are attending there and the money that's being spent and, you know, heels of Fanatics fest and all that stuff. It's, it's the prices of the cards, which, which, by the way, when's it gonna end? That's what 99 of people mean when they ask that. They're looking at their wallets, they're looking at their card letter values, they're looking at their portfolio, if you will, and saying, you know, when's this gonna stop going up? Because, you know, as we, as we went into Chicago, we saw an unprecedented run on base cards, on your quote unquote, iconic cards. You Saw the Michael Jordan 86 Fleer running like crazy. You saw the LeBron Chrome, the Tom Brady Bowman Chrome. You saw just basically everything kind of running into the national and it doesn't look like it's really slowing down. So everybody wants to know, when's it going to end? Because nobody wants to get left holding the bag. And here's the fun part. The people that I have conversations with, the people who are coming up to me and asking about this are people who are there, you know, people who were with me, with us in the space in 2022 after watching a crazy run like this, after watching what I'm going to call the Zion bubble, the Prizm based bubble, whatever you want to call it, Will Greer, you know, the Kyler Murray, you know, and then writing it down and wondering, when's it going to stop? You know, so when's it going to end? It's a reasonable question for anybody who's been here more than a couple minutes now running around that room. I was not asked that question by any teenager. They would just ask me, what am I looking for? Do I have anything to sell? Do I need them to broker a deal for me? Or if I was buying, you know, you're buying, buying, buy. No. Okay, I'm going on to the next guy. Because they were, you know, in middle school or elementary school when the last, you know, when the last up and down happened. And it's not even on there on their horizon, it's not even on their radar. But for the folks who have been there before, it's one of those things, right? You almost get, you know, you almost get gun shy now, when's it going to end? I might as well give you an answer five minutes in, right? Not anytime soon. That's what I think. It's not financial advice. And when is it going to end? I mean, you talk about the hobby, it may never end, you know, I mean, if you, if you, if you take a wide enough view of this stuff, right? You know, if you bought in, in 2018, 2019, even 2020 on some of that, you know, rise and pricing, and you held watching your Lebron cards go up, watching your Jordan cards go up, and you were like, Yu-Gi-Oh you know, this is crazy. And then you continue to hold and watched it drop, you know, during that 2022, you're probably sad, you're like, oh, man, I should have sold. I should have known this was gonna end. But if you didn't sell during that valley, guess what, we're back. And if you look at this kind of, you know, from. I'm looking at like a stock chart, right? Don't, don't do the one year, do the five year, you know, go back to that 2020, do a six year chart and you're doing just fine. You know what I mean? There's a lot of, you know, up and down, a roller coaster type of action on the chart. But, you know, right now we're doing good. Now. I don't know what's going to happen in six months or a year. You might be one of those valleys again. But, you know, you'd like to think that if you just learned from the last time and you held that, there will probably be another peak at some point in time after that. Because it's just the way it seems to work. And it's funny because as we are in the, you know, these bubble situations, we'll call them, right, as we're riding high and rolling up, everybody starts to wonder, all right, well, this has got to go down. But forgets that when it goes down it usually goes back up too. And that's why we are where we are. Because this up is only surprising people because we're coming out of a down after the last up. Think about that for a sec. Now, most people don't care because they're putting their money in today. They're putting their money in today at prices today. They're putting their money in today at highs. They're wondering whether they should bid in alt or Fanatics or Goldin at the price for a Michael Jordan card. That seems crazy when you compare it to what it was last year or two years ago or hell, in 2023, right? So let's talk about it. We've already discussed kind of, you know, the atmosphere, the energy, the craziness at the National Mathematics Fest. That gives me a little bit of confidence. But let's talk about now that we've come home, right? We are one week post national, a couple days post national, not even a full week yet. Here we are Friday. It's only a couple days after the national and Fanatics is giving you every reason to believe in the space. Just open up Instagram, open up espn. You'll see the new release Basketball Chrome being ripped on espn. You'll see the product everywhere and you'll see everything from Minions cartoon cards to the rookie debut patch. Now there are bounties out there. Used to be David Adams was your bounty leader. Now you have bounties from everybody. You have bounties from women, you have bounties from men, you have bounties. From children who bet on sports, you have bounties all over the place. For