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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business of Sports where in a situation

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Speaker 1: that we haven't dealt with in modern times, the pandemic

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Speaker 1: here has really accelerated the investments that we've been havocating

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Speaker 1: for for a year. From a macro standpoint, I think

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Speaker 1: our sport industry is really forced to look at the

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Speaker 1: business a little bit differently. In depth conversations with the

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Speaker 1: leaders in the sports industry and sport, there is a

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Speaker 1: good admiration were still moving forward with part of something

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Speaker 1: much bigger than the sport Right now, the health and

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Speaker 1: sadustry of our stakeholders a real smart important every moment.

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Speaker 1: I think we're all from a business respective thinking about

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Speaker 1: the impact that the virus is having across the country.

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Speaker 1: In Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio Hiver one,

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Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelley, and I'm Mike Lynch and I'm Michael

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Speaker 1: bar And this is the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast

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Speaker 1: when we explore the big money issues in the world

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Speaker 1: of sports, big money swirling around the world of cards.

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Speaker 1: So we are really excited to have especial guest joining us,

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Speaker 1: Jason Mashra. He is the president of the trading card

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Speaker 1: company Upper Deck j S. Really nice to have you

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Speaker 1: with us. Good morning, Thanks for having me. All right,

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Speaker 1: so we're talking a little bit before we came on

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Speaker 1: air here this was this is white Hot. What happened?

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Speaker 1: Why did we all of a sudden sort of collectively

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Speaker 1: get so super into cards? Yeah, you know, it's interesting

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Speaker 1: because we were starting to see some growth starting in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen, and it's been growing steadily since then.

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Speaker 1: But what happened was the pandemic kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: trapped us all in our houses and people started cleaning

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Speaker 1: up and going through things, and a lot of people

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Speaker 1: rediscover their collection, their love for collecting trading cards and collectibles.

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Speaker 1: What changed from your grandfather's days of collecting to what

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Speaker 1: happened today? What what has changed in that span? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think a lot of things have changed,

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Speaker 1: you know, in in kind of changed a lot of

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Speaker 1: perceptions on trading cards that things could be collectible at

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Speaker 1: high end and authentic. But it's changed drastically along the way.

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Speaker 1: And if if somebody hasn't collected for twenty thirty years,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you open up a pack of cards,

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Speaker 1: you're very surprised to find autographs and and cards with

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Speaker 1: pieces of jersey or you know, a piece of a

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Speaker 1: golfer's glove, things of that nature. It really has evolved

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Speaker 1: and become really really cool and really brings you closer

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Speaker 1: to your your favorite athletes and actors and personalities. Jason,

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Speaker 1: it's Mike Clinch up in Boston. It seems like every organization,

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Speaker 1: the trading card organization, has gravitated towards one of the

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Speaker 1: four major sports. Um, how did you wind up with hockey? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, hockey has always been a primary focus for

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Speaker 1: us as a company, and the Canada Upper Deck is

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Speaker 1: really become synonymous with with hockey and and and we

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Speaker 1: love the sport and have have always you know, great

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Speaker 1: partnerships with the NHL and the NHL p a h

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Speaker 1: So we've always been really heavily embedded with that sport.

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Speaker 1: And so, so, Jason, talk about the different sports, because

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Speaker 1: you know, you've worked across a lot of different sports

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Speaker 1: over over the course of your career. What is it

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Speaker 1: that makes the card business different from from sport to sport?

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Speaker 1: And you know, I feel like growing up, you know,

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Speaker 1: we probably all gravitated more toward baseball cards. Uh, Basketball

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Speaker 1: cards obviously have have become a big thing that that

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Speaker 1: folks talk about. Tell us about the business as it

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Speaker 1: varies from from pro sports to pro sport and where

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Speaker 1: you think that goes from here. Yeah, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: really interesting. I think what you see is you see

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Speaker 1: a lot of similarities between baseball and hockey, where you

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Speaker 1: have a lot of traditional pure collectors, people who want

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Speaker 1: to collect sets, they want to collect their teams, they

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Speaker 1: want to call sets from year to year. It's very

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Speaker 1: pure in a lot of aspects, where with some of

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Speaker 1: the other sports like basketball and football, it becomes about

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Speaker 1: kind of pulling the hot card, you know, making a

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Speaker 1: lot of money, kind of speculating on the rookies year

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Speaker 1: to year because you know, specific positions and players can

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Speaker 1: have such a impact year to year. People like to

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Speaker 1: speculate and kind of try to find that next great

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Speaker 1: breakout star and try to make money on a on

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Speaker 1: a quick flip. So the sports are different in the

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Speaker 1: way people collect them and and trade the cards digital cards.

