By Dylan Brett
Thousands of sports card and memorabilia collectors recently descended on Hofstra University’s Mack Sports Complex for the J.P.’s Sports Fall Classic festival, an event that demonstrated the soaring growth of the sports card industry. The arena floor buzzed with transactions and trades amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars over two days.
“The Long Island and New York shows are some of our biggest productions, and they really show how much this business has grown,” said David Cooperman, an event organizer. “We’ve done these every year for 20 years, and it just gets more and more packed every year.”
J.P.’s Sports and Rock Solid Events have collaborated to put on events for sports card collectors since 2005, with this weekend’s show being the 20th at Hofstra. This year’s Fall Classic sold over 5,000 tickets for $15 each, while also selling additional VIP packages. Over 400 card and memorabilia vendors from around the country tabled at the event and exchanged pieces of sports history ranging from $1 to $350,000.
“This weekend alone I’ve seen multiple five and six figure deals for baseball cards,” said Jace Vincent, a vendor at the event. “This is one of the biggest shows of the year. Guys bring out their entire inventory for stuff like this.”
According to a study conducted by Yahoo Finance, the sports trading card industry was valued at $12.98 billion in 2023 and is projected to increase to a $27.58 billion valuation by 2033. Since 2020, the industry has grown by an average of 7.83% annually and has shown no signs of slowing down.
“When I was a kid, you could buy packs for one or two quarters at the corner store, and they came with a piece of gum and everything,” said Anthony Bernardi, who has been a card collector since 1980. “Nowadays, you have guys here paying a thousand bucks for one card. Seeing the hobby grow from the ground up like this has been absolutely unreal.”
In history, there have been 22 sports cards to sell for over $1 million at auction. The first didn’t come until September of 2020, when a 2009 Mike Trout rookie card sold for $3.96 million in Las Vegas. The current record for an individual sports card sale was set in August of 2022, when a 1952 Mickey Mantle autograph card sold for $12.6 million.
In recent years, large corporations have looked to cash in on the industry’s explosion in popularity. On Jan. 4, 2024, Fanatics, a sports retail company valued at $18 billion, bought out the Topps trading card company and purchased the rights to produce Major League Baseball trading cards for $500 million. Topps has printed and sold MLB cards since 1951, and will see its 74-year partnership with the league end in 2025. Collectors believe these massive deals will create monopolies and complicate their ability to profit off vintage cards.
“This could be the last hurrah for some of the independent entrepreneurs of the business,” said collector Adrian Sapp. “The Fanatics deal throws a real wrench into things because for some of these guys here, this is their whole livelihood.”
No matter what companies and conglomerates throw their hats into the ring, this hobby is likely headed for mainstream success if this weekend’s show is any indication. For more information on the sports memorabilia industry and future events J.P.’s Sports and Rock Solid Promotions events, click here.
