We sit down with Brian Gray, former Leaf CEO to hear his thoughts on the state of the hobby at the end of the year, his predictions for 2024, what his current status is with Leaf, why he sold the company earlier this year, what he is doing in retirement, his thoughts on various hobby issues and more so join us live and bring your questions and comments as they will be in play.
Leighton Sheldon of Just Collect and Vintage Breaks joins for the “Vintage Spotlight” segment!
Saturday December 30 @ 7:00pm PST / 8:00pm MST / 9:00pm CST / 10:00pm EST
#sportscards #thehobby #briangray
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Sports cards is a lifestyle sports cards and we live now Jeremy Lee in the building and every guest that you ever needed sports cards after hours keep the hobby heated upd hobby talk like you never seen it sports cards live and N could ever beat it sports cards is a
Lifestyle sports cards and we live now welcome to another episode of sports cards live with your host Jeremy Lee all right everybody I’ve been looking forward to this one I know you have two welcome to episode number 210 of sports cards live it is Saturday night December the 30th 2023 my name is Jeremy Lee I would like to thank everybody who tuned in last
Week for our episode with Steve ho also known as mrr fos we had a great episode check that out next Saturday Our Guest is a collector of unopened wax packs and boxes his name is Rex morgart excited to have him on for a nice collector type of episode MC Mondays live eBay auction
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Everybody a very happy New Year happy holidays and as always your comments and your questions are in play so let’s get to it tonight’s guest has been on several times we don’t need an intro but you know him as the former CEO of leaf trading cards let’s bring him out Mr
Brian Gray welcome back to the show Brian how you doing buddy hey J Money how are you doing I’m good EP 210 which is half of 420 and I’ve been accused of being on drugs with my hobby attitude so it all kind of makes sense in a in a
Mathematical kind of everything makes sense in the world way it’s very weird to hear you say former CEO and owner and founder and all that stuff of the new Leaf it’s it’s a little surreal but uh you’re my first interview since then and I’ve had a bunch of people asked to talk
To me and I wanted to take some time and just like obsorb my exciting life changes and I’m finally ready to talk and have fun and be a hobbyist again which I’m getting to be for a little while for at least a minute or two I’m noticing I’m noticing that you’re uh
You’re really just flexing your hobby muscles on on the various social social uh platforms and uh it’s nice to see Brian you’re no longer sort of Tethered to a specific to a card manufacturer we’ll get into that uh let’s get into a bunch of it right now you know I think
The thing I’m most curious about Brian is you know I’m wearing the shirt I’m wearing the Brian I love it oh my God I mean that’s back when I had gray hair obviously I’ve got younger since I retired but um but no I mean that that’s
One of my favorite cards ever and you know I don’t even have a copy of it I’m gonna have to go buy on eBay and buy a copy I don’t have a copy of my collection so I got one right there I’m gonna go buy one on eBay when we hang up
Tonight so I I feel sad I don’t have one but I do have some of my new Santa Claus cards which you uh if you go to my website bigbri deals.com you’ll see the new Santa packs where you can get the last ever Leaf card of me it’s actually
Me as Santa you have to look carefully to see it it’s pretty well done that the artists were phenomenal but um they’re autographed so they’re part of Pop Century also so it’s kind of fun but anyway yeah so yeah it’s cool to see you in the shirt I love it makes me happy
Nice well I’m wearing it for you buddy all right listen I want to get into leaf and really my first question is you’ve sold Leaf you no longer are an owner I don’t even think you own a small percentage of it or do you so what what
Is the stat what is your exact status relative to Leaf right now and why did you decide to sell well first I I have no equity ownership in leaf I could have kept a little piece but it was time it was time I mean listen you know I
Brought Leaf back from the dead I started I did razor in 2008 and N I brought Leaf back from the dead in 2010 probably one of my greatest achievements was buying the leaf brand when it was sitting dormant when Panini decided it wasn’t worth paying for anymore when they took over Donis and
You know we built something you know and I feel like you know we did everything that I could have done we took a brand that was dead we took a brand that was basically just baseball draft picks airbrushed and we turned it into something that every attempt to do the same thing had
Failed and again great teams at press pass Sage is still around but like people who tried to go the unlicensed route even classic with Kim gold you know the these companies that tried to go unlicensed they all failed they either went bankrupt gave up or be or
Stayed so small they were not really relevant in the marketplace and we did it you know we built something phenomenal we made M we made um we made unlicensed or player licensed I like to call it we made it something mainstream like metal baseball metal football became like they were
Treated like rookie cards instead of treated like Just Junk that you know that they kind of filled like a one- Monon gap before the pro stuff came out um so so with that being said we did something really special there I feel like that was my goal the whole time was
To prove everyone wrong because I was told by everybody and I mean hobby veterans told me that what I was taking on and what we were taking on uh was just too much it was not sustainable there’s no way we could be successful um and the reality is we did we were
Successful I mean I can’t I I am restricted from some information I can’t say but I will tell you in 2022 leaf made more money than you can imagine it was mind-blowing I mean it became a monster company you know with a lot of sales and a lot of profit um so
So for me it was really like what else am I gonna do you know I pretty much I’d done a bunch of stuff so I felt like there’s nowhere else to go nothing else to do and the fact is I paid a very high price for that success I paid a very high
Price for that profit I did a Maya type video on my on my YouTube channel where I basically just said I made the business more important than my family for some number of years I made it more important than anything it was my whole life the people
At that building I spent more time with than my family I missed important things because I wanted to win I wanted to make money no matter what it took um you know the reality is I paid too high a price yes I made a bunch of money and said
I’ll enjoy retirement listen the scoreboard doesn’t lie we done pretty good but it was just time I couldn’t do more now but what made it possible and I and I say this because I think I got a lot of attention for being leaf and that’s just not the case I was
I was definitely a spear header or a Visionary but we had a team I mean Greg con is probably the most talented product guy in the business hands down I I would say he’s number one you know Josh panat who who we brought on in the executive side of things very strong uh
My Jim ker our design guy phenomenal head of production and design phenomenal CJ GRE who we brought on as a as a kid straight out of college phenomenal in the in the um influencer and pop culture space I mean we had built a team that was so
Good that I could I really could literally walk away and not sell the company it would have been fine which made me feel better that I wasn’t selling a company that the minute I sold it it’s going to going to crap whatever you know I did not feel that
Way I knew it would be successful still so the timing was right so now you know it just made sense it’s it’s it’s also fiscally responsible the hobby had grown so much from 17 to 23 like if I don’t take my chips off the table at some point I think I’m
Irresponsible fiscally to my family like to my I mean again I had enough money it was fine anyway but like you know I’m in a good position now I’m really happy you know the scoreboard has been very kind to me I’m not missing any meals even
Though I am getting a little skinnier I lost 50 pounds you know but um but you know you know you can’t tell hardly because I kept the camera high but but you know it’s just it’s a great thing makes me very happy and for the first time in my life the business isn’t
Telling me what to do because I had to live and breed this business every minute of every day and for the first I can do whatever I want if I don’t want to do anything today I won’t do anything if I want to go whatnot stream I can go
Whatnot stream if I want to go comment about things on Twitter with no holds Bard which is my new YouTube channel I can say whatever I want and I’m not speaking for leaf I’m not speaking for anyone else just me let me ask you this Brian let me ask you this because you
Can now say whatever you want no holds barred over the past several years you know especially during the the pandemic with the proliferation of social media and all these interviews and coming on my show I think this is probably your 10th time on now you know were you were
You forcing yourself to hold back a lot of things like is there anything that you that you held back along the way that you you can now talk about or anything that that if you could talk about would do damage anywhere like how much much stuff did you hold back over
These past few years well I mean listen I’m not one to men words and I always said what I meant meant what I said and I got a lot of heat for it I mean I saw people in chat here guys like Mario Alejandro who definitely is a Critic of
Mine you know guys who don’t like me or whatever who over the years have made decisions that they’re gonna you know that they don’t like my perceptions of the hobby my opinions my outgoingness my arrogance that I might have had and they’re right in some ways I was absolutely arrogant I was AB
Absolutely cocky not because I’m that guy naturally because I mean you know me off the air I’m really not that the reality is that’s part of like the Vince McMahon that’s part of like and so I can be a different guy now I can really be just true to me and I’m
Not just saying in a controversial or like give hot Sports opinions way I’m saying like now I can tweet that I’m appalled at what’s going on in Israel Palestine I can you can’t say things like that when you own a company you can’t give an opinion you can’t say I
Think we need to include people in life and be more inclusive of people and not ostracized people because they’re either poor colored or lgbtq you know these are things you can’t say when you own a company like Leaf not because you can’t have opinions but because you get pigeon
Hold it was bad enough when I made a trump card or a Biden card sleeping at his desk the hate email I got or when I sued Andrew Luck people said you better not ever come to Indie ever again you know and sure enough he didn’t last
Anyway but but it’s like I got enough like holding back you know and again I just want to tell I just want to be me and you know what if loving people and and that’s a big part of what I’m doing in retirement is I’m loving people I’m
Supporting I’m I’m giving a ton of money to Charities I’m serving I’m doing things that like now um mentorship whatever it is I’m doing things now that like the business never allowed me to do and so like I can be real and so I think yes there’s things that I’m holding that
I might probably held back because they’re politically not correct for a CEO to talk about or an owner of a company God forbid you know CEO’s bad enough the owner even worse um I think I do know things that could hurt the industry because when you’re an Insider you know a lot of
Stuff and I like even when I put out my little videos where I’m kind of saying a few things like giving teas is like I broke the news that Fanatics had already signed the top three quarterbacks now maybe Jaden Daniels is going to be in that top three maybe they only have
Three of the top four but like I broke the news that they had they had signed all the players every year I knew what was happening before it happened I just couldn’t say it because well what in my position to like throw my competitors
Under the I just call it like I see it Fanatics is they got the three of the top four quarterbacks you know woo you know it’s over you know I had a good idea what the WWE settlement was before it kind of so so we hear a lot of stuff sometimes our
Information’s good sometimes it’s bad but I know a lot of stuff from over the years from all the companies and a lot of it’s not good a lot of it’s dirty and filthy and it’s just I’m not here to try to ruin the industry or to to try to
Create concern that the industry is not a good place to be I’m most concerned with I want to be a hobbyist again someone said that in the chat like I just want to be a hobbyist again and now I don’t know how long that’ll last because obviously things are boiling now
That people know that I’m you know not not involved with Leaf in any capacity anymore there’s obviously things brewing in the background that you know I’m retired today you know but uh so we’ll see what happens but but right now it’s so fun just to be a hobbyist I’m buying
Cars because I love them I’m doing a bunch of non buying a bunch of non-port cards because I love it I think it’s so undervalued compared to everything else I just think it’s insanely undervalued so I was like I just do whatever I want it’s kind of fun so now that you’re now
That you’re not with Leaf anymore and you know when you are with Leaf when you’re running a a trading card company or any big company in our industry and I’ll you know I’ll include Leaf in that in that group of you know big uh players within the space you know I think people
Might treat you one way you know yesterday and another way today have you learned anything about people any even people who are your since you’ve left the company since you’ve sold have you been disappointed by anybody been pleasantly surprised by anybody I would say 80% disappointment
Because I figured out that you know I had friends in different parts of the industry that were my friends primarily because of what I could do for them they wanted Deals they wanted to make money they wanted you know so again this is no different I mean Donald Trump probably
Gets more calls when he’s president than when he’s out like all those people that were calling him like to talk to him like and I’m not Donald Trump I don’t want to be but but I mean anyone who’s in a position where they have influence or power or the ability to impact people
Positively they call you know they call easily um I think it’s you know a lot of people don’t call anymore and that’s okay I mean it’s part of life you know um people some people I work with some of them I don’t talk to anymore and it’s
Not it’s not that they’re bad people or anything it’s just we don’t have anything else in common besides that I was the boss yeah I’m sure some of them hate me you know I’m sure some of them love me I’m sure you know but it’s like
Anything again at the end of the day it’s not about any of that I did a video calling my employees at to the table and saying listen these guys are great give them a chance they’re good because I wanted to give them a parting goodbye that was the right kind that was they’re
Great guys they’re very talented they’re very whatever and I wanted people to know that and I wanted them to know that that even though I may not be hanging out at the office or talking to them today or ever or this week or whatever it is depending who the employee is
Doesn’t mean I’m not rooting for them I want them to do great even if I end up not being in retirement forever I still want them to do great you know all right yeah know you’re Dr you’re drop there’s a lot of disappoint I will say I do have
A lot of disappointment because there’s people I consider my very best friends who just you know who just aren’t present like they were but then that 20% have blown me away because there are guys that called me right after I did this and said I
Just want you to know you can do nothing for me but I love you yeah and now we can have a different kind of relationship because now you know it’s completely legit and and I like you’re right is is legit so the people who are my friends
Now more than ever I’m spending tons of time with I’m investing in them you know I’m giving them advice when they need it or ask for it I mean I’m just it’s different and but again I will give that as a cautionary T to everybody believe half of what you
Believe nothing what you hear and half of what you see because again this happens to people all the time you work somewhere for 40 years you get to watch when they when you leave and you never hear from these people again it’s kind of like high school you think these guys
Are gonna be your friends your whole life and they’re not there you know the Hobby’s been that way a little bit but I’m still around and so now it’s a different group of people who are becoming engaged with me because now it’s about a love of the hobby
Or other things you know it’s different it’s just different it’s not what can Leaf do for them or what can be you do for them it’s something else yeah I hear you okay let’s I wish I answer like everybody it’s it’s better than ever all my relationships are great no you go
With the real answer it doesn’t work that way and I want people to hear this because other people are going to retire someday and it’s not going to be the same I mean I do have people Le I haven’t spoken to since you know I left
But I also have people that I’m great friends with there they’re all I mean it’s they’re great people it doesn’t change anything it’s just they’re busy as hell I’m busy doing whatever I’m doing so it’s just things are going to change but it’s all good I don’t have
Hatred for anyone except for a couple of people who are mean to me out there and I don’t even have hatred for them I just laugh sometimes you know I think it’s funny yeah yeah you have to be able to laugh at some of the stuff especially when you’re public like you’re like
Yourself all right let’s take a minute Brian let’s go to the let’s go to the comments I want to whip through these don’t be scared to put the ones that are mean up there too I got them I got them I don’t like
One let me let me go let me go I got you I got you all right Justin bod wanted you to wear your salmon color Polo tonight guys he’s wearing green don’t be disappointed Mike dou V happy Saturday Jerry Petri says Brian Gray is a legend
He certainly is maybe maybe in his own mind but also in many of our minds as well Jake doll happy weekend to you buddy Todd McDonald Happy New Year says always a great show and BG is on Jeremy M happy holidays Albert Jones skep in those ALG Jeff McMahon’s looking forward
To it Jerry Petri likes the center stage very cool Studio Sports got to show us that Pro Set t-shirt there it is Brian Gray super CEO good evening Royals good to see you Alan Turell nice to see you buddy Andrew Goan happy New Year happy New Year JP Robert Scott Happy New Year
To you Al Al is wearing his super CEO shirt right now to ran Jerry hotch good evening to you okay Dan Brown says I’m not really a fan of BG it seems a lot of what he does are sad cheap tricks to make a quick Buck his last two tweets of
Cards just seem desperate attempts for attention to make a quick Buck to which Mario who I’m trying to get on the show Mario if you’re there let’s keep those conversations going uh says agreed Daniel so Brian I’m gonna pause here and um let you kind of address the comment
That Daniel makes about you know are you are you trying to make a quick buck when you’re putting out some cards or is there a different purpose please okay first off I mean I’ll only say I can’t say how much we sold leaf for but but it’s more than anyone here would ever
Guess if you all guess numbers not one person here would be close it’d probably be higher than any of you think so I don’t really need any money just to say I tweeted out a couple of cards that were AI generated because I want to get people’s opinion
Of and it kind of is a like Leaf reimagined except I’m thinking about taking it a step further and so I’m considering making limited runs of just 25 copies of a bunch of crazy AI generated things basically things that will never occur in real life but only
