Why Trading Cards Are Your Next Investment | Jeremy Aisenberg Interview

part of how we grow the hobby and bring more people into this as a way to make fans stickier to their teams and the leagues and sports is collecting when the licenses were being held by upper deck and tops and flare and donnerous in the 90s it sparked a lot of innovation. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From Jason Grails, the Colin Bluffs, I'm going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. What's up guys? I can admit when I'm doing guilty pleasure, but I'm doing guilty pleasures that you need to know about because this is part of our Trading Cards series. We had Brian Ludden from LudEx on. We've got one of the biggest collectors in the southeast. It's coming on. We've got some other big names and that's why I went to Jeremy. Jeremy Eisenberg. He is. Not only, you know, an OG Trading Card guy, talent brand labs, founder, and I think just a sports junkie. Is that what it is, Jeremy? That's fair. Sports is big, a big part of my life, as long as I can remember. Jeremy, I did go through like your background and Brian shared a little bit, but I was like, you know, and I got blessed to work on, you know, Verizon's the big names. We did some sports sponsorship stuff, but it wasn't to say that my backgrounds in sports brand market all it would not be painting the, I'd say more wireless and tick. But I read yours and I go, who wouldn't grow up and go, I want to be that. That's what I thought when I was reading through your kind of buy lines and everything you've done. I've been lucky, man. That's all I can say. I didn't necessarily. It wasn't the plan. I was, I was, get a PhD in genetics and took us a little absence and ended up working for one of the most influential people in golf. And that was a quick PhD in business and where that entrepreneurial first step has taken me in the last 20 years is someday I'll write a book. It's been, I pinch myself. It's been amazing, amazing journey. Collectibles.show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing. And ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you. You do case hits at collectibles.show. What's you to send in your favorite pulls of the week? And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back, but it's not just about the values about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share a story. Share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectibles.show. Send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring it to life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week. Once we get rolling and get some videos in where we share that on the show with us. We'll feature you on collectibles show. You need to name that name, though. And our listeners that knows if you even golf and maybe not golf, you'll recognize this name we talked about before. Might be one of the first influencers in golf, wasn't he? David, let better. Yeah. When I think about I was lucky enough to to go work for a guy who recognized that his opportunity to leverage his influence and the attention he was able to generate across his own channels and through businesses he owned and controlled, he built an instructor certification business of brick and mortar academy business, product licensing business, product development business, content distribution business, and all before the introduction of social media. And so I took that experience working for David and learning from him and seeing how important it was to over deliver value. I took all these great lessons and got to work over 18 years for one of the largest agencies in the world and apply that personal branding to this explosion of digital and social content and democratization of distribution. And it's taking me in all sorts of exciting directions, some of which hopefully we'll get to chat about. It's been fascinating for me, but I think especially for you, I'm sure Jeremy, that whole journey watching what's happened in this explosion of all these channels, you know, TV, online, social media, YouTube, now TikTok, Instagram, all these things with the people and brands that you've worked with. I'd love to dive down that little bit, you know, not until I'm kind of your story because you kind of came up through it all. I always felt like I was representing Challenger brand, so to speak, because, you know, I wasn't representing the agency that I worked for Octo, we had Michael Phelps, we had Steph Curry, but I was representing, you know, coaches and broadcasters and golf. Now, you know, where golf had this great advantage was, you know, the people who distribute content related to playing better golf have an outsized amount of influence over their audience. If someone is promising, you know, better scores, lower handicap, more fun playing golf, they're basically promising them, you know, a dopamine high, right? So I was able to, it's a, what I've said to a lot of big technologists is golf is this incredible test kitchen for, you know, new innovative technology. You know, when Microsoft was looking at how the augmented reality world might come into play in business, they used golf courses as the way to visualize and bring