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Speaker 1: That that is huge, huge, huge. Can you expand more

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Speaker 1: on that? Well, you know, it's interesting. So digital trading

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Speaker 1: cards have been around for quite some time now, I

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Speaker 1: want to say probably eight, nine, ten years um, and

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Speaker 1: everybody has taken a little different stance on strategy of

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Speaker 1: where they want to go. Uh, some of the company

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Speaker 1: has gone to kind of purely digital trading card experiences

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Speaker 1: like apps. For us, we we saw an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: to use digital technology to deliver physical trading cards to

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Speaker 1: two people. So we created a platform in two thousand

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Speaker 1: fiftying called upper deck epac dot com where you can

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Speaker 1: actually go on the website open a pack of cards.

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Speaker 1: It's a real pack of cards. So if you you know,

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Speaker 1: you pull a really cool, you know, Connor McDavid autograph

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Speaker 1: card or a Wayne Gretzky autograph card, you can actually

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Speaker 1: have a shift to your house within twenty four hours.

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Speaker 1: It's a real card. The card that you see is real.

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Speaker 1: But you also have the ability to trade with collectors

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Speaker 1: across the globe, put sets together and really have fun

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Speaker 1: with it. We reward people for collecting sets and doing

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Speaker 1: things on the site, but at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: it's represented digitally, but it's real physical cards, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of a blending of the you know, the digital

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Speaker 1: and physical world. So you know, everybody has a has

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Speaker 1: a different take and a different strategy with where things

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Speaker 1: are gone. Jason, how do you determine the value of

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Speaker 1: a card, Well, we don't determine the value. The market

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Speaker 1: determines the value. I think it's like you know, any collectible,

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Speaker 1: it's what somebody is willing to pay for it. So

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Speaker 1: it really comes down to, you know, somebody, you know,

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Speaker 1: pulling that Wayne Gretzky autograph card and then putting it

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Speaker 1: up for sale and seeing put somebody over pay for

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Speaker 1: it at that point. So talking about value leads naturally

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Speaker 1: to something you alluded to earlier in the conversation, Jason,

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Speaker 1: which is this whole idea of speculators. You You've had

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Speaker 1: people just pour into this market across the board, you know,

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Speaker 1: in in various UH and various sports including UH hockey especially.

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Speaker 1: It feels like in basketball, you know, we've all you

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Speaker 1: heard about the fabled uh you know Lebron rookie cards

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Speaker 1: and and the value that these are those sorts of

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Speaker 1: card are drawing. What's the net effect of all this speculation?

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Speaker 1: Is it just noise or does it fundamentally change the

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Speaker 1: business from your perspective, Well, you know, speculators in any

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Speaker 1: market are are a short term phenomenon. You know, speculators

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Speaker 1: go where they think they can make money. For a

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Speaker 1: given amount of time. So what we've seen is it's

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Speaker 1: really boosted values and secondary market sales in the short term.

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Speaker 1: Beyond you know what the normal rate of return are

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Speaker 1: for those trading cards or those collectibles. As speculators kind

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Speaker 1: of moved from market to market, you know, you'll see

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Speaker 1: kind of a return to normalcy in a lot of cases.

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Speaker 1: With that being said, though, um, the best of the

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Speaker 1: best always seems to accumulate and value. You know, the

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Speaker 1: Lebron James rookie cards, the Michael Jordan's rookie cards, the

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Speaker 1: Tiger Woods rookie cards, the Wayne Gretzky rookie cards. Those

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Speaker 1: are legends, those are historical cards. Those always tend to

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Speaker 1: go up. It's really the second tier, the third tier,

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Speaker 1: the you know, the the rookie or the second year

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Speaker 1: player that everybody is kind of chasing and driving value

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Speaker 1: up on. Those are the ones that are i would

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Speaker 1: say more risky or short term kind of speculation place

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Speaker 1: in a lot of cases. So let's say I have

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Speaker 1: a rookie Mike Lynch card and all of a sudden, bam,

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Speaker 1: I've realized this thing is worth one thousand dollars. But

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Speaker 1: it's not like that anymore where I hope just to

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Speaker 1: catch one card. A lot of people are coming in

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Speaker 1: the market hoping to sell shares of that one card

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Speaker 1: because you know that card is worth something. Can you

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Speaker 1: expand on that? Well, you know, you've you've seen this

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Speaker 1: rise in fractional ownership in the market over the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years because most people can't afford a five