Happen on trading cards with AI like Taylor Swift and Travis Kel’s wedding which has not happened or Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump making out like K like kissing cousins or something I mean again I’m not making a comment on what I believe or like but I’m just saying we
Can do crazy stuff that’s never happened before so Daniel here does not like that he thinks I’m trying a get-rich quick scheme by making a bunch of cards so I did the math real quick in my head I’m GNA make 25 cards that I’m gonna sell for $1 19999 that’s
$500 okay so let’s say I make a thousand cards this year and I make half a million dollars um I’m giving more to charity than half a million dollars this year so trust me and I’m not making thousands of cards where I’m making $500 my point is if I wanted to ring the
Register I’d sell 50,000 of Taylor Swift in Travis Kelce I’d advertise it everywhere I’m going to make 25 cards and it’ll be gone in 10 seconds whoever trust me and buys them we’ll make a bunch of money whoever doesn’t doesn’t so again they said this at Leaf too
Though when we made a bunch of these web exclusive cards people were like you know a that’s just a cash grab that’s just just no you can say that you know what the cash grab is making a gazillion cases of something with 498,000 parallels to try to make the licensing
Guarantee with the manufacturers with a licensees that’s a cash grab a cash grab isn’t making the Pete Weber card where he inscribed who do you think you are I am or making liby Dunn’s first card or making um the reimagine card where Nicola Tesla is standing with his arm on
A Tesla which could never have happened because there weren’t even cars back then or having uh the pope dribbling a basketball through the Vatican Lobby or having Lono Messi in an Italian church with a thousand World Cup trophies there instead of pews like these were not get-rich quick schemes they were trying
To create something out of the box different unique you know anime Nation those cards are awesome we’ve done some really cool cards there and the vision there was we saw what other people were doing with manga and things like that we were like that’s so one demensional non
It doesn’t take it to the next level and that’s what anime Nation did it was truly cool creative artistic you know cool stuff so like again people like Daniel here who I did not block on Twitter despite the fact I probably should should have because he got
Abusive actually but but again I don’t block Leaf does block people I don’t block people um because again he can say whatever he wants I just ignore him um I don’t need Norm I actually read it and then say that’s stupid and then I move on but the reality is there’s gonna be
People who don’t like certain stuff and that’s okay but if you do think that I’m sweating desperation or you think that I’m desperate to make a few dollars off of 25 Taylor Swift cards you can rest assured that my sale of leaf will keep me comfortable for at least a little
While wouldn’t you think I’ll be okay I I was okay before now I’m really really really okay I’m sure you’re fine I’m sure you’re fine let’s go to this comment here cardbo Mario Alejandro because who was the Mario a I’m pretty sure that’s him to comment in yeah first off Mario
Hasn’t been a fan of mine for a long time he said he’ll tell you he likes a few Leaf cards but like that’s just like saying you know when people say you’re racist you go oh no no I know the Jeffersons it’s okay you know no that’s
Not the same Carol o’ Conor you know Archie Bunker was a racist even though he knew the Jeffersons so you can say you like a couple things I made that doesn’t make you a fan but the reality was you know he’s done a really good job breaking some news on Twitter recently
And doing a pretty good job and like I like to read his stuff because it’s like he talks about Pacific and he talks about like cards in the past that he really liked and like I’m a hobbyist like I actually like the the nerdy card
Stuff like that so I’m actually a fan of some of the stuff he writes the problem is and you saw this with other people too In the Heat of the business you honestly get way more views trashing a controversial figure like me than you do saying you know what BG did some amazing
Things in the hobby you’re gonna get like six likes on that post but when you talk crap about me you’re gonna get like 300 because it’s fun you know yeah all right let’s let’s keep let’s keep running leighton’s gonna join us in about five minutes for vintage Spotlight
Segment that’s about a 10 to 12 minute segment during the show and then and then after that we’ll be back with you but first of all I want to say hi to Michael ham foul 5 ball D Nick says Brian was one of the nicest and real people I’ve ever met personally in
Person that’s nice uh nice comment D Nick Chris C Brian do you feel we’re in a new junk wax era or is just being printed more across more or is it just being more printed across more Brands keep I’ll keep it short I’ll keep it
Short we’re not in a new junk wax era we are probably in an era where products are over are are too expensive in the marketplace some of it is things manufacturers can’t control like players wanting more money than ever but some of it is also you know the secondary market price
Is going crazy breaks and all these things you know I think there’s there’s a lot of reasons why products so I think it’s more the products are not priced correctly versus there’s too much because even though there’s a lot you don’t know junk I mean junk wax like if
I told you here’s a I’ll tell you one story I was going to release this in my book which I’m working on but um we I got a call one time from upper down and I’ll keep it really short and they asked us to fly to La so me and uh John clasik
Who own EDG man we flew to La they made a sign a non non-disclosure which was good for 20 years which that time frame has now passed and they had a close out on 01 golf 20,000 cases of SP authentic the one that’s worth like
60,000 a case or 30,000 a case they had 20,000 cases of SP authentic and 200,000 cases of upper neck golf 200,000 cases that didn’t even include rack packs that was just Hobby and Retail so like the numbers you think we’re not in a junk wax era and
That wasn’t even the Jun wax era that was the kind of junk wax era 20,000 cases of SP authentic I bought 20,000 boxes of’ 056 Upper Deck rookie update hockey from Upper Deck with Crosby at the end of that year David Adams bought 20,000 boxes of upper neck ice hockey
From ‘ 056 so like simmer down we’re not even close to a junk wax a now the problem is every player’s got a thousand rookie cards the products are overpriced there’s a whole another set of problems that we’ve got to figure out but I don’t think it’s
That we’re in a new junk wax era I think we’re in a very dysfunctional Market in other ways all right Daniel Brown says when you threw your employees under the bus after the zalinsky Putin card releas I lost all respect you want to uh you
Want to speak to that yeah I came up with the idea for that aarda zalinsky and Putin uh Putin boxing because I think that’s a pretty creative card it’s there’s a battle there’s a battle and it it really is it’s like Zucker and I did the same thing with Zuckerberg and musk
Um we decided to pull the card but we had already we’ done a scheduled tweet and it came out and we immediately killed it because it was in bad taste that was in bad taste but again we have to throw ideas out there and try things
That are out of the box and it’s just this is one where I and again everyone agreed it was a good idea then at the last second we bailed and then poof you know it was a bad idea it should probably not I I don’t feel bad
About I would have made it if all things had been said but the team did you but did you throw did you throw anyone on your team under the box I don’t know what Daniel’s talking about unless it was just that it got listed when it wasn’t supposed to but doesn’t matter at
The end of the day the buck stops here or it stopped here it doesn’t stop here anymore but when I was the owner and the CEO like it’s on me no matter what yeah and you can talk any crap you want about me but the reality is I’ll take
It I’ll take all just like Gees I’ll take it all just put it on me because it’s all my fault I mean at the end of the day I’m the boss yeah that’s why I’m so happy not to be in the boat I was in
Because now I don’t have to hear any of this crap anymore if they do great super they deserve it all if they do terrible I’m sorry they’re going to get it all my legacy is over at Leaf the fact was this hobby was never my legacy I that was one
Of my faults is I made this hobby my legacy and my legacy was me as a dad and a husband and the Hobby and a friend and a mentor and a whatever and that’s part of why I’ve had to take this look at my life and say what the hell am I doing
Killing myself working all right let’s let’s uh let’s say hello to hobby Champs and uh finally Justin bod says he just watched the first time you’re on Sports Cards live episode nine Brian that’s almost four years ago I bet my hair was gray as heck back then yeah I I gotta
Say I I like I like the older looking Brian over this this new Young buff looking dude where were sit with right now I was looking old and I wasn’t exactly the picture of Fitness I’m still not but I’m on my way another I figure Someday I’m gonna weigh like 130 pounds
I’m just probably be laying in a casket when it happens that’s the bad it’s good that you’re taking care of yourself Brody the kid what’s going on good to see you Brody laer good evening to you as well all right we’re gonna bring uh we’re gonna bring Leighton on for the
Vintage Spotlight segment everybody Leighton comes on with me every Saturday night at about the half hour mark and we talk vintage and I always ask my guest to come with a question for Leighton and Leighton to come with a a question or a topic for the guest so let’s bring him
On Leighton welcome back to the show Happy New Year to you you guys know I’m guessing you guys know each other is that right I do Bri you look great bu how you doing my friend good happy New Year thanks same to you part same to you
Good stuff all right so let me ask you this then Brian did you do you have anything vintage wise that you’d like to pass by Leighton get some expertise I listen not to take away from your own but anything you uh on your mind that that we could spark a conversation with
Leighton about well I think I think the two things that come to mind with vintage because again I’ve always been a supporter that just because a card doesn’t shine doesn’t does mean it doesn’t shine you know uh and so many people are caught up in you know the
Brand new shiny stuff they forget about the classic era of cards but I think um you know it’s funny I’ve been looking at some of these indexes on some of these uh data information consolidation sites and it is amazing how well vintage is is holding up currently compared to most of
The new stuff that’s getting whacked so obviously I mean I’m sure leighton’s experiencing the uh the the the the excitement about having some place that feels like a safe haven you know but what I told Jeremy earlier is I really now my number one what I would say my
Number one Buy in the Hobby and half of it vintage and half of it this new stuff that people are missing out on is non sports because like I look at like 54 bone 54 presidents 54 you know tops Bowman US presidents and I’m looking at
Like Abraham Lincoln is a $30 card and like in 54 tops Al I mean not Al that’s a rookie Kine but like Billy Martin is $30 like he’s a spare common type guy in 54 and you’re telling me that Abraham Lincoln or George Washington is a $30
Card you’re out of your flipping mind you know and that goes I think it’s all over the place it’s not just that one set I mean it’s the it’s the 62 Kennedy stuff it’s and getting away from presidents it’s a horrors of war and it’s like all this stuff is so cheap
Compared to the sports counterparts like I’ve been feasting like I’m buying so much stuff and I’m getting so many cards graded like I done thousands of cards with SGC recently all non sports because it’s just I just see a huge gap there and again I know you’re a lot of sports
But what do you think on that piece of the puzzle because if I had to name a number one Buy in the hobby It’s a combination of vintage non sports and the biggest celebrities in the world their first ever cards so kind of what do you think on that front leaden uh
Well Bri I appreciate you bringing it up and I happen to love vintage non sports for those that are you know listening out here whether it be live or later on bri you bring up some really great points but I wanted to point this out to everyone so in terms of production right
Because there’s not a lot of Statistics from way back in the 1910s 20s and 30s they’re doing hor War cards fast forward to the 50s and 60s they’re doing Batman Gilligan zland and president’s cards but I think the one thing that everyone can agree on is that of the major four
Baseball basketball football hockey and then non sports once again non sports being all-encompassing like I just described they absolutely produced the least amount of non-sport cards vintage from those eras because there just wasn’t the demands that there was for the respective Sports of the time so if
You fast forward to today Bri you see a lot of interesting things happening in cards of course some of it happening from Leaf in the modern Market but in general people are going after Jay-Z cards you’re talking about celebrities first cards so some of the things you’re bringing up about vintage non-port cards
Are great points but consider consider though that the world is vast so in other words do you value presidents do you value landmarks do you value good art like Mars Attacks do you value superheroes like Batman so my point is Bri I do love itage non sports but if
You get caught up in the macro it’s a little overwhelming because you can collect cats and birds I’ll be honest man I don’t like cats I don’t like birds I don’t need cards of them thanks for laughing but uh you know the joking aside I really do like vintage non
Sports and I think if nothing else just collect what you like as you’re saying Bri even if you never sell a card I I was watching some of your earlier chat with Jeremy you clearly don’t have to buy these and then resell them after what you did with Leaf so once again
Congrats but the point being these are really fun things like it’s awesome that you can buy an Abe Lincoln for 30 bucks versus whether it be Billy Martin for 30 bucks or to be honest buying a $30 Blaster box and certainly not get anything comparable to the the the
Visual art as as appealing as some of the Vintage non sport that’s out there so I love it his non-port cards I love that stuff too absolutely love it Leighton anything uh that you had on your mind to talk to Brian about now that uh you know maybe I’m I’m guessing
Perhaps the first time you’ve really talked to him since he sold the company yeah so you know Brian I’m just curious putting aside all the other noise right you don’t own leaf you know you can clearly see you still love the hobby what do you like either the most
Or do you have get the most en joyment of um or or out of in the hobby whether it be it’s currently whether it be previous when you were you know at the head of leaf or even prior to that I’m just curious for you yourself what what
Do you actually enjoy about the hobby I mean honestly I like I like trying to outsmart the market a little bit you know because I mean again you have to remember like in 1989 or 90 you know I bought from rotman like all the misp 89 score football because I saw
That there was a I worked at proess in 1990 I knew the numbers like 1989 90 you late 89 early 90 I knew the numbers like score was way tougher I knew that so when rman had Mis wraps and the stuff was starting to go up I bought tons I
Opened tons I spec on tons it’s like for me it’s always it’s always been trying to find places that are underappreciated being a zigger while they zag and and to some extent looking at out of favor areas and trying to find unique things in those out of favor
Areas now what do I collect what Less in cards than I do memorabilia I mean you look behind me I got I have awesome memorabilia because to me some of them I got in person some of it was gifts and some of it is just incredible stuff I
Bought you know I think the memorabilia is probably a little more at my alley incredible autograph stuff uh Awards Oscar you know crazy stuff that’s just one-of a kind unique things but but on the card Front like right now I’m really getting a lot out of non sports I really
Am and again I see people in chat say things like well all these things are outdated no one appreciates them anymore not even that like I just bought I probably bought 50,000 bucks worth of top trumps cards these are cards that came out in England over the last 30 years and
They’re relatively small production but like they have the first ever cards of Taylor Swift Billy ish you know uh all these people that are like incredible pop culture phenomenon and I bought up on eBay everything forever and now it’s starting to go up because people are likeold on where’d all these cards go
You know Beyonce’s first card and so going to what you said earlier about how things appeal to certain groups these pop culture icons like Michael Jackson or who I me even though he’s tainted but like these people are so much bigger than you know the Rangers winning the World Series like I mean
That’s nothing that’s like a p compared to Taylor Swift That’s A P compared to Bieber a be you know these are little peanuts compared to anything meaningful like worldwide I mean all is like people like that were worldwide but like in the modern era a few NBA guys couple of
Baseball players maybe soccer players are pretty much your best bet but so to me I just think this non sport stuff is I’m enjoying it because I think the market doesn’t see any value there they’re just wrong I don’t think you go by leave it to Bieber even though it was
Very rare from Pacific you know that was a very rare non-port set that’s like one of the toughest I got tell you I have respect for you you’re definitely doing your due diligence people don’t was specifically leave it to Bieber was impossible but the beauty is I stay away
From that but like I’m buying cards of Beyonce and Rihanna and and that’s why I love Pop Century when I was at Leaf because I could be that early I was the first Kim Kardashian autograph I’m the first autograph of look how many people I had first autographs some Joe peshy we
Had him to sign I mean that’s unheard of the guy won’t even sign his he won’t sign anything it’s all secretarial everything he’s ever done done so like we’ve done some amazing stuff there and so I’ve always loved the category but I just that’s where I’m getting Joy like
Buying stuff for me right now is I just see the the non-port thing is being so underappreciated but you know I have fun watching you guys like with vintage Break Stuff and with I just think it’s cool to see someone still trying to you know do things in the marketplace
To not just succumb to brand new shiny stuff it makes me happy because that’s why we’re here right yep right on all right good no good good conversation guys I appreciate it Leighton you just had your 50th episode of your Trading Card therapy podcast I want to invite everybody to check out leighton’s
Podcast Trading Card therapy follow Leon on Instagram Leonor Sheldon justor collect Leon anything you’d like to let everybody know about uh before you uh you head off and uh and and I want to wish you a happy New Year man it’s tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve so hopefully have something nice planned
Yeah thanks well you know I really appreciate uh our journey this year Jeremy it’s been a lot of fun some amazing guests of course including yourself briy uh you know really it it provides uh a great place to talk about the hobby but you know Bri I don’t
Candid usually watch like the first 25 minutes of the show but I kind of ran out of time you know yeah Jeremy’s like oh my God late you just not supposed to say that um but Bri I was actually almost late for today’s show because I was watching you talk to Jeremy really
Kudos to your retirement and and honestly you sound like you’re your self-awareness has gone way up and you know through that Journey you’re going to find some things out like you were describing that are going to be awesome you’re going to find some things out through your journey that maybe aren’t
As awesome um but really kudos to you and your retirement and the one thing I want to address because I was asking you about you know what you love in the Hobby and for me personally there’s a lot of things I love in the hobby I love