that to the business community through a PGA toward partnership, but, you know, you're able to use hollow lens and see how, you know, this holographic type interface works and it was, you know, a great example of where golf's influence and the pyramid of that influence is so powerful and why I've been able to, you know, be, you know, as someone like King Caney was, was written up in Wall Street Journal in 2011 as the most authentic user of Twitter in the world, not just the golf guy, but in the world because, you know, we were, we were out there trying to find ways to showcase, you know, our content in, in as many channels as we could, we could and whether that's through augmented reality or whether that's through, you know, podcasts or through, you know, OTT subscriptions, you know, Hank, Hank had a, you know, very significant, you know, eight million, or excuse me, eight figure business, you know, 10 million plus business, a month doing online content subscriptions, you know, because again, that that insatiable appetite for game improvement is, is on dying. So, you know, the premise is held true and it guys like Gary V have been, you know, both friends and sort of influences as well as, you know, the bottom line is you got to put your message in as many places as the potential audience might be and the gatekeeping, you know, makes sense in certain, you know, spots, but really, you know, ubiquitous omnichannel content distribution authentically and organically is, is the answer and then if you've got the goods, you know, you can, you can achieve a lot. How did this, the trading card thing come, I mean, where did that enter? Obviously, and you'll talk about, you know, as a kid and stuff, you know, like we a lot of us have the kid stories, but where did that intersection happen in the career? Yeah, so I collected like everybody, I stopped collecting, yeah, I was born in the late 70s, collected in the mid late 80s, sort of put them all away in the early 90s and got into Nirvana and Pearl Jam and went to college and got married and had kids and started to move here. And then, you know, I woke up and I was 30 something and I, maybe my folks, you know, made me take more of the cards home, you know, but like probably right about the time I got to Octagon 2006, 2007, I sort of saw cards lying around the office and yeah, we started representing big stars and I'm thinking, hi, I wouldn't mind getting a basketball sign by David Robinson and I started kind of, you know, I'm in the sports marketing business at this point and I've been, you know, on private jets with Hall of Fame athletes and, you know, may as not to ask for autographs. So it's sort of, it's this, you know, you get the benefit. You're right, you're there, right? I have a great story and it just shows you what an amazing human this guy is and everybody's probably got a good one of these with Charles Barkley, but I was so talk about like a forest gum kind of life, but I was very fortunate to get to become very good friends with Charles when Hank Haney filmed the Haney project. I was on site for most of the, you know, production days over six months and end up being Charles's dinner date for, you know, quiet, you know, nights after long day of filming and, you know, Charles used to say when somebody would be coming up to the table, he'd be like, yeah, I finally I said, you're so, you're so kind to these guys, you never say, no, you're always, you know, chipper, how do you do it? And he goes, man, it's going to take me the same 15 seconds either way. And this guy's going to go around for the rest of his life and say, I was either a jerk or I was a great guy. And for me, it's the same amount of time to blow him off or it'd be nice. And, you know, that, it just gives you a lot of respect for how hard it is for them to find, you know, peace and quiet and, you know, the bigger the star, the harder that is. And I got to see that. A close and personal, but at the same time, you know, collecting is such a fun, fun aspect of being a fan. And so I got that, I just got scratched again. You know, I might have mentioned this when we were chatting. I mean, Michael Rubin deserves all the credit in the world for his identifying, you know, collectors as the best fans. And in order to, you know, I really believe that this hobby is in its infancy from a growth perspective. And I, yeah, while at Octagon, we get some really cool research into the hobby to illustrate that part of how we grow the hobby and bring more people into this as a way to not not just grow the hobby, but to make fans stickier to their teams and the leagues and the sports is collecting. And it's, you know, it's clearly acknowledged now by, you know, I was talking to the NHL about, you know, the opportunity to engage young fans through collecting. It's sort of identified now as one of the pillars. And the growth trajectory for collecting in general is pretty exciting. And you know, one of the things we'll talk about is what we've built in partnership with sports illustrated and authentic brands group and minute media or where our partners in the sports illustrated collectibles business. Yeah, everybody's got their hands that they know like the