Escape is in the cards With fans shut out by the pandemic, the sports card industry is booming By: Ben Waldman Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Oct. 30, 2020

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This article was published 29/10/2020 (1520 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grayson Hubel’s bedroom is filled with his favourite distraction: hockey cards. There are thousands of them — in boxes, in binders, in protective sleeves — and if they’re really valuable to him, such as his autographed Martin Brodeur or his Josh Morrissey game-worn jersey card, they’re in a hard plastic container.

For Hubel, 15, a Grade 10 student at Kildonan East Collegiate, hockey cards have been a passion for a third of his life, ever since he made his first “big pull”: it was a Connor McDavid rookie card. He shoved the Edmonton Oiler in his pocket, not knowing the card’s monetary value, but understanding that he’d found something he cared about.

“For me, collecting cards is an escape from day-to-day life,” Hubel says after finishing classes Wednesday afternoon. Life has been stressful lately, and diving headfirst into a collection, or starting a new one, is a swift escape hatch that takes collectors back in time.

Since the pandemic began, sports cards have experienced a bit of a renaissance, bringing collectors closer to their heyday, pre-internet, when an O-Pee-Chee card was as close to athletic action as a fan could get.

“I’m sure a lot of people have been digging through their old shoeboxes from the ’80s and ’90s,” Hubel says. “When you’re quarantined, you gotta keep yourself busy.”

Overproduction sapped the sports card market in the late ’90s when stars such as Wayne Gretzky, Brett Hull, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Michael Jordan passed their peak, but the sports-card industry has been riding a wave of renewed relevance over the last five years.

“Pre-COVID, there were already plenty of signs of a healthy market,” said Mike Bergmann, the owner of Lower Level Sports Cards and Collectibles, a treasure trove in the basement of the Elmwood Building on Henderson Highway.

Since 2014 or so, the industry has been resuscitated, driven by a number of factors: dedicated licensing agreements were struck between major card companies and major sports leagues, putting a cap on overflowing production; expansions into digital cards and super-rare variants have engaged a new generation of collectors; North American sports have expanded their footprints into Asia and Europe; exciting rookie classes have consistently debuted in all major leagues; and some social media influencers have become card aficionados.

But a new class of collector is seeing the hobby as a worthwhile investment, says Ted Barker, the senior sales executive for Beckett, the Oxford English Dictionary of sports cards, which runs five successful monthly print publications around the hobby, plus a card-grading and memorabilia authentication service.

“That’s been a key factor in expanding the pie,” said Barker. “It’s not the love-of-the-game crowd. They aren’t fuelling growth.”

Barker said in March, much like Hubel suggested, nascent collectors crept into their closets, attics, or basements, and began sifting through old stacks and binders, asking idle questions such as, “I wonder what a 1993 Hartford Whalers Zarley Zalapski card is worth these days.”

“Our grading division has just been slammed,” said Barker. As sports cards have experienced a boom, there has been a predictable slow-down in the revenues and fortunes of the major sports leagues they depict. There has been a deep drop-off in memorabilia and merchandise sales with the loss of fan attendance, and a precipitous decline in television ratings.

With that change, fans’ thirst for any connection to live sports hasn’t been properly sated, and nostalgic fare, such as sports cards and the Michael Jordan-Chicago Bulls documentary series The Last Dance, has been especially appetizing.

“Especially since the pandemic started, collectors started coming out of the shadows,” said Ivan Osuna, a 32-year-old who just moved to Winnipeg from the U.S. this year and has been hooked since pulling two Michael Jordan cards in a few 1986-1987 Fleer basketball packs in the mid-’90s.

“They’ve had nothing else to do except sit at home and rip open a pack,” he said.

Kyle Franklin is the owner of Superstars Sports, a store that’s been open since 1990. Franklin said the hobby was growing for years, but indeed, the pandemic has given it a jolt of new life.

“For 30 years, we’ve been doing it the same way,” says Franklin. “It’s just the market itself changing, and for now, it’s for the better.”

Still, there are some elements of the pandemic that have hurt collectors: for one, the influx of collectors who are allocating disposable income to cards can push out collectors with less money on hand. For another, says 14-year-old Luke Perrett, the card shows have been forced to stop.

Last year, Perrett, a St. Paul’s High School student, went to a show on a mission to find an autographed card of the New Jersey Devils’ Cory Schneider, a former Manitoba Moose goalie Perrett has admired since he was four. (Schneider has since joined the New York Islanders.)

“I see this guy, and I saw it in a display case, $25 dollars he wanted. I only had five, so he offered me a trade,” Perrett said. “It worked out, and I got this Schneider card, with black acetate material and a golden autograph.”

“It’s one of my most cherished cards,” he said. Since starting his collection at age four, and inheriting some of his dad’s old cards and some from a family friend, he has more than 10,000.

Since the pandemic started, Perrett’s gone to Joe Daley’s Sports and Framing exactly once, to make a trade with a friend, but for the most part, he’s found joy and relaxation in the cards he already had nearby, such as one of McDavid and one of Len “Kroppy” Kropioski, the Second World War veteran who’s post-anthem salute during Winnipeg Jets home games became an iconic part of local sports lore.

Perrett’s uncle has joined in on the hobby and started trading with him, and Perrett’s YouTube channel, LP Hockey Cards, was busy until school got in the way. Interested in graphic design and sports management, Perrett has even created some cards of his own.

Put simply, Perrett loves his cards, and the pandemic has made him appreciate them even more.

“Hockey cards teach you how to take care of things,” he says “They teach you value, they teach you about the sport, and if you look at the stats, they can show younger kids ratios and percentages.”

But the main part he loves, he says, is the chance to share his extras with friends or fellow collectors, what he calls “paying it forward.”

“To some people, these are just cardboard, but to a lot of us, it’s way more than that. It brings you closer to the game,” he said.

“Obviously, school is my top priority, but cards… cards are up there.”

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca

Ben Waldman
Reporter

Ben Waldman covers a little bit of everything for the Free Press.

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