What Bri was saying I like zigging when everyone’s zagging I think that’s cool but man ever since I was a really a little kid and I went to like my first Museum like museum of natural history I’ve always thought about my stuff not so much like my inventory for my
Companies but as my collection as my own museum and I get to be the curator of it and I my mother doesn’t tell me what to do now you know I’m growing up so thankfully she stopped doing that but my point is Jeremy doesn’t get to tell me
What to do the naysayers don’t get to tell me what to do Bri and there is no right or wrong and to me that’s one of the most joyous things about the Hobby and truth be told I hope my son Embraces it but if he continues along like the
Gaming aspect of things you bet your bottom dollar I’m going to support it and and so the point is find your find your your path uh and what’s your passionate about and I just think it’s going to be a lot more fun whether it be it’s the hobby or some other place so
With that I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year thanks for having me Jeremy thank thanks I just want to say you know Leon you’ve been you’ve given back you you did some nice giveaways on your podcast you did a nice giveaway here on Sports Cards live last Saturday
You gave away two two $250 gift cards for your eBay store Brian here is talking about you know giving money to charity and a lot of it uh I just want to say thank you guys for giving back and uh and trying to you know pay it forward a little bit I think
It’s wonderful from both of you but leton Happy New Year it was a great year we’ll talk soon we’ll see you next Saturday have a great New Year’s Eve take it easy guys be good L Year all right Brian we’re going to pick up where we left off some more comments here
Diamond dog says a respect to Leaf I’ve always felt like the card quality and artwork was outstanding lacking the licensing yall definitely made up for it in really awesome looking cards spot on for the price too there you go some nice feedback there good evening to the
Professor uh I brought this one up earlier we couldn’t get to it cardboard profit says let’s get to the important stuff was the 23 Leaf inscriptions Peter Weber who Do You Think You Are I Am card Brian’s idea that’s one of the greatest cards ever made and one of my favorite
PC cards uh you want to speak to the Peter Weber card at all Brian I wish I could take credit but it’s CJ Breen at Leaf he he came up with it it’s genius I mean again and that’s what that’s one of the things I’m most proud of honestly at
Leaf was we built a team that was great guys came out of nowhere this guy had no card experience at all we found a guy that was out of college but was ready to learn and I hope I helped teach him some things about the card business but he
Brought a pretty good sense of what’s Pup Culture he brought a good sense then they you see they’ve gone crazy with influencers because of what he knows but um you know it’s pretty I I can’t take credit and again I I you know Everyone likes to give me credit for everything
Which I love but it’s not true it’s is his idea completely Diamond dog here says heaven forbid anyone make money for their time and energy put into something if people don’t like they don’t buy the if people don’t like it they have to buy it collectors speak with the wallets
Yeah no definitely definitely truth right there hobby Champs wants to know how was Brian designing and producing cards on his own and what branding are they being released under I haven’t released anything yet on my own um the only things I’ve sold really have been like you know you’ll see like the Santa
Claus cards those were old Leaf cards that and the Brian Spielberg cards of me that are out there um I do have a brand that i’ that I’ve that I’ve uh started the process with of doing what I’m going to do with it I don’t know what I’m
Going to do because things are changing briskly the plan was to make repack items because again you know I am I will take credit as the father of the modern Trading Card repack not to say I invented all repacks but the modern Trading Card repack that has become so dominant in the marketplace
Like people like backyard I got them on another screen here at my house that’s all they have on the screen is repacks there’s not even a new box of cards on there every bit of it is repacks and I went on bleacher every box was repacks so like it’s becoming an important part
Of the hobby you know I think I can do that now that I have no overhead it’s just me I have no employees I think I can do that in a phenomenal value driven way which is is the way it should have been done all along and we were at Leaf
We did it as almost a nonprofit type item we did not make money on that hardly because it just cost so much money to play that game so you have to put out so much cash the margins if the margins aren’t raised or thin people get
A horrible experience so like I plan on doing that but then I also had a plan to make some new cards just stuff I want to make like some of the AI stuff maybe Brian I saw somebody on Twitter X say you’re not the you weren’t the inventor
Of the repack product you’re that’s just your ego talking or something what are they what’s the story who is the inventor of the modern repe I want to hear when someone thinks that started and then I’ll tell you when it really started what do you know what do you
Know about repacks Jeremy do you have any idea honestly I didn’t know about them until you had you had back in maybe until you maybe Brian listen all the first memory I have is you coming up to my booth at the 2013 or 12 National in Cleveland
And buying like like a stack of cards for me and I was like what are you going to what you what are you doing with these and you told me you’re going to put them in a product and I was like oh that that sounds neat I I was just happy
To get a big sale with with you that that’s already 10 years ago so that’s listen I’m just telling you my my experience my recollection that’s my earliest memory of it maybe it started before and then I know Upper Deck did a BuyBacks product and theyve they they
Bought back OPI cards and put them into packs but that was different those were hits so that’s that’s what I remember so here’s what I will tell you if you want to say the first person to ever make a repack no um you had companies like TriStar were packaging world’s greatest
Card Chase in the mid 2000s where they took a bunch of junk cards to it in a box and one box had a Wagner and every other box was just a bunch of junk 88 tops cards you know um so yes people had put cards there had been grab bags at
Shows for years obviously you know so people put cards in boxes what I created in 2009 the first one was in 2009 for the historians I don’t just say this because I want to be famous you know um I want to be famous for doing something that
Some people think is a horrible thing in the hobby but like Alfred Nobel I’ll take credit for it either way Dynamite you know is the 2009 Razer rookie retro was the first ever pure one card per pack repack item we put out a checklist that was 25 pages along of every card
That came in the Box possible we listed every card in every grade that was possible and we came out with our first repack in 2009 so that was 14 years ago so that was back before Leaf even came back in the marketplace in 2010 so I think the modern repack as we know
It one card per pack that has a value somewhere between $50 and $50,000 we brought that back at Razer in 2009 we created that and again it wasn’t like we made it up what we did is realized that people made uh grab bags at shows or people world greatest card
Chase or whatever but like the modern repack is what I take credit for which is making it a much higher Stakes game but more importantly than the the gamble or the fun value proposition was that you could open a pack and get anything you literally could have anything come
Out of it and so in a world where it seems like products get kind of run you know the problem is you get these same rookie cards over and over and over and over again all year long like by the end of the year it’s like do I need any more
Kitty picket rookie cards for real you know or pick your I’m not picking on paninian football it’s any sport the repack is so unique because it literally can be anything from any year and the value proposition is just straight up better even the bad repacks where these
Guys are doubling their money which is a horrible repack the repacks I’m building for whatnot right now that will be coming out in January the fortune products the average margin is between 11 and 14% so we I make 11 to 14% on a sale depending on which price level the
Higher price levels it’s 11% the lower price levels is 14 15% even at a 50% which is like the guys that Dan the card man say are horrible ripoffs or actually they’ve been worse some of them but but even at 50% it it yields better than most brand new
Products from top and Panini and upper deck you open a box you’re usually going to get less than half your money back sometimes 10% of your money back you know I I was gonna ask you what’s the right way to do them and I remember watching a video I don’t
Remember whose whose content it was it might have been might have been Dan the card man’s but was talking about uh no it wasn’t it was John basketball card guy was talking about repacks and he on Instagram and he said that you know you talk we talk about a floor a ceiling and
A and the average price and the average price is usually dragged up by the the big hit at if it’s a 20 pack release there’s one card worth a lot of money and then a bunch worth less than the buyin and the comment was that you know
The average is going to always sound really good but you have to actually go to the median I believe is what he was saying which is like the middle the if you take all the values of 20 packs in a 20 pack product what’s the middle value
And it was a lot lower than the average the mean average uh which was what and I thought that made perfect sense so I wanted to ask you what is the right way to do these things and and is it is it in the domain that anybody can do it
There’s so much there’s been a lot of talk about these for the last couple months now and um you know oh who cares who invented them anymore I mean if you’re the father of the modern one awesome that’s wonderful but now as the as the father of the modern repack
Looking looking down on it are you happy with what with what you sort of helped re create or or helped uh birth are you happy that with the state of them now and how people are treating them and how they’re rolling them out yeah no I
Listen I I don’t like the way it’s gone because there’s no now it’s just everyone in the grandma if you can get an empty box or a if you can get a bubble envelope they’ll slap a label on it and it’s a product now you know
That’s gone too far I think I think um in 2009 when we made the first modern repack the modern like hit driven repack um we basically um we made a checklist of every card that was possible in every grade and so it became in untenable because when you made print
Runs and that was a small print run it was 25 Pages the checklist cuz so many cards there was only one in the whole product and we made made a th000 boxes well at the High Point best of basketball we made 10,000 boxes at Best of basketball at the high
Point so the checklist literally could have been a 7,000 card checklist with all the different cards and grades you know so um I think it becomes untenable so I don’t think a checklist isn’t necessary the key is who are you buying these repacks from if you’re buying from a guy in a
Garage you’re screwed not that they wouldn’t be honest you just never will never know um let me ask you this I I mean what about Arena Club Arena Club is is a new company in the space they’ve come out with a grading service a Marketplace and now they’re doing a repack and I’ve
Seen some people like it seems to me like they’ve done it in a way that they’re listing everything that’s out there there’s a few different price points I don’t I haven’t researched it completely but it seems to me like at least there’s complete transparency with their repack product in terms of what
Are all the hits that are going to be eventually coming out of there uh what are your thoughts on the way they’ve done it I mean listen I I think the problem with there I mean listen I I do like the fact there’s a list in the and the
Percentages and stuff I just think it’s garbage most of the cards that’s the problem I with that one I I just think that company from start to finish is um that company from start to finish is it’s just ill-conceived grading too late they got in the grading business
Too late tied to a celebrity I I think the idea of it because I wanted to do a website called jackpot breaks where it was like 15 cards around the perimeter like a pressure luck and it goes it’s like stop and it stops on the card you get and then that becomes
Replaced with something else that’s pure gambling um I I I kind of um are you a little distracted Brian yeah sorry I just got a text from my mom can I take one second I’m so sorry so sorry I gotta text for my mom and it’s a
Personal thing give me one sec I’m so sorry I’m I never do this I know no no go ahead text your mom back take text I’ll run through some comments here and I’ll when you’re ready come back to us tiger Jordan here says I love BG oh and
JL thank you tiger Jordan Happy New Year to you both hope you have a great 2024 thank you for making my collecting experience more enjoyable tiger Jordan thank you for your uh loyal viewership of sports cards live I’m grateful to you for that and everybody else as well uh
Dan Brown says the Pete Weber card was so cool so is the live done but the tweets last night were definitely to get attention you’re not paying Kelsey Swift anything intentionally I think we covered that already I don’t like to talk to that sorry hopefully I won’t
Beup anymore well we can always come back to it I wantan to hit this I want to hit this real quick because here the idea okay Taylor Swift I have offered a massive amount of money for her not to even sign an autograph but be on card
Should turn it down if you look that’s why this AI is an opportunity to make things happen that could never happen first off I don’t know if you need rides to make cards anyway but that’s a legal issue we’re not going to get into right now but if you look at the picture
Closely it technically isn’t Kelsey or Swift take a look at him if you really Zoom him on the faces they’re just not you know it’s not them that’s the whole that’s the whole legal area right what it’s not them it looks like them but again it’s it’s it’s some form of parity
And again listen if if anyone thinks it’s wrong suei guess what in all these years and all these cards I made cards of Ed Sheeran without him permission I made cards of all these people no one sues you know why because they don’t have any riots they don’t there these these
Cards cards are periodicals they have educational and news value the case is cartoons versus MLB read the case the judge said if cards have educational and news value that the key is does that outweigh the publicity rights of an individual and it does that’s why there’s biography on the back it’s basically a
Miniaturized encyclopedia that’s what it is okay and and anyone who says cards aren’t periodicals I say but yet you think the interweb the internet is a periodical you can’t touch it it’s at least cards are made of paper and people save them and archive them and read them for information they learn
That was a primary use of cards originally was to learn things to Stats and players and details so what I say is obviously I’ve done deals with celebrities I’ve done deals with thousand so I’m happy to pay players but if I can make something that’s legal and
Cool to some people maybe not Dan here because Dan’s got much more refined taste than the things I make but like how cool is that right why not all right let’s keep on going Diamond dog said uh anyone that’s ever sold a card when the hype was high also is also exploiting
The market weird logic to have in my opinion we all got bills to pay that’s to an earlier comment here comes here comes a tough question Brian gropman cards says Brian do you regret any cards you made with Lee for example autograph deals that helped line the pockets of
Criminals if not does a line exist that you think shouldn’t be crossed on a card um yes um I think there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed now over the years I have made cuts that I made a cut that was um FDR and Hitler in a historical
Framework I do not think card of OJ Simpson of him wearing a glove or having a bloody whatever I like that would be inappropriate like celebrating a serial killer or celebrating a murderer in and of themsel because they’re a murderer would not be okay with me however showing Andrew Garfield and Charles Gau
Who is his assassin on a card together interesting um Lee Harvey Oswald and johnf Kennedy together interesting um I think when when you put things in a historical perspective I’m totally good with that I think it’s when we celebrate things that are disgusting on their own
Like if I had shown pictures of kids getting massacred in Palestine that would be horrific and atrocious and I should be drawn quartered and banned from the hobby for that however if I made a a card that showed um that showed the courageous fight that the ukrainians
Have put on against the Russians who are oppressive against them then I don’t think in a historical perspective that’s an issue I really don’t I I don’t have a problem with that and again this is the problem it’s like I made a card of um fire Festival the
Guy who did the fire Festival I think that’s what this question is and my answer my answer is same with Tiger King who’s in jail these were some of the most watched television shows of all time do you know how many people have watch that fire Festival documentary there and on Hulu
The different ones there are millions and millions and millions ions and millions and millions Tiger King during covid was the most important single piece of broadcast anywhere when I say important I’m talking about everyone in the world watched it and if you didn’t have Netflix you got it just to watch it
So like to me chronicling the things that are the fabric of who America is good bad ugly warts and all I don’t think you’re wrong doing that I just don’t think you’re wrong if you do that I don’t think you’re wrong now again if we celebrate atrocious things
For example um we did a covid card which we did pull because people didn’t like it it wasn’t really a covid card it was about the vaccine when the vaccine came out we made a card uh an instant card celebrating the vaccine uh it was it talks about the
Vaccine that’s all it says but it had a picture of a covid Spore on it instead of a needle some people found that in bad taste and while I don’t think it was wrong we pulled the card because people were dying of Co it wasn’t that we were
Saying we were celebrating the fact that finally people may quit dying of this thing it was horrible but the misunderstanding you know what can you do all right let’s at some point you got you gotta do whatever so I don’t think there’s a line like that we just got to
Try to use good taste but let people collect what they want and don’t collect what you don’t want it’s that I think you’ve stated your your case and I I app I appreciate that listen we can you can respond you and uh let’s let’s how about
This one here piece of the game always liked you BG I’m sure you killed it with Rel Leaf deal however does not seem like the buyout was voluntary when listening to you speak either way wish you the best family first uh anything anything about yeah we had we had three different
Suitors for the company including one one Suitor that everybody knows a very famous entity in the industry and I took the easiest deal because to me a couple things and just being honest the first one is due diligence is a tricky thing without going into great detail if you show competitors
Or people who have interest in other parts of the industry your books they can get a lot of information and then not by the company and it can take months and months and months and year it can take a year or two to get a deal
Closed I think we can all agree that after 2022 if you were selling a business it was time to sell it after 2022 that was the record year for manufacturers card values peaked in 21 manufacturers made the most money ever in 22 that’s when the money was made so
Timing was critical and I took the best deal I could get that had the fastest close with the best probability of success and the money was more money than I can ever spend I’m just being honest I can live on the interest at a rate at a at a higher lifestyle than