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Speaker 1: million dollar Lebron James card, right, That's not something that

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Speaker 1: the masses can afford. So the fractional ownership allows people

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Speaker 1: to buy a share of that card, similar that that

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Speaker 1: you would buy a stock in a company, because most

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Speaker 1: people can't afford to buy Microsoft, right, so you know,

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Speaker 1: you can buy a piece of it, and it's the

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Speaker 1: same effect. And especially again those those legendary cards, um

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Speaker 1: those are the ones that will continue to accumulate. There's

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Speaker 1: no chance that Lebron James will be card from Exquisite

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Speaker 1: is going to come down to a place where everybody

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Speaker 1: can afford it. So that's where we've seen the opportunity

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Speaker 1: for some of those those fractional buying opportunities. So Jason

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Speaker 1: who wanted to walk into the drug store in a

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Speaker 1: pharmacy and try to buy a pack of upper deck cards.

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Speaker 1: Is that impossible these days? Well, you know, you you

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Speaker 1: actually shouldn't have a problem finding upper deck cards. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, the team here has done a really good

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Speaker 1: job of you know, keeping track of what's going on

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Speaker 1: in the market. They've done a great job of basically

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Speaker 1: just producing below market demand. You know, as a collectible,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to be over demand because then it's

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Speaker 1: not worth anything. But we haven't seen the same type

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Speaker 1: of issues that some of the other products and licenses have,

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Speaker 1: so um, you should be able to find some upper

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Speaker 1: deck stuff out there. With that being said, it's not easy,

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Speaker 1: it is. It is exciting right now because people are

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Speaker 1: very excited about trading cards and um, you know, when

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Speaker 1: they see them, they will buy them. Um. But you

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Speaker 1: should be able to find, you know, any of the

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Speaker 1: upper deck cards, whether it's golf, for hockey or marble. Um.

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Speaker 1: Most places that you would shop for trading cards. Do

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Speaker 1: I have to go to a hobby shop, board or

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Speaker 1: like can you buy it in retail? So that's a

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Speaker 1: great question. So we we view, we have um three

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Speaker 1: distinct channels, um that are main channels. So the normal

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Speaker 1: trading cards store that that is our bread and butter

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Speaker 1: will always be our bread and butter. We always encourage

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Speaker 1: people to to go to their trading card shop because

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Speaker 1: they can learn all the nuances of trading cards. We

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Speaker 1: also sell in a mass retail, so you know, Target, Walmart, Meyer, Um,

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Speaker 1: exporting goods, all kind of the normal retail channels, and

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Speaker 1: then offer doc epac dot com. It's kind of that

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Speaker 1: place where you can buy twenty four hours a d

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Speaker 1: eight seven, seven days a week. And then you know.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I think has been very

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Speaker 1: unique about the way we've approached it and we think

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Speaker 1: really helped drive the growth of this thing starting in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen, is we try to make trading

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Speaker 1: cards available through promotional partners around the globe. We have

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Speaker 1: a program that we run with Tim Horton's in Canada

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Speaker 1: every year that has gotten millions of packs into kids

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Speaker 1: hands and families hands, which I think is very important.

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Speaker 1: We've run report promotions with Marvel with DVDs and putting

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Speaker 1: trading card packs and d v d s. We've run

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Speaker 1: programs with Haynes Um. There was a there was a

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Speaker 1: program we did a couple of years ago with Haynes,

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Speaker 1: with Marvel and with Michael Jordan's and people were running

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Speaker 1: around by an underwear like crazy to get Michael Jordan's cards. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, we we try to make trading cards as

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Speaker 1: available as we possibly can, because for us, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a fun hobby, it's something you can do. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a very pure um family hobby, something you can share

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Speaker 1: with your kids. So you know, we we try to

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Speaker 1: hit every channel we can. So Jason talked to us

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Speaker 1: about sort of the broader world of collectibles, because you

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Speaker 1: guys are not just limited, as I understand it, two cards.