collectibles, you know, realm and the trading cards, they see the smart people are connecting the dots and building units, you know, around how you connect all these things together and how you leverage it to, you know, keep fans being fans. And, you know, I think the smart winners are going to, you know, not that they'll necessarily be losers. I don't know if there's any losers. I won't go that far, but there's definitely going to be some big winners. And it's hard not, it's had some rocky moments. I think the fanatics and there's been some stuff, but you can't deny that it feels directionally right. It's my observation. It's, you know, they're opening the tent wider, right? The fanatics fest, we went to the first fanatics fest. It was awesome. Couldn't have been, couldn't have been a more fun entertaining experience for casual sports fans. They there were plenty of areas that they were the first to recognize. They can they can make improvements on. I'm excited for what they'll do in the event space. And, you know, and I think healthy competition is good. And Penini's not going anywhere, and upper decks not going anywhere. Did that deal need to happen though? Part of the Penini tops. Did that deal need to happen though? Well, they'd have been better for the industry. You know, it's a great question. I think it would be better for the industry to have more than than one license. I think competition is great. I think when the licenses were being held by by, you know, upper deck and tops and and flair and donnerous in the, you know, 90s, it sparked a lot of innovation. You think about some of the great old vintage holds. You know, inserts that so the late 90s and early 2000s are some of the most collectible cards on the clinic. You know, that's the, that's the, you know, pinnacle of upper decks, you know, early work in, in, you know, memorabilia cards and autographs. And, you know, still to this day when I show some of the trading card innovation to people who've been out of trading cards for a while, they're they're they're blown away by what's happened. And you know, the collectibility and the tentacles, you know, into art and, you know, into, you know, serious game use memorabilia, you know, to to museum quality pieces and investment funds looking at this stuff through the lens of alternative asset classes. It's, you know, the 30, 30, not related to my background as a geneticist, but 35% of us are genetically predisposed to want to collect stuff. Sort of the remnants of the human condition a little bit, you know, like, that fine nitrogen collecting and hoarding. I think that the tide is rising on collecting because collecting is the ultimate, you know, expression of fandom and and fandom is one of those last safe spaces where we can all come together and cheer on a team and and not be angry at each other for something else. Chihanna, everything is so polarizing. It's like, you know, like, I mean, but in sports, you kind of, it feels like you can, I mean, you're always rooting for one team or the other, but it's just, it's different than, you know, the shit that's out there that is just maddening and polarizing. Yeah, I don't feel like fandom is polarizing. It's just fandom. Almost every Republican and Democrat and Boston can agree on the fact that they want a Red Sox to keep the crap out of the Yankees. Yeah, exactly. They come together and they know where you can start to bring people together, you can find opportunity, right? So sports has been that. And, you know, it's like I said, I I've been so fortunate to be able to be on on the journey I've taken and, you know, this, this platform we built with sports illustrated, you know, I, I chased the SI leadership for years, you know, they are an iconic brand, not just in sports, but also in collecting. And the thing that I observed through my years at Octagon where I mentioned I did some consulting work for tops. We identified that laps collect collectors were this huge universe of people coming with kids and ready to to rediscover the hobby. You know, I was I was able to help broker the deal between Gary Vaynerchuk and tops to create a to create a insert set within 2019 top series to around the best entrepreneurs in baseball. And Gary was very adamant. He wanted tops. We proposed to tops developing a collaboration with Gary around a what they were doing branded sets direct to consumer custom branded sets. And they launched the first one with with Bryce Harper was a big success. And they were looking at subjects to do the next one with. And we said, well, maybe you should you should take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk. He's obsessed with cards and, you know, now could be a perfect opportunity. And they took it and put a really fun set together that unlocked, you know, Gary's universe to the latest and greatest of modern sports cards. And, you know, lots happened since then in the hobby as well. But, you know, the one of the things that was missing all through that journey long winded here was a major major sports media platform that was paying attention to the hobby. And that's what we were able to convince SI to to to move forward with. Talk to me about, you know, what SI