I’ve ever lived in my whole life and never touch the money so like it was a it was a very nice deal now I think what piece of the game refers to is when I say there are some people that that I’m probably not close with anymore you know
The reality is I’m not even bitter about it I was at first a little bit because I was like man I thought everyone loved me because they love me not just because I was the boss or because I was whoever but it doesn’t matter you know what I don’t love every
Person I’ve ever met either you know piece of the game he he I don’t think he really likes me that much he used to like me I think he quit liking me for something but but again he’s a good dude and he had an incredible nationalist but I loved his
National Booth a couple years ago last year year before a year before she had an incredible Booth um but no I just think at the end of the day I don’t really have any bitterness I’m happy I got the money and all that stuff the only thing I’m sad about is
That I think I would have liked to have been like when I announced I was selling it I I guess I thought people should throw me a party like it be like you know thanks for all you did for the hobby or something no one really gives a
and that’s fine but but like I I felt like I should get some kind of like a watch or something like even though I sold I should get a watch watch saying thanks for your many many years of service but maybe not maybe you don’t get that but I guess
What I look at the scoreboard I came out okay I think I can go buy I can go buy a 100 watches that’s fine there you go there there you go all right let’s keep on rolling we got Vegas puck in the in the chat Chris Bar happy New Year to you
Another super talented guy like this is the thing guys like him or why we were able to do something because I don’t know how he got away from Panini like this a miracle we built aam team Greg con from upper deck you know Chris from pan we built a great
Team Kevin gerage from Panini Jim Coler from Don like we built an incredible team that other people just didn’t see the value in man this what a great ad Chris great to see you here you are one of the people I’m so thankful and Chris is a
Great guy we get along great you know he’s one of the guys I still stay in touch with so I’m very happy that he’s here I I’ve I’ve known him since way before before he worked at Leaf before he worked at panini from uh the the
Early 2000s you’re lucky to have him no doubt he’s a hobby lifer yeah good good dude no doubt about it Diamond dog says negativity is cheap and easy sad truth that the social media promotes clickbait sells no clue what it’s selling but fools stay buying it dup said Brian
Thank you for coming on being open where do you see the Hobby in five 10 and further years from now Brian I think I’m a little concerned I mean just being honest I’m a little concerned that what’s going on with some of the um consolidation slash licensing things slash I’m a
Little concerned about it um I’m not I don’t know what’s going to happen I mean there’s obviously a bunch of lawsuits I think a new one was just filed yesterday a class action suit by a consumer against Fanatics NFL all the teams everything saying that it was a you know
An anti-competitive Behavior designed to monopolize and raise prices in the football card category and listen I mean I can’t even argue I don’t know I mean it’s interesting very interesting case I think it is actually a better argument than the Panini case even but um but
Again I I’m not worrying about that and again unfortunately you know I I’m I am considering opportunities that could have me on any side of the ball so I guess I don’t I wantan to I want to give an honest opinion without like beating anyone up because I could end up on any
Team just as a you never know just for fun but um but with that being said I just it’s that’s my biggest concern and that’s one of the reasons I would consider doing Consulting for an existing company in the business is to see if I can have a
Positive impact either on an existing Behemoth who’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger or a former Behemoth that’s going to redefine itself and I think we’ll be very successful in doing that I could I could see myself helping a company like one of those but I mean I’m I’m today I’m
Retired but January 1 is just two days away away you never know but today I’m retired and I’m never going to work fulltime ever again I can tell you that never again I’ll never work full-time again if I work 15 20 hours a week that will be a
Lot keep on rolling ultimate Pastime mark my friend Mark nean says great interview Happy New Year to you mark good to see you buddy as always collection SML Brian did a great job with Leaf can’t wait to see his future projects very nice Michael ham how’s
How’s it going buddy says BG what was the biggest holding back innovation of card design I love the reimagined and hope it continues but I feel technology is not being explored due to cost can you speak to Innovation and cards Brian I mean again I think I think
Using AI tools to make things happen on cards that never happen in real life is pretty amazing I think um in terms of technology in product like what else can we do like what else are we going to print cards on you know like we we can
Only do so much from a techn ology standpoint and it gets even worse when you consider the impact of grading and things like that it actually gets much much worse because we can’t really get crazy creative with what we print and manufacture because if it doesn’t grade
Nines or tens people will think the product’s horrible and worthless so like there’s a lot of pieces moving here but I think I love reimagine that was one of the things that um I worked with one of the guys in the office on it and so
That’s one of the items I think my staff wasn’t really a big fan of I don’t think they like which is the stuff looking at now the stuff I’m looking at doing I think a lot of people just didn’t like it in internally and I think the reason
Is because they were like first off sometimes it doesn’t look as much like the player as you want it to you know because again it’s AI it’s GNA do some stuff you know um you know so with that being said it’s uh we can’t really I
Think there’s only so much you can do from a technology standpoint what I love about what Leaf is doing is like Greg is so creative with um Greg is so creative with like Concepts and designs and themes and like that’s where I think we have to continue getting crazy as themes
And things because like Greg has done so good with like a day in history and need a dual autograph of like this classic Showdown that people don’t even remember like and it takes an expert historian like him to really know these things and to be able to pinpoint it but like I
Think that’s cool and I I think that’s the thing I think we need to keep pushing the envelope I think um I think there’s a lot of reasons why we don’t do different stuff because again anytime you try something out of the box like you see in chat half the people think
It’s terrible half the people think it’s genius so like why would you do something polarizing when you know making a chrome card works yeah making a chrome card Works showing pictures instead of crazy artwork generated by computers works why take chances that’s why I’m G to take chances
If I do stuff if I continue to go down this road of doing things myself I’ll do things that I just people don’t have to buy them they can say they hate them don’t buy them thanks I’ll just keep them you know or you buy them out and
Then you’re like Brian’s a genius super thanks nothing changes for me it doesn’t matter you know companies can’t operate that way they have to they have to hit home runs consistently or at least base hits consistently if they don’t hit 700 they’re out of the league you know I’m
In a great position if I bat 100 I only I can cut myself I’m like the Jerry Jones on my own team you know so I can bat a 100 and I won’t I won’t be out the starting lineup right all right let’s keep going Ryan hilberth says uh BG it’s
Been awesome it’s been awesome working with Brian Gray uh and becoming friends he has supported us to the next level for a decade I appreciate your friendship and what’s to come next so obviously a uh an employee of leaf no no no he was just a he he’s a
Game used bat guy he’s a specialist in bats I always try to like talk to people and help create a positive um and create a positive kind of like exchange with people even if I didn’t do business with them because sometimes you can learn things from each other or people would
Ask me for advice and sometimes I’d ask for people for advice because I’m not perfect you know all right next up next up uh Diamond dog says hey don’t forget to hit that but that like button for Jay Le respect for the real questions no layups so far this
Is a good chat thank you Diamond dog appreciate that goes on to say if I was rich I’d collect pinball machines attack from Mars is an all-time favor yeah pinball machines are cool mark from Ultimate PassTime just says buy what you like and that is trade marked everybody
Buy what you like Joe perau says Brian looks around corners happy holidays everyone that was in in reference to your comment earlier Brian about trying to kind of outsmart people and know what’s coming Jeff Hart good evening to you Justin bod wants to know is Brian buying or investing in any hockey cards
Right now absolutely not like right now right now I am putting and again how dare you Brian how D you’re not gonna like the rest of this answer any better you’re gonna like that one at this particular moment I would be investing in I am not buying any sports cars for
Myself I don’t think we’re at the point where it’s time to start pouring money in as an investment again right this minute you can make money speculating shortterm but like having a long-term Vision there will be a better entry point but again this comes from the guy that thinks the stock market is
Massively overpriced that we’re going to have a massive correction 20 30% at some point that the crap’s goingon to hit the fan still I think we’ve dodged the crap hitting the fan with all this economic stuff and if it gets worse you know then I think cards will also come down with
It I don’t think we’re going to retest 2017 numbers but like to me why buy PSA 10 Jordans at 150,000 like the card was 30,000 four years ago he got up to fake sales at 700 but really like 400 whatever like I see no reason why that card can’t be 75 80
70 60,000 I’m not buying it anyway but like 51 Bowman manels I think they can come down 20 30% from here that’s probably what I’d buy next my next big Buy in sports cards will probably be like a 51 Bowman man all high Grant because that’s the real rookie card and
That’s a classic card underappreciated it has it checks every box except that it’s not 52 tops yeah I’m with you on that I love that card Chris C here says I’ll avoid repacks you never get a complete list of all cards or odds I think that’s something that’s going to
Be rectified by the serious players uh in due course here I I feel like I don’t think they will I don’t think they will and here’s why because most repack cards out there and I’m not speaking to mine or anyone else’s in particular but like most of them are living well that’s the
Problem I think that’s the problem right there is that they they have to I think for that to work Brian they have to all be sold and opened like at the same time no but here’s the thing they’re not advertising a particular hit what they do like I’m watching backyard I was
Watching backyard before I came on and they basically had a product called nebula or something and like in every case you’re guaranteed the worst card is $500 but in every case there’s a hit that it’s guaranteed to be 3 to 10,000 they tell you that in every case
So it can be living if it delivers on its promise to have one card that’s three to 10,000 and every other card is 500 or more but when it’s not okay is when they say the floor is 20 and the ceiling or the floor is 200 and the ceiling’s
4,000 they don’t give you any indication of the average they don’t tell you how many packs are made they tell you nothing and they make that pack forever because then they really could be putting one $400 card in or one $44,000 card in every other card be$ 200 and
Then once the $4,000 card get hits they keep making $200 packs like that’s a problem that’s when this thing doesn’t work but if you hold true to the idea that it’s like a slot machine the slot machine doesn’t give you a full checklist of every potential
Payout it may give you like all the different things you can hit but like it doesn’t tell you like in a bonus game like when you play uh Cleopatra where you get all these things and it plays all these crazy spins you can win $3,840 it doesn’t tell you you’re going
To hit 3,842 as one of the options it just says that if you hit a bonus game it can be anywhere from 100 credits to 100,000 credits so like it’s more and again I hate to keep giving gambling examples but that’s how we if we’re going to look at Value that becomes a
Big part of it otherwise we’d look at the pictures and say who cares what the return is the cards are all pretty you know we care about the value right we’re spending money on it so to me I think the key with a living repack is that the value the customer
Gets is obvious when the customer sees 20 30 40 packs open or 200 packs open because again like the repacks I’m making for a fortune the worst the worst yield is 30% the worst card in a product is 30% so an $888 repack which I’m making is a $300 floor the ceiling is
12,000 that’s what it is now I’m making a finite number of packs but again the problem is when you put out a checklist to me it takes away some of the mystery of what you can hit the problem is there are so many unscrupulous people some of
Them probably need checklist we found at Leaf people love the mystery of it and when you’re dealing with a third party that’s honest and trustworthy that’s different and so we like to think that like when you bought a leaf repack the fact that we were a third-party company
That makes a difference it does make a difference versus on whatnot when you go find Joe’s card Shack I hope there’s no business name that and he makes the Joe’s card Shack repack and he’s opening it he knows what’s in every box he puts on the
Screen like that’s a problem so like I think it’s not as simple as like Dan the Cardman will pin it but it’s also definitely a place in the hobby where shadiness can absolutely happen so much so that I’ve actually started compiling numbers from various repacks that I’ve
Seen on whatnot and stuff like I’m keeping track of the values of cards coming out of multiple different kinds of repacks so that someday when I do a breaking news story I’m gonna say this repack that everyone’s buying I watched 1,335 packs I’ve chronicled 1335 packs and here’s what I found they promised
The floor was 200 18% of cards were $120 or less 42% of the cards came in this thing and so that’s what’s interesting but you know I think the repacks I understand avoiding them but honestly go buy a high in sports card product it’s brand new released and try your luck you’re going
To wish you had bought a repack unfortunately and I think repacks are critical to the car plus it also recycles car there’s so many benefits to the Hobby it creates liquidity that’s insane let’s okay let’s switch it up let’s switch it up for a second something just popped into my mind so
Fanatics has recently partnered with Dude Perfect to reach a whole new demographic of possible hobbyists collectors I think their demographic are are kids and the critique or the criticism of that particular partnership that I’ve seen talked about in Hobby content circles is that it is promoting gambling to to kids because group
Breaking is in essence a form of gambling um that’s what I’ve that’s what I’ve heard what are your thoughts Brian do is you know group break you know we’re talking about repacks a lot as if it’s the next if it’s the next group ring group breaking kind of
Phenomenon but group breaking is huge there are there are platforms you’ve mentioned them that are that are in existence just to accommodate and facilitate group raking uh in its various forms do you believe that group breaking is gambling first of all and number two do you believe that by
Fanatics partnering with this dude perfect uh social media uh group of of people that they are now promoting gambling to children I would say that conceptually a trading card product conceptually today is more gambling than the process of doing it through group breaks now it depends how you do this I
See group breaks as um a time share like it’s basically a partnership buying a product PYT is obviously the cleanest the more wheels and things that come into play like there’s a reason why like at the carnival they have wheels and stuff like like you know it becomes
The more Carnival it becomes the more Carnival it is you know so I think that’s an issue that you know is it gambling I think there’s probably an argument that it is legally technically but then again I would argue that so many other things are also the McDonald’s Monopoly game where they made
You buy french fries to get these game pieces that could win this that’s thinly Val gambling you know there’s a bounties put on cards that are backed by uh people with interest in the business you know that is that gambling when you say we’ll pay someone will pay half a
Million for that Brady that’s probably subsidized or something by someone you know so it’s like I don’t think we can worry about that I think we have to be most concerned about like blatant gambling like pick a number one through three you get nothing unless you hit the number
Right you know like that’s gambling like I I think the minutia of it someday there will be a lawsuit and someone will figure it out Paul leco has been waiting for a decade for it to see if it’ll ever happen it may not but I think at the end of the
Day I I like to think we’ve got a hobby here it it feels less like it than when I started back in 1988 87 it felt like more of a hobby back then doesn’t feel as much like that now I I try to convince myself that it’s
An investment uh it’s almost like an investment bank but I know better it’s it’s just one of those things we have to realize that the products are too expens and again this goes back to what I said earlier the products are too expensive in many cases you know the what’s coming out
Doesn’t yield the value because the single card demand is not as high as the wax demand it’s just a lot of pieces that are very hard but with that being said it’s still an incredible business Hobby whatever it is to you it’s still an incredible place and I think you get
Entertainment out of it which is why I don’t I ultimately am not going to come down on the gambling side because I think you’re buying the entertainment any plus or minus in value is a is a sub benefit I really think that there’s a to some extent that’s the case yeah you can
Go buy you can go buy a boat and nine times out of 10 you’re going to lose your butt on that boat the happiest days in a boat own’s life are the day they buy it the day they sell it yeah two happiest days of their life
Is it gambling to see if you buy a boat and it goes up in value well no you got enjoyment out of it we need to maybe think about this whole thing as an entertainment Source are you going on these online Breakers backyard or bleacher or whoever because you want to
Be entertained or you doing it to pay the rent this month or you doing it to hit the jackpot for a lot of people it really is just entertainment and they can go to a club and watch people dance or they can do this or they can go watch a football
Game but at the end of the day you know we live in a country where it’s it’s shocking that gambling is not even legal in every state it’s pretty shocking you know Texas will probably never have gambling but it’s just that’s become part of the culture and I don’t
Think cards are gambling in the sense that going on DraftKings is gambling no yeah or the lottery or horses or whatever no I don’t think it’s the same thing at all I I think you’re more splitting but I think the bigger issues with cards generally not group Breakers
Diamond dog here Diamond dog says spot on with that comment Brian It’s Entertainment not investing I think that that applies to the opening of product aspect of the hobby but there’s so much more to this hobby than just repacks and group breaks and opening boxes at your