Cooper Flag. You have alter ego, one of ones making news for the art on the cards, you have chases abound. You have a coordinated effort between breakers to actually build a set of alter egos. You see cardboard and backyard breaks. I think Blez might be involved in it. I'm not 100% sure. It is organized, it is everywhere and it should give you some confidence. Now, I know you're probably thinking, what the hell do breakers have to do with me? Well, breaking this new product is bringing a lot of money in. It's bringing a lot of eyeballs. The product is everywhere. Everybody wants to open it. I had coworkers texting me news articles about the Cooper Flag debut patch and how much the bounties are on it. Yesterday, product releases and people who I know do not buy cards but have kids are reading about it in their news feeds. That is new. That is not something that happened pre Fanatics. It would have been an oddball thing for your co workers at the water cooler to be talking about what release is out there. So let's hard stop there and give some flowers to Fanatics for what they've done to bring eyeballs to the space. My son is on a camp trip. All the kids yesterday were talking about getting home and trying to open up boxes of this to try to get this Cooper Flag card. I had a co worker talking about it as well. Where can I find these things? And she compared it to Willy Wonka. It's like a Goldin ticket. Did somebody really just last week get $11 million for a card? Yes, indeed they did. I may or may not have spoken to the guy who bought it. I told my co worker and Yu-Gi-Oh it's really paid for. It's really in there. And you could really have bought it in a Target even, you know, you could have, you know, purchased it in any card store or online or through Fanatics. And who knows where the Cooper Flag is going to be? Who knows where it's going to end up and who's going to pull it. Chances are a breaker or something like that because they break a lot of product. But you never know. You know, could be in Boca in a hobby box. You really never know where it's going to be. But the point of this is one data point. You have Fanatics involved, you have their marketing involved, you have their wallet involved. And they're going to make sure not altruistically, remember, okay, you know of course they want to grow the space. Of course they want more here. They want what's best for the hobby. But what's best for the hobby can also align with what's best for their bottom line. Because if they're out there marketing, they're out there spending $90 million on Fanatics Fest. They're out there making sure that everyone is talking about the product, make sure that Karl Anthony Townes is breaking, trying to find a card and hitting a Wemby and it's newsworthy and it's clippable and it's everywhere. You know that they're doing that because it's also going to be good for them. That's not a bad thing. You know what I said to everyone who asked me, when is it going to end? I said, you know, who is riding this wave with you? Fanatics? They have a bigger wallet than you. They have a bigger wallet than me. And just like you want the value of your cards to go up, just like you want to see the hobby continue to grow because it helps you, they are in the exact same boat. So you have a partner in this. More so than I think we ever had with Panini. You never saw this type of, you know, bluster out there. You know, Panini had VIP parties. Did any of you guys get invited to it? I know I was never at one. No, they celebrated themselves, I guess. I don't know. It just seems different. It just does. And I'm again not saying the Fanatics is doing this for you or for me. I think that is a goal. I think they realize that the best way to help themselves is to help everyone. I think the best way to make money in this and grow this and grow their own bottom line is to grow the whole thing to get more people in it, to get more money in it, to get more eyeballs in it. And I think they may actually lose money with a long term vision of growing the whole thing to make money. Not everybody does that. I know Panini didn't. You know, I don't think the old tops regime did that. But when's it going to end? There is one big difference now than last time and the last five peaks and valleys that we had. And it's that they continue to keep putting money into it and continuing to innovate and continuing to, you know, broadcast this thing everywhere. I think it's a fair thing to say that the hobby is larger now than it has been in a very long time, if not forever. And one of those, like, technical trading things Right. Is you don't just look at the prices, you look at the volume. Right. And the volume of trading is at its peak. We just saw two months in a row, just shy of $700 million trading. Look at the card ladder charts. I'm curious to see what August does because I think July would have set a record. He just had more in person deals with those shows at the end of it that just don't get tracked. Right. You know, people were holding back on their ebay sales and their Goldin sales and, and, and, and the like because you had, you know, you had deals being done at Fanatics Fest and at the National. I think we probably in August gonna see a new record. Why wouldn't we? I mean, you know, Alt took in $25 million worth of