is doing, you know, like I think, when you think about the collectibles, it's so ironic. Old sports illustrated magazines, like one of the most collected things, like, you know, for sports fans especially, like I've got, I'm not even, I just the last six months have gotten back into collecting cards. And I wouldn't consider myself like a lifelong collector. But I am, when I go, I've got like 10 or 20, you know, sports illustrators that I've hold on to over the years and summer autographs, I went to Clemsons. I got some dabbo-sweeny and Dishon Watson, you know, like, that meant more few years ago, but it won't go down that road. But anyway, it is what it is. But it's, it just fits. So talk to me about what sports illustrated and you've been doing. Yeah. What is that division exactly? Well, so, so, you know, when sports illustrates said, yeah, we're into the idea of building a hobby vertical. The first thing we did was was built out a team and we hired a, so I have two partners in this collaboration with SI, kind of Chris Perone, who had previously been the general manager of SI at arena group and was my partner in helping us to launch the idea initially and then come full circle, minute media was interested in the opportunity to do the same thing and we were able to launch SI dot com slash collectibles. And, you know, why that significant is that the SI dot com domain is one of the oldest and most traffic on the internet and most has the highest, one of the highest domain authorities on the internet, you know, and sort of how Google ranks sites and drives traffic. So, yeah. What is it? 99? I'm sure it starts with a nine. And so we just get traffic when we have interesting content. So our our challenge was just making making content about the hobby that that people would be interested in reading. And we've built a staff of now over 15 really dedicated talented writers, all hardcore hobbyists that have expertise in different verticals and you know, we're publishing on average 10 pieces a day. We're up to now over half a million unique readers a month and, you know, to, you know, 750,000 to a million unique views a month, the article views a month, which are good numbers and we're only into our fourth or fifth month. But it gives us, it's the largest by a factor of 10 among hobby content channels just again, because of the nature of domain authority. And so that's given us the opportunity to invest even further in original content. We're developing, you know, series featuring collectors and really celebrating people's collections. And we're going to, you know, give about a dad and his four sons, like that sounds like a story or an email you have to walk in, especially if your collection is featured in Linux. Yes, exactly. Yes, it is. That's exactly what we're doing there. And yeah, yeah, we're doing fun things with the, you know, the journey of collectibles from sort of discovery. So think about sports collectible version of antique roadshow. So we've got some fun ideas in the hopper for video and, you know, a lot of things up our sleeve that we're excited about. Yeah, it's super smart, Jeremy. It's like, okay, this just fits. There's something else you hear something you're like, okay, I don't know about that. This is just like, uh, it wasn't already happening. It was a surprising man. Yeah. Yeah, the very first sports illustrated had a whole, you know, pull out of 1954 tops design in the issue, the famous issue of Eddie Matthews, 1954. So collecting a sort of in the DNA of the brand and, you know, we all have heard or collect the sports issue for kids cards that, you know, are the first appearance of so many icons that, you know, don't necessarily get a card in the traditional releases. You know, the hobby's done a great job of making cards for all these alternative sports athletes coming in from different directions. And, you know, fortunately, they paid a lot of attention to women's sports. So a lot of the great legends of women's sports have cards. Some of their only rookie cards or early appearances were in SI for kids, which is is unfortunate, but at least they had cards thanks to sports illustrated, which is part of SI's legacy. Yeah, I remember those. I don't have any of those. There's still some good ones. As I understand, Victor Webinyama's card from a year and a half ago or so is still, you know, pretty pricey. For our audience, you know, that's either in, you know, maybe collectors are hearing more about this industry. It's hard and Brian and I talked about this, but just how big this industry is and just how popular and at the same time, it'll make your head spin trying to get your head around every parallel, like everything else, like good grief. It's like, I don't even know where to start with the actual cards themselves, but it's fun. Yeah, that's part of what SI's going to be doing here with content is celebrating collectors and celebrating their individual collections and showcasing all the different ways that collectors collect. And that's a pretty broad spectrum of embodiments of collections. I personally collect vintage red socks guys. So I collect 10 Williams and Carl Ustrowski. And if you ask, what are the cards I would