LCS there’s there’s that only speaks to the this part of the hobby that has just come out the most recent year worth of product we’ve got 140 years of product to go back into if anyone out there is not happy with the way the hobby is
Today you know how how the how the manufacturers are are doing it how the Distributors are doing it how the LCS is the breakers repackers um you can just go buy singles if you want you can go to card shows you can go to online marketplaces and just buy singles and
Still get your fix I I would think okay Brian I want to do a couple comments here Brett s from Adelaide Australia welcome to the show lash wine good to see you buddy riing wax Chris in the house Happy New Year to you we got rage
In the house everybody rage is in the house good evening rage Diamond dog is calling me the Howard Stern of the hobby I’ll take that Diamond dog thank you very much Irving Monera in the house what’s going on Irving best mustache in the hobby Monera best must the hobby
Irving uh sorry Joe perau says the term liquidity has been brought up as of late does Mr Gray have any thoughts on liquidity in the industry hobby first off there’s a reason why if you look at nose bed cards like these cards Ken golden was selling for the last two
Years that’s where the most pain is happening right now cards that are 100 ,000 plus are just getting their butt kicked because there’s no support this is why the people who say we can’t have repacks we shouldn’t have repacks shame on those words you’re muttering because the reason those
Mid-range mid-range stuff’s holding up way better than high-end and the reason is because there’s repackers I just sold a deal today to a repacker a well-known repacker I just sold a very big chunk of cards at 100% of comps they paid me 100% for a bunch of I spent
The whole day today comping cards I sold a deal at one 100% because they need cards so desperately and I have really good stuff they’re like we’ll pay 100% of comps for your stuff because you have incredible volume of good stuff like you understand that liquidity that’s impossible anywhere
Else 52 manels are not liquid at 100% at comps nothing is liquid at 100% at comps except these repack level cards s like they are critical to the liquidity question otherwise if you’re relying on true collectors only to provide liquidity for these Ultra high-end boxes you’re out of your mind it’s just not
Going to happen and so that’s one reason why I would never buy at this stage a $500,000 card you’re out of your mind when I do it will be a 51 Bowman man all high grade which is fine but like I think you are taking huge risk if you’re buying
Momes Treasures or or you know whatever these crazy you know Luca logo man whatever crazy ass cards that are going for 100 200k you’re out of your mind there is no liquidity at all for those cards right now all right Minnesota Sports Car Junkie says or spend your
Money on actual singles you want and not a chance at something in a repack that’s a definitely that’s an option that I was just mention it is but where are these cards going to come from if no one opens the boxes well that he was talking about
Repacks but I that’s listen Brian I don’t crack a lot of wax but I love that everybody does because that’s where my singles come from they make it onto online marketplaces card shows lcss and I can go buy them there so I you know as a collector who doesn’t enjoy the the
The the return on opening product I love that other people want to do that well that’s the thing that’s the thing you you’re looking for a different experience do you want to buy something you want awesome do you want to have the fun and the Mystery of a pack without
The potential pain of buying a $3,000 box where you get $88 worth of cards there you go and so I think you just have to decide what you want to do that’s why I think the repack has a viable place in giving collectors to chance to buy what
It is they want to to have that experience they want to have from opening boxes without the volatility and trust me one3 you know 2/3 downside quadruple upside is not volatility compared to new products I watch new products that are $1,000 a box where literally $100 comes out and I’ve
Seen some worse no doubt Casey gold here says Brian slings a lot of Concepts around he hits enough of them that’s an old comment Chris C exclusivity is not a good thing here’s a uh someone on Facebook makes this long comment he says people who build Brands and checklists with websites and actual
Values that can be tracked hits that are guaranteed Etc it’s all about transparency branding Etc look at Arena Club crushing it mystery pop for Funko all the slab repacks if they tell you and it’s fire they are great if it’s skewed and possibly rigged it’s a
Problem one big hit should not weigh the majority of the product value I agree with that and the new category for card entrepreneurs to come up with big especially on live stream so just more on the on the uh repack thing fat arm bits here say Let me let me hold on hold
On the bounties are absolute gambling could see Regulators coming after that Diamond dog says gambling is Easy Money Vegas wasn’t built by not winning random Esports says Brian is 100% right about the bounties they’re all shady uh Les Hill says doesn’t feel like a hobby to
Me anymore to be honest and then Diamond dog here says spot on with that comment Brian It’s Entertainment not investing uh before you come on Brian the essential credentials wishes us both a happy New Year all right Brian please say what one thing about Arena Club
Crushing it I mean again that’s a case where again I’m not being mean but they gave a bunch of influencers a bunch of either money or stuff to pump the out of that they did I don’t know if they’re crushing it or not I can tell
You I looked at the list of cards it’s a bunch of dog and because they own their own Grading Company think about this they literally are most probably just to guess buying raw cards and putting them in their own holders and putting them in repacks because 90 a
Majority of the cards are actually Arena Club slabs now I have a problem with that I have a problem is just throwing cards in slabs that they’re grading themselves like hold on that’s that’s getting a little more dicey on the ethical on the ethical scale now if it’s all PSA SGC and all
That stuff that’s different but if you’re telling me that like that they’re buying an 82 tops Ripken putting it an arena Club slab and then putting it in these repacks and the ospice that an arena Club 9 has a value of this when they graded their own card they bought
And are selling it to the consumer if PSA did that you would you would Scorch their Earth if PSA made a repack out of cards they bought themselves on the market and slab it’s not like Arena Club went out and bought those cards off eBay like the cards already slabbed they
Bought raw cards and slabbed them and now they’re putting them in products they’re basically retailing the cards they graded themselves but let let me ask you this though because I I under I see that conflict I can definitely see that that’s a conflict of interest however as time goes by and the hobby
Absorbs those cards and looks at them and and and asks the question is the grading appropriate does the grading fall within industry grading standards and I mean we know how inconsistent grading is but that’s another problem I know but that’s a different conversation but is it that bad if they’re grading
The pro the if they’re grading the cards objectively despite the fact that the conflict of interest exists it’s it’s another thing if they are if they are exploiting that conflict of interest to their benefit but if the if the hobby recognizes and accepts that those cards in their slabs are graded fairly then
What’s the what’s the damage if you could put up a poll right now how many people in this room have S Arena Club a card degrade it would it would look like Vladimir Putin is running against Mother Teresa for kindest human ever to walk the earth like I mean you realize how
Lopsided to pulled out me no one grades with them no one grades there it’s a way to salvage a busted grading business well I think their business is is as much a new Marketplace as a Grading Company I think I think their their showcases and all that I believe I that
Was my understanding but I don’t think it’s caught and I I think they are companies with much better Concepts that are really having to work hard to make inroads into this Marketplace I’m just not buying I’m just not buying into the idea I just think it’s this is where
Again when I see someone spend a bunch of money trying to get influencers and people like that on board to promote and hype stuff it’s very clear to me that’s what happened with the fire Festival they gave all these influencers a bunch of money to go out and tweet about how
Great it was that’s what happened in one day suddenly all these people were talking about how great it was all on one day and did they really all get it on one day with I would like to know what they got if Arena Club will come out and tell what all these influencers
Got in terms of either free cards free product money whatever I’d be on I would I would definitely retract my concerns about what they’re doing it’s a hype job and if you spend enough on Facebook advertising you’ll sell stuff if you spend enough on influencer trust me I
Can call every one of these influencers and get them to say that BG is the greatest whatever ever and whatever I’m making is the best thing since slic bread by paying them off for giving them something hell when I owe Leaf people offered bribes all the time to try to
Get things out of leaf and I just told him I own the company you were asking the wrong guy you’re not GNA be able to bribe the guy that owns the compy what’s wrong with you you know but the reality is and again I still see people in comments you
Know they make comments about repacks repacks are not designed for you to win anymore but if you think new products are designed for you to win how you going to win when 30% of the money goes to the leagues and the players how are you gonna win when wiim
Bana gets $25 million from Fanatics how are you going to win how are you going to win and that’s the problem is it’s not about it’s not about any of that stuff the the current model for cards is a little bit damaged and needs to be rep and this is why I
Love leaf and companies like it because they’re not stuck in this race to try to pay licensing and all the things that that just kill the value that kill your return that make it impossible for you to to be in the game very long before you run out of money yeah and
Unfortunately Money Matters you can’t buy product without money listen I want to just take a second and uh just welcome everybody who is watching we have a great great viewership tonight so thanks everybody for joining thanks Brian for coming on and bringing your audience Brian and so if you’re new to
The channel the sports cards live to my show my podcast please hit subscribe you know sign up for the podcast on wher wherever you consume your podcast we’re also streaming live right now to Facebook LinkedIn twitch Twitter Youtube and Instagram so everybody watching on Instagram I do see I just can’t
Communicate with you if you want to come in the chat you got to come on to YouTube and watch but welcome everybody to the show and uh you know here we are the night before New Year’s Eve happy New Year to everybody I’m gonna go to a couple comments here Brian Minnesota
Sports Car Junkie says you can make the hobby fit your Style versus conforming to what the majority thinks the hobby is I love that comment collect what you like like my friend Mark Neeman all ultimate Pastime says great comment Minnesota sports card junkie uh Steve Elmore says happy New Year and hello uh
The great curator says Brian how do we change the general hobby mindset that player cards not made by the top three manufacturers are not as desirable or worth as much as top tops Panini and upper deck cards well you guys are buying wiim autographs from panini from
Fanatics for a bunch of money and they’re not licensed they got no logos or anything on them you’re buying unlicensed cards you are buying and I mean that’s the thing it’s at the end of the day people they don’t apply a consistent argument across the
Board a lot of stuff out there that you guys love is not licensed and again the ones I always bring up because it makes me laugh is 76 tops Walter pton 81 tops Joe Montana they have no licensing Montana’s helmet is airbrushed on his rookie card for God’s sake like does
That not give you some pause that maybe we’ve been brainwashed by these guys who have a lot of money invest Ed in making sure that the licensing what I mean and again maybe I’m killing my chance to consult for a company with licenses but I’m just calling it like I see it you
Know at the end of the day people draw this box and they want they want you to think within this little box they ask a question or to find something in this little range because they want your answer to fit in their box because they know what kind of
Answer can you give when they put you in a box I always taught my kids and I did this when I was deposed in in in a lawsuit where I sued a manufacturer for unfair competition their la kept asking me questions and he would say given this
This this and this how do you explain this and I said well first off I’m not answering that question you can ask it again or I’ll ask a question he was no I asked you a question answer I said okay fine I’m gonna answer the following question and I restated his question
With in Fair parameters so it allowed me to answer outside of this narrow answer he was trying to force me to get and he got so mad at me he turned red in the face and every time he asked a question I’d restate the question with changes
Because I wasn’t going to answer a biased question a question designed to trip me up or cause a problem where there isn’t one and I think we have the same problem in the hobby we’ve been told that unlicensed bad it’s like orange guy bad if you don’t like Donald
Trump orange guy bad I don’t like him but it doesn’t matter we just try to convince people this and the fact at the end of the day people have to make the decision and I believe if you look at like metal football people accept those cards in a
Way different way than they’ve ever accepted unlicensed before they really have and so to me we we we started to break that barrier a little bit but again whose interest is it to tell who’s whose best interest is it to tell you that unlicensed is bad right the guys who have the licenses
Where the big money is the leagues and the players buy what you like and I’m telling you long term someday I would much rather have an ultra low produced autograph card of Otani then a mass-produced run-of-the-mill autograph card of Otani with a 50,000 times the number of copies or pick it you know
It’s just not I’m just telling you all right we’re looking at a 10-year time frame here where unlicense has been meaningful only for the last 10 years has unlicensed really given license to run for its money in any way shape or form if you’re going to say the the
Future of the hobby is defined by this little 10-year period think about in the 1980s if I told you that Upper Deck would come out with cards with holograms on the back or that players would sign cards and put them in packs you’d have thought I was
Off my rocker but the fact is the hobby is going to continue to evolve and what seems Unthinkable today can absolutely be thinkable tomorrow and some of the greatest treasures are things that were not basketball cards in 1987 that was crap you couldn’t get rid of star company basketball
Cards you couldn’t get rid of them they’re worthless and then in 1992 they’re worth 100 times what they were in 1987 so like things are going to change especially when they’re done with the quality that leaf does it as an example or the quality that tops does it with Bowman you and
Those things where they don’t have logos on the uniforms in many cases they make a nice quality card or Panini with flawless baseball when a card is made with high quality I think I can get past the pajamas a little bit I get a little more interested in the concepts the
Assets whether it’s game real game use like uses or on-card autographs which Leaf uses less of or autographs which Leaf uses plenty of you know I I look at those elements and I think they’re more important and people are giving credit the Jersey’s overrated and as a side
Note I don’t think the companies need a license to use the Jersey I believe they can show a player in a jersey with know if they’re willing to take a three million5 million lawsuit I’ve heard you say that they don’t need that all right let’s let’s couple more comments Michael
Ham says I feel the hobby is just recycling the same stuff that’s not even as good as the late 90s and early 2000s especially inserts to which rage says Bingo Mike hem ding dingding uh what what are your thoughts on that Brian I mean I I think insert cards I think some
Of the technology in the 90s is way better than some of the stuff we do now I mean you have to say so there some of those 90s inserts are amazing SP Hol viws how awesome were those you know the upper neck Hol views with the Hologram amazing and what’s amazing is the
Manufacturer we can’t make a lot of that stuff I’ve been I’ve been working for the last five years to try to make something that looked and felt like the original pmgs not a steel design but just something that had that same kind of texture and like
Um texture and like the just the feel of it because the new ones don’t they’re not like the old ones they’re a cheap knockout for the old ones the new pmgs are not like the original pmgs and we could not for the life of us in five
Years replicate the look and feel we just couldn’t do it so I think in that sense he’s right now the way autographs and Relics and things are used now is different level again I think cards today are so much more creative than the past it’s amazing Mike Robo found out tonight that
The 1981 Joe Montana was unlicensed by the NFL not the PA but just the NFL what was the alternative there was no alternative that is his one and only rookie card same with Walter Payton one message before that where the guy that doesn’t like me keeps commenting because I Swift don’t need
Your money Brian are you crazy I can’t what I’m hearing he’s way be he’s behind in the show right now keep in mind no no no no but know he he’s been ragging on me the last five things so I’d like to address him real quick sure um so
Basically let me give you a rundown Harrison Ford Britney Spears the Kardashians Robert dairo Al Pacino um I mean we had a pretty good list of people that are worth a lot of money Mark cubin Mark Cuban’s worth much more than Taylor Swift he signed for me
Um so I think at the end of of the day I think that logic is poor um we definitely want people to we definitely want to get great celebrities to sign um the thing is Taylor Swift if we actually talk to Taylor Swift she would give Leaf the
Rights she would give Leaf the rights to make cards of her if we could speak to Taylor Swift the problem is when you call her agent her agent says is the deal 25 is the deal $50 million or more and you’re like well no and they won’t even take it to her
See my pitch to so many celebrities I got which again rage who’s going to make more comments saying that I promote pedophiles which is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard um I would say to someone like that how do you think I got Jennifer Lopez to sign how do you think
I get these guys to sign because half of them I told them do you want consumers to get ripped off on fake autographs on eBay they’re buying or do you want to give people something real to buy give them something real to collect and that’s the argument I’m trying to get
Madonna I’m trying to make argument that a real autograph has value now again this is the last time I’m gonna address rage because he’s obviously a lunatic um I put a pedophile murderer on a card in Tiger King what the f are you talking about let’s move past it I don’t want I
Have to be honest I have to be honest the only reason I say this is generally I I would say this just for his like ability to reason with people when you present an opinion if you do so in a way that is balanced educated and not clearly
One-sided then I think you make a better argument that more people will listen to and say you know what this is someone who’s really trying to reason and ration if something’s over the line like if that gentleman just and I say this because if we’re going to call companies
And yell at them and say they do this wrong they do this we never say the companies are great Redemption suck this sucks customer service sucks everything sucks but instead of yelling at them if we said listen have you thought about the concept of doing this because as a