cards at the national that are going to be auctioned off. I think some of them were even auctioned off last night already. And all I one-of-one some cards. So my answer, when's it going to end? Short answer of course is I have no idea. But if you want me to tell you the, you know, the standard cliche hobby answer that, you know, we're in the eighth inning and be careful. I mean you always preach a little cautiousness, right. I mean we've run really far, really fast, but I just don't think that's where we are. I'm not slowing down my hobby buying at all because I have every indication that people are consolidating. People are still putting more money into this. People are still chasing higher end cards and Fanatics. They're continuing to build, they're continuing to innovate, they're continuing to partner with the, you know, the, the breakers and the shops and they're continuing to put product out there that people want to rip. You know, I remember when the MLB debut patch for Paul Skeins came out and sold for a million dollars. And people like this is publicity. It's dicks. It's not real. Well, you said no Tani card sell for $11 million and you have bounties of, you know, 3 million. Whatever we're up to on this Cooper flag, I think it's gonna sell for more than $5 million. Those are headlines. Those are, you know, they're, they're, they're great stories. They're great, you know, pieces out there that you know, will bring more people in. My neighbor, my neighbor's got a, you know, a two year old son and he's, he's sending me messages now on, on Instagram. Did you see this? Did you see this? He's in. Was never in before. He's in now, looking to buy cards. His brother in law down the block, they're gonna buy cards for their kids. He's got a two year old, he's got a four year old. Boom. They're starting to buy blasters, they're starting to buy boxes. They are gonna be the ones that hit the Cooper flag. Because everybody is, because we're all Charlie Beckett I mean, some of you are more like Augustus Gloop, to be honest. I mean, but we all have a chance. And I mean, that's a cool thing, it really is. But beyond that lottery ticket, beyond that sort of gambling aspect of it, look at what Fanatics is doing. I mean, they're your partner in this. There's no other way of saying it. Not my partner. I don't get them, I don't get a dollar from them. But they're all of our partners, you understand? I mean, in, in, in this hobby. It has been a very long time if, if not ever, where you could say, okay, I have a little bit of a comfort level of where we're going and you know, the, where we're gonna be. Because I mean, you got this big player building and they're saying all the right things too. I mean, they come out of Fanatics Fest. They're at the national and you see interviews with Mike Mahan saying, you know, we're gonna, we're here, we're showing up at national in a big way. You know, this is not Fanatics Fest versus the National. It's Fanatics Fest and the National. What more do you want to hear from somebody like that? You know, that they love to see the Nationals succeed. That they love to see Fanatics Fest succeed. That in the future both will succeed, both will grow. Both will grow off of each other, learn from each other, get better because of each other. Just like I said in my episode, pretty fun, right? one-of-one I just wanted to come out here because, I mean, I didn't get to answer that question for all of you. I mean, you know, there'll be a thousand or so of you in the next 24 hours who listen and watch this. And you know, I talked to, you know, a few dozen people who asked me this question at the national and I figured if it's on the brains of, of so many people who got to ask me in person, I might as well give you my answer here. So you all get the benefit of it. And I'm sure you're gonna disagree with me and there's nothing wrong with that, guys. There's nothing wrong with, you know, with, I guess, having a little bit of a cautiousness to it because, you know, we've done this before. You know, some of the kids are just ride, ride, ride. Next. Sale. Higher. Next. I'll head next to her. You've seen it. You've seen it. But there's a difference between what happened in 2022 and what happened now. You know, there's a little less money being pumped into the system than there was with the stimulus checks and the COVID and the craziness that was there. And, you know, this, as inorganic as it is, this is a lot more organic than it was last time around. And, you know, it seemed very healthy. You know, I was at the national and there were a lot of people there, and there are a lot of people spending money. There are a lot of people looking for cards. There are a lot of people doing business. There are a lot of new businesses coming in. A lot of people who want to be in this space. And that's all the signs of, you know. My short answer is gonna be, when's it gonna end? I don't think anytime soon. And there's another episode, guys, 432 of these Yu-Gi-Oh Brought to you by arena Club, by card ladder use code cage. Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly show, which will be soon. It will be here before 4. You know it. Hope to see you guys there. Talk to you guys soon. Take care. We'll have another one. I don't know. Tomorrow maybe. We'll see. Take care, everybody.