by A.J. Moore
Quick, go look in your basement for that Cal Ripken Jr. rookie baseball card you once treasured. While down there, look for the cherished Mickey Mantle card your father passed down to you. Then keep searching for that three-ring binder filled with pages of Gregg Jefferies cards you were once certain would help pay for a retirement condo in Florida.
Chances are those sports cards are long gone from your possession. They were likely sold off, lost or given away to a thrift store by your parents the moment you moved out of the house — all common experiences for people who collected baseball cards in the 1980s and early ’90s. Then, in the mid ’90s, many people ignored the once thriving sports card industry altogether after it collapsed because of its own failed overproduction.
A second chance is now upon us to get back into the sports trading market. Instead of dealing with player images on cardboard, today it’s about digitized player highlight snippets. Just get ready to pay a lot — as in six figures — for the prized commodities in this market.
Sure, the traditional cards are still around. The digital highlights (or moments) though, backed by cryptocurrencies, are more attractive to the younger, modern sports fan accustomed to being on their phone at all times and having around-the-clock access to media, daily fantasy sports and online gambling.
These non-fungible digital properties are similar to bitcoin but encrypted to be unique. The sports lull during the peak of the pandemic got investors interested, and the media is now taking note after so many high-priced transactions.
The main entity involved with these digital assets, and a name you should know, is NBA Top Shot. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company processed more than $250 million in sales from over 100,000 buyers in February alone.
Part of the meteoric rise and money exchanged for digital highlights is the company’s deal with the NBA and its players to reward them with a portion of all sales. That means the league promotes this burgeoning market and players looking to make a side hustle gladly post information about their own highlights on social media to influence their followers.
Just like trading days of old, consumers can get in relatively cheap. Chip in a couple of bucks for rookie players, in hopes of investing in a hot commodity at the ground level. Or with enough funds, go bigger for the established superstars like LeBron James. (The James or Giannis Antetokounmpo zip code is where people are playing the six figure sums.)
Unbeknownst to so many sports fans is the fact that while they are watching these players’ highlights on television, others are paying exorbitant funds for uniquely digitized versions of them.
You don’t have to sit idly by. The time is here to get into the digital highlights market and rectify any mistakes made in your youth with sports trading cards. Just be ready to pay a lot more money than you did with the wax packs sold at your local drugstore.
Also, make sure not to lose your digital password.
Associate Professor of Journalism A.J. Moore is the director of Rider’s program in sports media.