Consumer it’s very frustrating to see this I promise you whenever someone sent me an email like that I took the time to answer every single one of them that’s it I I answered every email but when a guy said you’re a you’re an icehole you’re this you’re this you’re
This you’re this and I was like I don’t listen to stuff like that so what I would urge people to do is be critical and hold card companies that accountable hold everyone in the business accountable whoever it is but you’re going to catch way more flies with honey
And you’re going to get the ears of the people that matter when you do it the right way and at the end of the day we make what we think people want if you don’t like it don’t buy it if you like it buy I don’t make
Anything right now so I don’t know what we’re talking about when I was at Le we made things we thought people wanted and people voted with their wallet and when I was wrong they didn’t buy them and when I was right they bought the hell out of them okay new topic David Cook
Wants to know Brian what is the future of live auctions with eBay pushing them now can they compete with whatnot no one’s competing with whatnot right now and the main thing is whatnot has a customer that is addicted to their platform can’t get off of it they
Everyone deletes the app 50 times and comes right back um you know at the end of the day I think EB I mean eBay eBay has a has the customer base to compete their software is clunky There’s issues with that right now but I think the live selling
Platform is a big issue now I think it’s a big issue for retailers it’s a big issue for everybody it’s going to be like what breaking was like 10 years ago most stores said I’ll never break well the Smart Ones have started breaking stuff because they realize that’s a
Piece of the puzzle Y in many Around the World online selling I mean uh live selling is a critical Avenue for selling stuff let’s keep going Sean red says the hobby went from collecting to investing to gambling Greg con says what should the return on buying a product be the
Industry is unique and the fact that there are too many levels of profit expected between licensers manufacturers brick and mortar Breakers and collectors and I think that’s that’s one of the so profound it that Greg is I love that son of a he’s so smart that is an
Issue there’s so many pieces in the middle and that’s why like it or not Fanatics doesn’t I can see Fanatics focusing on consumers directly long term yeah because if they can cut out all these people in the middle the customer actually could end up getting better value than they get now if Fanatics
Doesn’t keep all that for themselves they really could become and they had the infrastructure to do it to really make it a much more efficient marketpl and again I love all the I I did all these things I was a I wasn’t a Lor but
I was a manufacturer I had a brick and mortar I was a break I’ve done everything I had stores I’ve done everything in the food chain so I appreciate the fact that so many people are allowed to make money but it may not always be be that way yeah it can change
Just like vacuum cleaner stores are gone you don’t buy from vacuum cleaner stores anymore you know you buy a vacuum on Amazon or Sears or wherever yep footy cards from Australia welcome to the show deep value investor says love Brian and his authenticity he’s not scared to
Share his ideas and strategies triple V was looking forward to the discussion was not disciplined happy New Year Happy New Year to you as well Mike na says licensed or nothing Fair position and guess what guess what yeah you’re you’re gonna you can go complain about the
Value when you take that attitude and you don’t hold a man you don’t hold any manufacturer to the fire and say I have another alternative and the leagues aren’t going to help you do that the leagues are going to be exclusive forever they will never not be exclusive
Again never so unless you’re going to just say yes let me suck the te and do whatever it is you want me to do and I’ll just be desperately following you around and you call the shots Fanatics or Panini or whoever Upper Deck in hockey if you ever want to have any
Leverage it’s got to be because you create an alternative and you say and now greater the alternative could be I’m not going to buy cards anymore that’s a viable alternative too but if you’re insistent on collecting and being part of this community as soon as you say you know
What You Don’t Own Me I can do all these other things that changes everything so when you say license or nothing you’re never going to have two companies making licensed ever again ever if that’s the world you want to live in and you want to be you want to
Be stuck with one person whatever they tell you you say yes Daddy can I have another man that’s not a good place to be I I pity if that’s where you’re going to sit I would say I much prefer license and I hope they don’t abuse me because
If they do I might change my position and they might abuse you and you might change your position riing wax says Brian Shar some very good points thought out the live great show thank you Chris appreciate that all right here I want to do the Bobby
Baseball says Brian if you had one key piece of advice for Fanatics what would it be and then I’ll add are you willing to give it away to them for free right here right now I mean I I without talking about any conversations I may or may have had with
Them I’ll tell you this they’ve got a chance to do something groundbreaking I don’t think they’ve executed as well as they could so far I think they’re missing pieces of the puzzle I think my biggest advice would be don’t harm consumers because they’ve got a big lawsuit on their hands from
Panini and while I think Panini has a real good chance of winning the one lawsuit Fanatics will not win is a consumer class action that’s got some meat behind it because then it’s not two businesses fighting over stuff it’s consumers being harmed and anytime we’ve had Big Industry issues with monopolies becoming
Illegal monopolies can be legal but they can also be illegal I think most of the time it comes down to Consumer harm when consumers are harmed oh when when two competitors beat each other up you can still lose that but consumers juries and judges are much much more concerned
About consumers so my thing with fanatics you better win the customers over and that needs to be unparalleled customer service wild creativity honestly and again maybe they’re in the process of hiring a couple of people who are seen in the hobby as advocates for the consumer and
If they do that that would be pretty powerful I think having a chief hobby officer that was like a face for the hobby to say Fanatics is not the bad guy someone who’s trusted as being a non-nonsense no BS kind of guy or girl you know they that could be in the proc
We don’t know what their master plan is but I would say don’t harm if you harm consumers this thing is gonna blow up for sure and we could lose the industry that’s the number one thing that could ruin the industry would be harming consumers here all right Tom Newman says
Brian Gray you are a goat the card fanatic says I like those super CEO cards I dig BG I don’t care who says what he airs it out like Barkley you know where you stand uh Bobby Burell here says card technology and Design is at a critical mass Brian talks Concepts
That is Forward Thinking for the future of the industry very nice very nice here Brian Simon 466 says won’t Fanatics live choke off all Supply to whatnot once they get all the licenses two parts number one that’s how you lose an antitrust case so you won’t see that number two go
Look at backyard breaks and bleacher and swish it’s all repacks I’m watching right I got a screen right next to me and it’s all repacks on this screen right here it’s all nebulas and kryptonites and it’s the whole break is repacks every break all night is repacks they’ve already prepared for the
World without Fanatics and guess what if you’re a brick and mortar you better prepare too and if you’re a distributor you damn sure better prepare there’s more people that are going to be out of the food chain pretty soon so like this is going to change if you’re
Relying on Fanatics for your living you could be screwed kind like if you’re I mean know you’re a redneck if you rely on Fanatics for your Supply Columbia sports card says right here Fanatics will easily keep it for themselves they aren’t looking to drop prices what do you think of that do you
Think that that that’s like saying that’s like saying Brian lost 50 pounds but he’s gonna put 25 back on well like I did lose the 50 pounds but how do you know I’m going to put 25 back on we don’t know they’re going to keep it for
Themselves most people tend to be greedy and want to but like doesn’t mean they will I think it’s a little premature to say they’re going to keep it for themselves they could eat I think if you change the word will to could Fanatics could keep it for themselves they may
Not be looking to drop prices that would be a statement I could get behind because they really could I like to think they’re I like to think they have a desire to see this business grow and not go to yeah I hope so and again
I I I will do anything I can as a retired individual to help see the Hobby in a good place whether it’s Fanatics make great choices or Panini figure out what the world looks like afterward or who knows maybe I’ll end up at uh maybe I’ll end up working
For a Grading Company or something who knows but like whatever I’m going to do in this business for fun which will be the 20 hours a week it’s gonna be to see it be a better place and I hope that so I can help people like Fanatics Panini
You know whoever Wild Card Leaf who Sage whoever wants to hear what I have to say I hope I can help make the hobby a better place you know whatever card fanatic says great show always great show guys thank you card Fanatics and Brett nice comment no matter the
Guest I always learn on your streams keep up the great thank you Brett appreciate that ultimate Victory says is vintage going to die when Boomers die what are your thoughts on that Brian well we don’t say cards or stocks if I had a sell rating it would be on Vintage
That is not the top seven players if I were buying vintage right now even though I know some vintage is really cool because it’s rare I would 100% be only comfortable owning mantel Aaron Mae kofax dagio Ruth ta Cobb maybe sa young I don’t go much further like
There’s no world under which I would own um Al Kaline um and then it gets worse like you look at T cards like rud marquard like you can’t watch these people play on there’s no film of them playing you know there’s no film with them playing Jackie Robinson I saw
Someone mention yeah Jackie Robinson for sure but like Clemente I say Clemente is in that group but like I don’t put you know um I’m trying to think of some Reggie like Orlando sepo reg I think we’re at a point where 30 or 40 years from now Reggie Jackson
No one’s going to give a flying F about him but he was in the Naked Gun you are that’s his best thing but you already see people forgetting about Y and Brett and like I sold a huge deal today to a repacker and the only stuff they didn’t
Take out of my whole deal was like George Brett rookies um Moler traml uh Ricky Henderson rookies that’s the only thing they wouldn’t buy I do want to hit Scott mcow he’s asked the same question 12 times I would like to I would like to
Answer him if we can how are how am I anti- exclusive deals but I sign lard and I eel exclusive can I answer that one yeah please okay I because he’s asked it 12 times and the man deserves an answer I haven’t I’m I have to apologize time
Seen that question holds bar so like I don’t hold back I tell you how it is okay here’s the deal we’ll start with Lillard um in 2012 when Panini found out I was making basketball they started signing every player exclusive every player not just one or two players like wiim bana they signed
Everybody so first we started with Anthony Davis I offered 500,00 for Anthony Davis which the time was unheard of Panini offered the same price but they had a girl that was friends with him somehow and got him to sign with them then um oh who was a the number two
Or three pick was a garbage guy three names I forget his name he’s not even worth anything alfer him 400,000 he passed he took Panini’s deal so like Panini signed literally 10 of the top 12 players exclusive so I had already committed to buy a bunch of basketball players so
What did I do I found one guy that panini would not pay they offered Damen Lillard $10 an autograph I knew he was good first off you don’t see kids from schools like that getting drafted in the top 10 unless there’s something special they
Just don’t I knew he was good and so I took a shot and I offered him $25 for an exclusive it wasn’t that I thought exclusives were good in fact I only signed Lillard because Panini signed everyone exclusive I had to have someone to go with Jeremy Lamb and I’m Draymond Green
Who turned out okay but he was one of the guys that wasn’t exclusive for anybody you know there were a few good guys kall Marshall whoever they were from North Carolina but like we had to sign someone right so that’s why we signed him we didn’t sign him because we
Wanted exclusives I hate exclusives it was the only way we could try to compete Jack eel is a even better story Upper Deck locked up Conor McDavid we tried to do a deal no interest he’ win uper deck deal so then I got eel and eel said Brian I’ll do your a
Deal because I told iel I’m going to make you my guy you’re always going to be second to Conor mck David for upper deck but you’re going to be my guy and he did the deal with us so then to show you how little I am concerned about
Exclusives I went to Upper Deck and I said upper dag I want to sell you jack eel autographs and I want you to sell me some Conor McDavid let’s share these things and give collectors a choice and the answer was not only no but Brian how dare you sign
Eel you’re not allowed to sign exclusives because you don’t have a license I said are you kidding me hold on you’re telling me that it I’m shame on me for signing an exclusive but it’s cool that you sign one because you have the license and but the point was our goal
Was not to sign a player so I couldn’t have them our goal was to make sure that we got to bring our collectors Connor and Mel and if we didn’t get to bring them Connor they didn’t get to bring him Michael but it was really just to create
A check and balance and to show them that we’re not messing around and it didn’t work the next year because the players ended up sucking but we took niik heier Nolan Patrick picks one and two when exclusive with leaf and did not do upper deck that was more about showing upper
Deck that you can’t be a bully and come sign every player and think that we’re not we’re going to just roll over and let you k you know kick us around like a piece of garbage we’re standing up for ourselves even then I offered to work
Something out with them to try to be friendly and you just can’t be friendly with people who don’t want to be friendly well here but again I don’t believe same guy same he he says here taking players away from licensed card companies is absurd I don’t blame Upper
Deck Jeremy I mean again I’m just looking at this from a logical perspective let me think of a let me think of a great and I’m just letting you talk I could I could speak to this too but I’m letting you do it well I know as a
Purist you like seeing the player well listen they had cards in Upper Deck they just didn’t have autographs so here’s what I’ll tell you are you prepared to Bo Brian let me let me just hold on as a collector yeah I don’t like it but as a realist being
Pragmatic I understand why you did it how about this if you believe if you believe that what we did was horrible then I think you should do a couple of things number one you must boycott Fanatics tomorrow they not only stole wiim banana from Panini they also signed Bryce
Young Bryce young CJ stad and will Levis exclusive away from Panini you should boycott them right now then you need to go boycott Upper Deck because they stole Ben Simmons from Panini and took a licensed player away and then you have to boycott panini because they just signed uh Dylan Cruz exclusive or
Whatever it is my point is it’s happening and sometimes it’s even predatory when these companies are doing it now it was never predatory with us the gist is when there’s no competition in the marketplace sometimes this is the only way we can have competition and you can
Say see the problem is Scott is probably a pajama he hates pajama cards he wants a licensed only product and so what I say is yes if you want to be if you want to succumb to whatever they tell you and look what’s happened if you go look at
Upper Deck Hockey Cards and I’m not being mean how many great veteran autographs are you pulling out of upper neck hockey these days out of the average product not cup but average product 98% of your autographs are rookies because they’re cheap that’s what happens when you have an exclusive with no competition that’s
What happens and I’m just i Phil Phil do just put in for you forgot to mention Upper Deck stealing Jordan and LeBron but didn’t they have them before I think LeBron is now but didn’t they but didn’t Upper Deck have them before Panini even came into the market yes but like they
Didn’t have to keep stealing they could have sold Panini autog if what we want to do is really make sure collectors get the license card of whoever total the reality is yes collectors we care about you I care about you but at the end of the day 99% of people in
This business it’s a business Fanatics Panini Leaf Sage Wild Card superg glow Written House keka wow you know uh Magic any of these things Pokemon it’s all a business you my friends are a necessary collateral concern because you’re the customer they have to keep you in mind a little bit
But it’s a business at the end of the day yeah I listen to me Brian I I say it like this people are saying it’s not a hobby anymore it’s it’s not a hobby if you decide for it not to be a hobby for you personally it’s my hobby still but I
Also understand that it’s my hobby within an industry and it is capitalism and there are profit oriented companies almost exclusively every company in the space is profit oriented so if you if you don’t like that and you can’t find a way for yourself to have your hobby
Within this industry then you got to ask yourself what are you doing here I’m in the wrong place can we got to two more of these I’m reading because I love some of these comments he asked about Ari Leman in Pop Century they guy that play Jason who
Who’s the who wrote the questioning cards at 1102 can Brian speak to at all to what happened with Ari leman’s autographs would love to hear what happened from his perspective I don’t see it I don’t see cards 112 So basically Ari Leman played Jason in the Friday 13th movies
He was in Century he signed stickers he signed them at the at the Orlando card show that was a total bomb where aunia and him signed I think aunia was that show and wander was that show poor wander rest in peace his career but um
But yeah so aunia wander AR Le and a bunch of guys were there it was a bomb show but he signed stickers for us at that show so then he saw his cards come out in pop centry and he was like I didn’t sign those cards it’s like no
you signed stickers but the guy immediately came out and said they were forgeries before asking well you may have noticed he’s backed down completely since because he signed a sworn affidavit from us he signed the stickers and he got paid so again A lot of times there’s confusion we had that happen
With um who was it before that one of the wrestling people said I never signed those cards and I was like Hey Buff Bagwell whoever it was you signed the stickers he was like oh I didn’t realize those were stickers on the cards I was about say I never saw that card before
How could I have signed it so you know it’s stuff like that but yeah 100% he signed him that’s why you saw him back down we got to take the next one by anesh too I love this one too this caring for customers PR stick is BS the
One right after that I love this what a great comment number one this is why big bride no holds barard is so awesome I don’t give a what you think of caring for customers it’s not PR stick I don’t owe you anything I owed you stuff like four
Months ago when I own leave I owe you nothing now when I say that we need to care about customers it’s because I’m a freaking customer you get that I’m a customer just like you and you may not want to stand up and say we need to be cared about but I’m