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Speaker 1: Obviously that's your main business, but the broader collectibles world

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Speaker 1: that you know, the jerseys, the autographed um, you know,

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Speaker 1: sporting gear and all of that stuff. How does this

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Speaker 1: business grow, how does it expand and and where do

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Speaker 1: you see it? Sort of look around the corner for us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So opper Deck started authenticated memorability of division called upper

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Speaker 1: Deck Authenticated and and a lot of the challenges that

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Speaker 1: upper Deck was founded on for trading cards, where there

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Speaker 1: were a lot of forgeries and counterfeits, was the same

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Speaker 1: thing that the founders saw with autograph memorabilia. So for

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Speaker 1: the last thirty years we've had this authenticated process. We

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Speaker 1: caught a five step process. Uh that you know, gives

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Speaker 1: collectors a peace of mind that when they buy something

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Speaker 1: that's upper deck authenticated, it really is real. And what

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Speaker 1: we've seen, especially in the last three to four years,

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Speaker 1: especially as the trading cards have accumulated in value, is

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's a huge demand for authentic

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Speaker 1: signed memorability as well for a couple of reasons. One,

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Speaker 1: everybody wants to decorate their home office now so they

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Speaker 1: have something really cool in the background. Presuming, right, that's

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Speaker 1: an event that you're so right about that that's that

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Speaker 1: is not a market that people That is a pandemic

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Speaker 1: market that people probably didn't anticipate. I love that, right

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Speaker 1: And then and then the other thing is is that

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Speaker 1: when you look at the way card values and some

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Speaker 1: of the other markets and collectibles have um risen over

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Speaker 1: the last couple of years, all of a sudden, assigned

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Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's jersey or assigned Wayne gretzky jersey looks like

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Speaker 1: a bargain compared to some of the trading cards. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can you can buy that exquisite Lebron James Wilkie

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Speaker 1: character five point two millions, or you can buy an

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Speaker 1: autograph Jersey or an autograph photo for a few thousand dollars, right,

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Speaker 1: and and have it on your wall and display it

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Speaker 1: and have it on your zoom meetings. So all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, authenticated memorabilia kind of looks like a bargain.

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Speaker 1: How a card is rated is insane today. It's it's

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Speaker 1: I can get a magnifying glass look at a card.

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Speaker 1: It's like, oh yeah, that center. No, it's not like

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Speaker 1: that the guy who rates the card. I mean we're

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Speaker 1: talking like by the width of a hair for it

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Speaker 1: to be centered. Yeah, you know, grading is an interesting thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know a lot of people think it's a new phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: It's it's been around twenty plus years. And I think

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Speaker 1: the dilemma that a lot of collectibles have is, Okay,

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Speaker 1: if I go on to eBay or I go to

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Speaker 1: another source digitally, how do I know what that condition is? Right? Like,

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Speaker 1: I don't have it in my hand. I'm not seeing

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Speaker 1: it firsthand. And a lot of times trying to judge

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Speaker 1: the condition of a collectible is very subjective, right, So

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Speaker 1: the seller in the and the buyer can differ. And

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Speaker 1: I think what the grading card companies do is it

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Speaker 1: gives everybody some level of consistency or assurance of hey,

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Speaker 1: this this card is in the condition. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: in a mint condition or it's in a near mint condition.

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Speaker 1: And while greater grading is still a human element to it,

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Speaker 1: there is kind of that third party objective clarifier that hey,

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Speaker 1: when I buy this off of eBay or an auction,

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Speaker 1: this is the condition that it's in. And I think

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Speaker 1: it helps give people peace of mind when they're they're buying,

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Speaker 1: especially a high value item. Jason, I'm looking on your

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Speaker 1: website here and you have some Michael Jordan's autographed shoes,

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Speaker 1: so obviously you're much more than just trading cards, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So you know, we have a wonderful portfolio of exclusive

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Speaker 1: spokespeople um from Michael to Lebron Gretzky, Tiger Woods, Connor McDavid,

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Speaker 1: Ben Simmons, and you know, again it's important for these

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Speaker 1: athletes to make sure that their fans have access to

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Speaker 1: authenticated uh and authentic autographed items. So you know, we

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Speaker 1: offer a full portfolio, whether it's jerseys, photos, shoes, um gloves, helmets,

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Speaker 1: you know, depending on the sport of authentic signed items

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Speaker 1: from the world's greatest athletes. All right, well, it's been

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Speaker 1: really really good catching up with you. We really appreciate time.

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Speaker 1: Jason mashra is the president at Upper Deck Trading Cards

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Speaker 1: and much more. As we just heard, I really appreciate

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Speaker 1: the time. Good luck, and uh we'll be keep an

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Speaker 1: eye on this very very hot business. Appreciate it, Thank you,

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Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Barr on Twitter at Big Bar Sports, and

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Speaker 1: I'm Mike Lynch. You can find me at Lynch w CVB.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelly, find me at Jason Kelly News. We're

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Speaker 1: here each and every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday exploring the

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Speaker 1: world of money in sports. Happy Holidays. You're listening to

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business of Sports on Bloomberg Radio, Ground World and

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Speaker 1: online wherever you get your podcasts.