Telling you people should care about you you should not just be a number on a spreadsheet and that’s all you are about three quarters of the time and there are good people at companies who do care about the consumer I have friends at Panini that I I know actually care about
The consumer I’m talking about the companies so I wouldn’t say it’s PR stick when I own leaf that would have been a better criticism because you would expect me to say that although I really did care about the customer that would have been a better time to make
Such a statement today I would say the BS is acting like I can’t I really should not care about any of this I can tell all you guys look at the scoreboard but the reality is as a customer I demand manufacturers care about me and
That includes the one I used to own I buy Leaf products they do a good job if they ever don’t do a good job and they do me dirty I’m gonna expect them to make it right the same way i’ tell Panini Tops Upper neck to make me right
So like it’s not BS it’s reality and now I get to say it and you can’t question me the way you could have four months ago four months ago you could have said oh he has to say that he owns a company of course it’s BS guess what I don’t own a company
Now I’m saying it because you should care enough about yourself to demand people care about you next next okay let’s let’s go on good good stuff uh Louie here says we all collected cards as kids and love the heck out of it but now that we’re all grown up I think
We’re starting to ruin it and take that young kid fun out of it not me Louie I I will find a way no matter what this hobby throws at me with this industry throws me as far as its landscape no matter what companies have what licenses
I will find a way to exist in it and to always enjoy my hobby within this greater hobby Jeremy Fout says why do I need to learn a new language to buy Cards kryptonites and nebulas and nons and nonsensical re nonsense repack trash he says Joe perau says great advice to Fanatics
Don’t harm customers but has the damage already been done Brian what do you think I think the hobby is like the human body you know they say the human body can repair itself in so many ways that you almost in a short time almost
Cannot do a rep B har now like if you drink like Mickey Manel eventually your liver can’t fix itself but like if you drink for five years your body can repair itself your lungs can repair themselves from a limited amount of smoking whatever it is
I think the hobby is the same way listen this Hobby’s been through a lot it’s amazing how resilient this hobby has been to me that’s the best evidence that we’re not going anywhere in the short term is we’ve been through much worse times than we’ve gone through in the
Last year or two and the amount of cards being sold now is still staggering it’s billions and billions of dollars TOS is going to do over half a billion dollars in BAS Bas cards alone this year half a billion in baseball alone like for a minute it’s
The damage has not been done too much but if we continue to alienate customers and make them numbers on a spreadsheet eventually as more and more them get to a stage in life where it’s not live and die by baseball cards like I’m kind of finally
At we can say no we can just say sorry out peace out yeah and I think that’s the risk I don’t think the damage can make it irreparable I just think we may lose all the customers that have been loyal to the business and we got to keep
Finding new customers people are going to get turned off if they’re not seeing value in what they’re buying out and it’s hard right now it’s hard Colin Murray says vintage will always sell regardless of future value Bobby Burell follows up with this I think this is a really insightful comment when vintage
Drops as Boomers will other than the top s it will come back because it will get to the point of being cheap enough to build sets again I think that’s really looking forward right there it’s it’s a Forward Thinking thing the problem is you have to have people buying new products to
Have new people interested in vintage that weren’t interested before true how do we get Brody the kid and again he’s not really a kid anymore he’s a big ass guy now but like how do we get Brody to lose his interest for the NFL and start
Buying 56 tops and put together a set where he doesn’t know if rip rolski is a comedian or St Louis Cardinal like this is the problem is you really you ever really G to collect a set where you don’t know anything about 90% of the players in the
Set that’s a question and it’s a legit question the other problem is the barriers to entry and building these vintage sets listen it’s never going to get cheap enough that you’re going to buy high-grade copies at peanuts those days are over so again in the world
We’re building a 52 tops set means you got to buy a nice path go for $30,000 or $20,000 $155,000 and no one knows who Andy pfco is unless you built 52 tops or know the set or maybe you’re a DieHard fan but you know it’s I just don’t think we get
Those people back I think we lose a lot of them that’s what you’re right about I think it comes back to the the Key hall of famers the people who are the because it come it comes down to history and people are always going to care about history they’re gonna care about the
Seven the sweet seven or 10 or whatever it is y yep agreed uh Scott here says uh oh we did that on T Dot Jones yeah it’s called capitalism we did see that coming already RI can we bring up whatnot and Tik Tock I sell on both and the sales
100% are getting very close he follows up here Brian wanto what are your thoughts on seeing Tik Tok become what Knot’s top competitor the sales are getting very close I saw them both not to mention fees are very different what not spending big on ads on Tik Tok what
Are your thoughts on this Tik Tok What not I just signed up for a Tik Tok shop so that I can stream on Tik Tok um possible I could see myself maybe doing that I think what’s happening is the people on whatnot that have huge followings are going to continue to
Dominate everything the problem is and again I can bring it to six accounts I mean it’s basically backyard bleacher KK um cardboard 47 um I mean there’s really you can bring it to seven or eight accounts on whatnot in the card space that dominate the category
And outside of those it’s a bunch of people fighting for scraps because all the eyeballs are there I mean like I started streaming on KK and I’m doing two shows in January keep an eye auction shows where I do a four or five hour auction show on KK they have 77,000
Followers I’m getting triple the traffic that I was getting when I was doing under my account you know and so I’m finding our collaboration with them has been huge because they’ve got the eyeballs but if you’re a little guy who and listen it was hard for me to build a
Customer base and people know who I am am imagine if you’re a small store trying to build a customer base on whatnot today it’s impossible you have five people in your room so yeah and I mean even backyard they’re on Tik Tok I mean a bunch of guys are so what Tik
Tok’s been very good about is much more reasonable fees they’ve given you a reason to want to be there but again I think you’re taking some risk because again you’re dealing with an entity that could disappear tomorrow you know because the government is trying to find a way to get Tik Tock
Off of every phone in America because they think security risk I mean again I think what might happen is you may see whatnot become more competitive on pricing to try to get people to come back and focus there I think the hard part is gonna be how Fanatics live is
Gonna make real inroads dude perfect was a great idea I loved it I think it’s phenomenal thing because that’s how we’re going to grow the hobby now we’re not going to 10x like Michael Rubin said the amount of dollar spent in the hobby with dude perfect but the number of
People that can collect that’s why I want to make the AI cards and why I want them to have Dude Perfect on and why I want because can 10x the number of collectors we can’t 10x the money because if I get someone to buy a Taylor
Swift card they’re not going to go buy a $2,000 box at affinitive like that’s not realistic but we can 10x the number of people and the way to do that is through things that people might actually collect stuff that’s fun novelty interesting and I think you know I think
That’s part of it so it’s it’s interesting who knows couple questions here vintage Card Collector says Brian what are a few Keys you you are looking at when you believe it’s time to be bullish again like you mentioned earlier with the Bowman 51 Bowman mantle it I
Need to see and this is really bad because it’s I don’t know if it’s gonna happen I need to see the most staunch Believers give up that’s what you need to see in the stock market too like right now everybody is bullish except for a handful of famous bears like uh
Michael blurry from The Big Short like he’s still a bear he thinks this Market’s going to implode when Michael bur turns positive that’s when the market will implode you’ve got to turn the last naysayer you got to get them to flip so once the Vintage gurus are starting to
Get nervous and worried that’ll be the time the same that’ll be the four that’ll be the four is when you see the biggest naysayers start to get scared and then look at this when the market peaked you had guys that thought new cards were garbage auction houses
Specialized in vintage like Rea all of a sudden had all these brand new cards in their auctions they were always a vintage house you see a bunch of brand new shiny stuff there that’s when you knew you hit the top because even the most staunch Advocates of only buying
Vintage and staying away from the new shiny stuff they were all dealing in new shiny stuff no you couldn’t find anyone that said cards were a horrible investment even the guys that didn’t have this everything’s going to go up mentality were like yeah things are are doing pretty good can’t complain they’re
Scared to say anything negative because they’re going to be wrong most of the time Simon here Brian Simon says as someone who has had to deal with autographs how much more time and work is it to get on-card autographs versus stickers yeah and this this I hate
Because and that’s one of the places that I feel I’m disappointed in what I was able to get done at leave I’m just gonna be honest uh because I wanted to do on cart we can’t do it it’s impossible because here’s the thing we were getting the biggest names of the
The world to sign at Leaf like when Panini couldn’t get Giannis to sign we had Giannis when you know we just got names that you couldn’t get any other way than the way we were getting them and the thing is you had to get a bunch signed
At one time sometimes it was on two days notice like when we got Michael B Jordan for Pop Century recently we had four days notice to get him so if we didn’t do stickers we weren’t getting him well it’s like you can’t print the cards and then let’s say
We’re going to make we’re going to do yanis and we do a TH or 2,000 autographs we can’t print and all of our cards are numbered to 10 five eight seven what are we going to do print 20 sets worth of Giannis cards at once for one signing
Like we can’t build products that way so in order to make things ultra rare and keep things in Ultra limited quantities we had to do stickers and it sucks now the good news is I can name a bunch of really good cards that you better be
Careful if you own them for example 2009 Bowman Mike trouts autographs that’s a good card right it’s an iconic card if you look carefully a lot of those autographs are starting to fade look at the PO hole stuff from 01 almost all pool hostes upper next stuff looks horrible
Horrible we even at Leaf 2012 metal 2011 metal football the Cam Newton year I had a guy one time send in an Andy Dalton he said hey this card never got signed can you fix it and I looked in under high power light the ink disappeared they used a different P we
Used a different p that year we used a a bck marker instead of a Statler and the ink just disappears look at Sweet Spot cards with look at all these different cards over the years that have horrible autographs hell look at some of the new products where the autographs are
Getting jacked up on the card they’ sign them and they’re already fading or smeared or whatever that doesn’t happen with stickers I hate to tell you sticker autographs hold up better again as a purist I wish people would I wish the player would have touched my card yeah I get that but I
Also want value and the ability to have a card that’s going to have ink on it 10 years from now makes me feel a lot better and there’s a lot of cards with fading ink a lot I’ve noticed that the the new tops products like the The Bowman uh with the
Chrome finish the ink stays on the ink at the age these cards right now it’s laid down beautifully like it looks like that ink is there for for quite some time but I guess time time time will tell us Mike as Mike Petty Here says Bick pens
Fade T do here says cards is a fun but cold market and I don’t see it like I’m not seeing the coldness of the market I don’t wherever values are values are but I feel like there’s a lot of people that are still having a great time in the
Hobby right now from what I’m seeing at the shops I’m going into the shows I’m going to there’s tons of money being spent right now there is no shortage of money and I think there I think I think there’s a lot of interest as well even that the the Expo and Toronto in
November the most kids I’d ever seen at a show I I think that’s a good sign uh Jeff Hart says agree there’s so much history to buy plenty of ways to enjoy the hobby Andes follows up and says my comment was directed to the companies they don’t actually care about it the
Way oh yeah yeah I knew an too I didn’t think an would be calling me out but a lot of companies do give lip service and some don’t though like I’m telling you I know guys at Panini and I know everyone says Panini doesn’t care they do this
This and this I promise you I texted one of my friends at Panini today just to say happy New Year see how things are going this guy cares about the business I swear to you not just the business the customers like he is vehemently committed to taking care of customers so
Just a second let’s don’t let’s don’t throw out the bath water and say that these companies don’t care as a blanket statement they can do things that seem insensitive or less thoughtful or less you know attentive to the consumer than we want it to be but by no means are
They um you know trying to you know just give lip service across the board I don’t think that’s a fair statement okay Minnesota sports card junkie follows up what I was just saying seeing young kids working deals on cards at the Toronto Expo was refreshing to see great lessons learned from wins and
Losses that extend to other aspects in life I couldn’t I couldn’t agree with that I think that the hobby is is is a a great environment take away the gambling aspect of it and even if these kids are smart and and recognize that and stay
Away from some of that I think it’s a great environment to negotiate with adults face to face build ever happened to me that’s for sure yeah I think I think for sure T says followers are the new world economy like probstein gets top dollars followed followers equals trust and legitimacy which which is
There’s a lot of fake followers out there two vintage Card Collector says Brian your thoughts on the trend of getting vintage rookie cards signed especially higher grade copies not beat up ones love it love it I still think there’s opport and I do that a lot that’s one of the things in retirement
I’ve been buying and again less vintage really but I’m starting to buy vintage I’ve been doing way more buying unique stuff to get signed because I just what I found honestly is and you this applies to new stuff too like getting Kabooms and color blast sign like no one does
That because they’re scared as hell to ruin great cards or that they might be ruining great cards if you have a Giannis color blast signed by Giannis like in green and that card’s a PSA 1010 you’re getting a number that’s gonna blow your freaking mind never mind good
Vintage when you actually in getting your um trying to think of a vintage person that’s still alive so many of them have died off now but like let’s say you’re getting um Roger stabach on a 72 tops and he’s not doing too well either so he won’t be
Signing much longer but even then getting a 72 stach and a seven or eight signed versus what most people do they go buy threes and fours that are dog to get signed man really nice ones are really nice and they’re worth something you know they’re worth having in high gr and
You’ll see the prices are out of this world because no one and that’s why I know guys when they get griffy to sign rookies like I just bought cheap Griffies for 50 bucks on eBay these guys are going out buying PSA 10 for 3,000 cracking him out getting him
Signed and resubbing him trying to t0 him again like that’s ballsy but when you hit it’s 15,000 right so it’s like that’s that’s a new game and you’re right vintage Card Collector that’s a whole new game and it’s getting bigger and bigger the professor says what do
You think about the new owners of leaf using automated grading services like tag to demonstrate quality of the card before it goes into a sealed holder like a leaf sealed holder again they’ll do what they want to do now because I’m obviously not involved at all but again
I think what tag does is quite interesting and in full disclosure you know Leaf is an investor in tag um I will tell you that I think the challenges as these Technologies are continuing to roll up and they’re growing a company there they don’t have time either to screen every card Leaf
Makes nor does leaf have time to run every card through a machine to be able to before they come out we can barely we we could barely get stuff out as fast as we wanted to already now with that being said what Leaf has done that I think
Other companies should do is leaf guarantees a minimum grade for replacement and if the company and the person disagree about that grade we would use a third party like Becket raw Card review to determine the grade by which we based our customer service on that has value and maybe down the line
It’s taged that we say hey tag scores of 700 or higher meet our customer service standard and and once the machines are out there eventually we’d love to you know we’d love to have a machine here in Dallas maybe we will at some point whether it’s at leaf or somewhere else
Where you can have your cards graded remotely from these locations that could be really practical for customer service someday I think it’s not a bad idea but that’s going to be on the on the Grading Company also to make it an easy relationship like Beck had ask for
Leave any predictions into 2024 we’re gonna we’re gonna wind up the show we’re almost at two and a half hours Brian but we got 200 people with us we got over 200 people with us across all the platforms right now so I don’t want to
Uh I don’t want to wrap it up quite yet but uh before I actually here’s a question just comes in on Instagram uh the the Uber collector asks what do you consider Leaf’s finest and most collectible product if you had to choose one year and product finest and most collectible product um to
Me I think I’ll pull out Pop Century first I think Pop Century will go down as being one of the most important product sets ever released over a 10-year period because I am convinced that Fanatics and Panini are going to put massive resources behind entertainment and I think the focus
That’s going to go into entertainment is going to be at a level to where going to crap your pants like I think you’re going to see these companies Go full Bor if they don’t they’re fools that’s where this business is going to grow is in the because it
Appeals to everyone all over the world and so the the the addressable Market is so much bigger than American Sports it’s silly um so with that being said I think that’s going to be the most important group of products but I don’t want to put those in the sports side um I will
Tell you I think for leaf the crowning achievement was probably the very first Pearl set Pearl multisport um and I’ll tell you why and Greg was so instrumental behind this um it really was the first time and or or maybe it was Oval Office when I made
Oval Office it’s one of these sets Oval Office or it could be pearl which Greg did amazing on I did Oval Office I think these products established or Q or these products established that an unlicensed or player licensed product could be a one or two ,000 $3,000 box like we never had a
$3,000 box of cards from an unlicensed company it was Unthinkable but like with the right autograph content and the right quality and the right scarcity and all the pieces coming at beautiful cards all the pieces fitting in place and to me that is why the legitimacy long-term of
Unlicensed I have no fear about that space as Panini may end up being in that space when they lose their licenses they may be the next Le BRS I I think those are the products you’re going to look back and say those were groundbreaking and that they paved
The way for unlicensed or player license to approach the highend never been done before and may never have ever gotten done had Leaf not done it let let’s move let’s move forward 2024 it’s right around the corner two days from now I wanted to get your thoughts on any predictions any
Consolidations any any Partnerships you see coming out between different companies in in in the Hobby in the industry uh and but start with panini please what what is in store for Panini’s future as far as Panini America goes once they have no more license again my my my situation is Pur purely
Speculative I have no inside information I don’t work for Panini I’m not a consultant for them nor am I with Fanatics I just I’m just giving you opinions Panini has two strategies they can employ there’s two different routes they can take number one is when the licenses are gone you go full-blown
Leave caution of the win and can you imagine Panini doing leaf with panini Brands like that could be deadly very strong and they could their money they make would be insane because when you don’t pay in the leagues all that money your margins go up tremendously they’d
Kill it um now the other option is you don’t go that route you stay friendly with the leagues you don’t cross over you don’t do anything wrong because what if things don’t work out with Fanatics like everyone thinks they’re GNA or like Fanatics will tell you they will they want to be there
Because if the thing falls apart they can pick up the pieces now they have those two distinct routes I don’t know which one they’re going to take I tend to think they might go the distinguished route but that will definitely cut their profits you know they will make way less
Money that way if they became a leaf it’d be deadly what they could make they could make a lot what are your what are your big predictions not for what players are going to get hotter what cards are going to go up in value what are your predictions for the the hobby
This coming year we we had a lot of news this year we had we’ve had a lot of news every year for the past several years what is your big prediction what are your predictions going into 2024 I think the big ones I I do not think you’ll see
Any kind of Panini Fanatics marriage or deal I think they’re going to trial so I think that’s still two years away the trial but I think anyone who predicts this is Europe paninian Fanatics get married or they take over the license is early this is a war this is going all
The way this lawsuit if that courtroom does not packed every day with Hobby People I’ll be shocked the minute I find out when the trial is I’ll be booked there with Paul leco to broadcast live like Court TV outside the venue but so there will be no marriage the war is
Gonna get worse what about elsewhere outside of paninian Fanatics I mean outside of that I would say nose bed cards are an avoid at all cost I think we’re going to see much more pain there I think the nose bed cards are much much much more painful than we’ve seen so far
I can see a retracement on high-end stuff another 30 40 50% very easily commodity stuff as long as repacks keep doing what they’re doing I think it’ll be a slow bleed I I think assets will continue to depreciate a little bit this next year probably but more of that is
My Global concern about the economy and about the fact the stock markets been go-o Gadget even in this face of huge interest rates and inflation that is counterintuitive doesn’t work that way long term it’s going there’s going to be a price to pay so I do think these
Assets could devalue with that being said if you don’t mind taking a little Gamble and obviously Hobby People are not immune to gambling there will be opportunities you just got to have the balls to say screw it Justin Harvard’s not done right but again the assets haven’t retraced enough
To for it to be so compelling that you got a monster upside no one knows what the upside is anymore because we’re looking at a chart from Co so we don’t really know what the real ceiling is we do know the floor because we saw that
But like we don’t really know what the chart should look it’s not like when the chart’s out of control like you can’t really think of well the high was this that that high doesn’t matter you you have such a really a narrow R I just think we’re going to see
A continual Trend down for me I wouldn’t be a long-term investor in cards I would tell people buy what you like enjoy it if you want to buy cases and have fun and break and do these things you want to do it’s great if you’re really looking for long-term
Value you know I’d probably buy guys that are the next group of goats like I mean I think at this stage I would probably look at guys that are close to going in the Hall of Fame that have under underappreciated rookie cards like I mean honestly guys like this
Sounds so stupid but like buying like Bowman Chrome Adrien belr PSA 10s like this guy’s very very good he’s gonna go in with like high 90s percent on Adrien belr he will probably be a top four or five alltime Hall of Fame boat percentage guy and his rookie card’s
$150 in a PSA I mean like there’s no world under and 97 Bowman Chrome wasn’t like there’s like a gazillion cards out there like so like there’s stuff like that but it’s like you really want to buy and hold that for me it’s more like looking and saying okay prism
Golds when prism’s not around anymore are those going to become iconic cards like pmgs are downtowns and Kabooms what do you think are these cards I think they have a real chance I do I like to me I would have no problem now again there’s so
Much so many parallels you got to pick one I think prism Golds I can get my arms around I can I can get my arms around Kabooms and downtowns even though there seem to be a lot of 2023 downtowns reled to previous years it feels like Kabooms and downtowns and color
Blast those are going to stick and I think so there’s two ways to play you buy The Panini assets that are going to disappear and people are going to miss look how much refractors have gone up while tops couldn’t make refractors anymore when these things are gone I
Think you’re going to see people come running to them and then part two is what things in the old tops Universe are going to get better because they start making them again and I think old refractors like buying all the old Brady and Rogers and Manning’s refractors I
Love that Jordans are already very expensive but why not go buy like the 9394 shack refractor and the rookie Grand Hill refractors and the rookie there’s a lot of good rookie refractors you can buy from that Old there Gard you know there’s a lot of good refractors
You can buy Brian Sky just put this one this question up he says so Al Kine is out but Adrien belr is good to collect you want this is again a bad question nothing personal eight it’s a bad question because I can’t tell you what’s good to collect what’s good to collect
Is what you like collecting is is by its very nature sub subjective now from an objective standpoint less collectors today know who ALK line is than did 10 years ago and in 10 years less will know now I do agree Adrien bele in 10 years less will
Have seen him play unless we’ll know him but there’s plenty of video on Adrien bele the thing is again I don’t love Adrian I’m not saying Adrien belr is a goat what I’m saying is it’s an undervalued asset it’s underappreciated people don’t realized that that card is not overly plentiful
It’s still cheap relative it’s just cheap again that’s not I wouldn’t invest in sports card right now I would be staying away from all sports cards right now because again I think assets will get cheaper people who collect that’s a great comment Mike just said Kine and B
Belr collectors should buy Kine and belr there you go that’s you should buy and again I have no problem if you want to go buy a nice Ryan rookie and own it there’s nothing wrong with that you want to go buy a nice receiver rookie you
Want to go buy a nice like nice henders or Montanas to me honestly the best values in the market now are probably like 86 tops rice and sevens and eights 81 tops Montanas and seven you can buy eight Montanas for 250 like that’s an iconic card even though it’s
Unlicensed you know even though it’s a license it’s an iconic card like to me if you insist on buying stuff to hold that feels pretty good doesn’t it like doesn’t 81 tops if you’re a hockey guy doesn’t buying Lemieux top eights at 250 feel like a good
Buy or like WS at 150 for eights or whatever they are like these are the ICONic guys and they’re affordable like it just feels like they’re the goats and these are affordable easy to buy rookie cards that I cannot see them being half what they are today yeah I think I think
It just has to do with you know you have to obviously take into account population and print run and all that and that’s why they are affordable because there there’s enough Supply out there for today right agree there’s a lot of things that look very plentiful
That end up not being plentiful I want to do this C Richard Goring probably left but says great CH fell is even though I don’t agree 100% with Brian I appreciate what he has done for the Hobby and his thoughts for the future very interesting show have a great night
Thank you for that as well very ni then uh ultimate victories asked this one a couple times will Barry Bonds be worth anything Brian your thought he get see again I’m not I don’t price someone mentioned Bel Tre too I don’t price in Hall of Fame bumps what I look more at
Is will people look at a player and change their perspective if Bonds were to get in I do believe people might change their perspective if the steroid guys were decriminalized so to speak like marijuana which was so bad a few years ago and now it’s everywhere it’s decriminalized if Barry Bonds was DEH
Humiliated and de punished I could see people buying him again I think with belr it’s just going to bring awareness but again there’s 50 other things that can create awareness that like again Travis Kelce stuff has gone up a lot this year and his play’s been good but Taylor’s better and like things
Happen that change how people collect and change your perspective if wander had not been chased down by the police this week and he was back in the league he’d be great giddy is probably going to be okay he’s probably not going to get in trouble giddy is probably a buy
Here you know but like again we have to look at what’s going to change consumer behavior and when that changes consumer Behavior then it can impact the value of all these guys and I Love Ken golden too he’s a great dude Ken Ken golden says we
Love Brian and as far as bonds he is the greatest hitter of all time I remember see greatest hitter he’s the best home run hitter maybe the best H is probably do you remember William did you see did you see when when Ken did an Instagram live with Barry Bonds I
Mean that that was that was pretty epic that was great I love that I love I thought that was that was very cool a zombie line here says Brian what is your Cowboys helmet sitting behind your head who what’s that that is an uh let me see
What it is I think it’s a EMT he wrote 2 BG from one goat to another there you Go’s cooler what’s cooler is the Super Bowl helmet over there is a Madonna sign fulls siiz Oh Boy sign fullsize helmet of Madonna from the year she did the
Halftime show that’s got to be like a pop one or two who’s gonna ever see Madonna with a fullsize helmet that’s pretty sick any other Brian any before we wrap up any other predictions for the industry hobby for next year I mean I think we’re gonna see I think we’re
Gonna see very little consolidation I think when we see consol like we’ve seen a lot of companies get bought up like mine which which I think if you didn’t sell in 2022 or 2023 you might have missed the window if we see consolidation now it’s going to be
Need-based we didn’t have to sell Leaf we Leaf is still G to make a lot of money this year um you’re GNA see need-based consolidation if you see consolidation companies that realize they just can’t go it on their own and I think you could see it in the grading space you could
See it in the autograph authenication space you could see it in the manufacturing space potentially probably not in the manufacturing but potentially you could see I mean there’s there’s places you could see so I think the consolidation rush we saw where everyone was getting bought that’s
Over I think some deals that were done previously may get Unwound you may see companies like Becket devest assets you may see PSA devest assets you may see you may see asset divestment coming up because they bought things that may not fit their business or they may have made some
Appreciation on it they want to cash it back out that’s part of buying businesses is you buy them you doll them up and you turn them a lot of times um and so I think you could see some selling that way so I think this Rush of like oh
Every company’s getting bought up in the business that Rush was over now I may have been the last one maybe com se’s investment from eBay I mean there’s those are some of the last ones I think um I think the bigger the bigger prediction for this year is Fanatics has
A chance to be the greatest thing that ever happened in this industry or the worst thing and I think the next 12 months we’re going to come out of this knowing which it is interesting and I’m scared Fanatics won’t do what it takes and I’m not just saying that
Because I think I could help them but I think with a few smart people added to what they’ve already got which is a bunch of smart people but having like real people that are like real hobby people who are like not just veterans from other companies but have been on
The ground like on the ground in every level and more recently man I think I think it would be very smart of them to do that and how Panini adapts will be obvious that’s G be the best stories of the Year Panini and Fanatics how are they going to adapt
To a changing world right and Fanatics I think my biggest prediction is I think at the end of 12 months it will be official if Fanatics is the best or worst thing to ever happen to the business and I think it I think it will
Be one or the other I do not think there is a middle ground so there you have it next year it’s the worst then I would not recommend buying cards at all because the industry will be at risk but I think f i I know Michael R
I consider him a friend and I will tell you I think he’s smart enough to do what he needs to do here and it’s not going to be easy to do what he needs to do but if he can if he can do it I think he can
I think he can prove to the Hobby that he cares and that he’s not a hit and Runner and he’s here for the long run do you do you think he’s listening to the right people do you think he has the right people in his uh in his corner
Right now has some good people there I don’t mean smart people I mean and I don’t I don’t mean people that come from other I don’t mean IUS marketers that come from other companies I mean people who understand this very unique hobby again I would like to see them announce
A cheap hobby officer who has the biggest breath of knowledge in the industry and has the ability to help be a voice of the Hobby in those offices not just the business of the hobby but the hobby someone that could actually be at Fanatics who could also represent the consumer inside that building
And that’s going to be a hard thing to do because very few people will stand up to a powerful leader like Michael Rubin but if that unique person exists who could go in there and make a difference that’d be interesting and again I say the same thing at Panini this is their
Chance to get wildly creative and I think the same thing happens at Leaf me leaving is a great opportunity for them because now they can make Leaf their own instead of the Brian Gray show which was the circus it didn’t need to be the Brian gry show it turned out that way
Those guys are really talented let’s see what they do with the ability to go more corporate quit doing some of the crazy stuff I did I did crazy stuff because I think the hobby needed it they may not think so all right so this is this is so fast
I just can’t wait I do know one thing Jeremy Lee will be here to talk about it whatever I will be here I will be here I’ll have you back a year from now we’ll find out hopefully it’s not a whole year I’m not really relevant anymore though so probably probably inless something
Big happens who knows maybe we’ll have you back in between but we’ll have you back a year from now and we’ll figure out what the fate of Fanatics was and what the fate of the hobby is at that point in time and if I’m dressed in a
Black suit with a pitchfork and I’m the Grim Reaper you’ll know that and if I’m wearing a party hat and singing 1999 from Prince you’ll know celebrate from cool in the gang you’ll know it’s a good thing definitely here Joe Pro says good on Brian for prioritizing health and
Family enjoy your well-earned respit from running a company vocabulary I like crit yeah not bad not well Joe’s Joe’s a smart fella Happy New Year to you sky vintage Card Collector says Brian should be a quarterly guest Happy New Year to you riping wax really appreciate the
Comments and cash thanks for being here good to see you pal Albert Jones happy New Year all right Brian we’re done let everybody know what you want them to know about what you’re up to these days with h your very social for now you can find me at bigbri deals.com I have deals
On my website that are exclusive to me killer deals I think you can buy uh Pop Century Santa that were never that were never on in packs this year you can get those only from my website go to big bride deals but also I stream on KK Consignment I’m doing my shows over
There with them they have 77,000 followers and I’ve been doing phenomenal single card shows there I got two coming up in January just keep an eye but in the meanwhile I’m retired right now but I’ll give you the first hint Jeremy I don’t know how much longer that’s going to be
Full retirement I have a feeling I’ll have a part-time gig in the next 30 days not because I want to but because the hobby needs me to you’re not you’re you’re retired but you’re not going quiet that’s for sure you can follow him on follow him on
Instagram follow him on or on Twitter especially that’s really where you’re where you’re active is on Twitter uh or X now Brian we’re gonna wrap up uh thank you for joining as always pleas appreciate having you three hours almost my friend rage 508 cards and grills I
Love you too and I won’t apologize for Tiger King I will say that I don’t ever endorse violence or bad behavior but I love American pop culture and the impact it has on Collectibles and with that everybody this episode of sports cards live is over thank you for joining Please
Subscribe we’ll listen on podcast we’ll be back next Saturday Brian thanks again this episode I love you buddy happy New Year man stay right there for a sec Brian this episode of sports cars live
15 Comments
My comments and questions and not in play I see lmao
If someone makes you an offer to take away your 80% of your problems and retire…..take it.
LOL. That clown trying to pump up unlicensed product and sticker autos. 😂😂😂
Great episode gentleman. Happy New Year and cheers to an amazing 2024 upon us in the Sport Card Hobby.
1:30:48 bingo Arena is shady. Retrohoops & Cage Lawyer will know how much
Great interview! Would love to talk with BG about pop culture and it’s future in the industry
Arena repacks are trash. They slab up $1 base cards and value them as $30+ in their repacks.
I honestly just can't get over Brian's hair lol …great episode regardless!! I chose to have no opinion on repacks lol … slippery slope!
‘Just cause a card doesn’t shine doesn’t mean it doesn’t shine’. That is effin badass.
‘The more carnival it becomes, the more carnival it is’. Love these turns of the tongue 🙂
Rage in the house! But Cholo Dolo??
‘Let me suck the teat’! Don’t get it twisted, dis dragon’s shootin fire!
I think BG might be throwin in his hat to be the Chief Hobby Officer of Fanatics, or helping to resurrect Beckett as a part-time consultant
Right on, keep havin fun in this hobby, JLee
‘The hobby is like the human body’. These are gems.