never part with? It's about a hundred give or take vintage red socks cards. And, you know, the rest is sort of fun stuff that I like to, I think I've got some Roger Klumman's rookies. I mean, that was in my, like, come up time. Like, we're also when they got overprinted a little bits. I don't know, but they're pretty good condition now, right? Yeah. Yeah. You took good care of them. And that's another whole element that's, you know, there was a lot of resistance to grading when I remember first coming into the scene in the early 90s, you know, when I was still an avid collector without a driver's license. But, you know, it was sort of like, what is this? You know, third party grading, but it's really, it's done. It's sort of such an important role in the growth of collecting because of the trust factor that it's it's injected into what was previously a pretty challenging environment when it comes to trust, you know, in cards and subjective condition grading. It was really a big roadblock to the growth that's happened. You know, I started my eBay account in 1998. So, I guess I was still dabbling, you know, in college with buying and selling collectibles. But, you know, the, the, the cargy would purchase in lots. I thought I had it beat. I have mine's 2001. That's what I was going to be back. And 2001, my kids saw that when we got back into it and we were selling them and buying a few of these on the eBay. They were like, you know, doing, I mean, these, my kids are, you know, four boys on the age of 15. And it's like, see in 2001, so my eBay account was like, you know, it's a great date stamp. It's one of those fun, like, you know, what's your Uber rating? Yeah, when you're starting to do that. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it just ages us or if it's definitely some, some cred in the buying circles. Yeah, Gary, Vandercheck and I talk about the AOL chat rooms. You know, I used to buy them in there in 1992 and 93, you know, 90, 90, yeah, two, three. I grew up in Northern Virginia where AOL was, it was headquartered and they put, they put a DVD in your mailbox every night back then. However, my parents got it. I was loading it on their computer. I remember it, you know, and that noise, that dial up, man. Yeah, a little did we know what was on the other end of that dial up line. Yeah, exactly. Where do you see the industry going and what's your thoughts on the NFTs and the digital space? Like, I, you can't fight it. It's coming. I like to think it's an ore, you know, like, and not like, I don't know, make your choice. I mean, but I'll let you hit on it. Yeah, it's a complicated one. There's so many different directions to pull it into, you know, I think that these, these digital worlds, digital communities, you know, the success of platforms like Roblox and where that's going to be headed and, you know, the worlds that can be built within these platforms, you know, I'm reluctant to cast judgment on a lot of this tech that is, you know, just really being understood how it can be used effectively. I hate to don't hate it. You know, Gary's definitely an influence on me, but you know, he made a big point with his NFT launch to bring, you know, real world tangible value to his buyers because he was certain of one thing is, and that was that, you know, the journey of these things was going to be, uh, was going to be long and, um, and bumpy, and he wanted to make sure that there was value extended no matter what. So, look, I think that blockchain's, I know enough about cyber security to understand the value proposition of blockchain, why that's a new security protocol that people like and can rely on and can provide things that security experts like like chain of custody kind of insight, but yeah, I'm hardly an expert on predicting what the commercial markets will look like. I think, you know, I come back to, you know, what is the, what is the evolution of the fan experience and how is it actually impacting fans now and how will that change? And there's a lot of real things. There's, you know, ticketing uses, there's definitely collectibility that's a legacy of, you know, what happened during the explosion and it's starting to come back through some types of utility. I think it's early, early days, you know, I'm sure that, you know, people will start putting back puzzles that they were working on with the interconnectivity of these worlds as they start getting traction. There was a really interesting group in golf that was selling a one of these distributed network own own membership organizations and you were going to have access to a golf course and I think they went out and bought a golf course, but your ownership was embodied through the NFT. You know, I think that'll, I'm excited to see where that goes and excited to see how I might be able to test it in some of the work that I do. Yeah, I mean, I see the value that my kids put in digital things. I mean, you know, we've got the physical cards and I don't think it's replacing, like I said, I don't think they're choosing one of the over the other, but I have been surprised because I kind of panned when the whole metaverse and all that stuff was happening during COVID, I panned all of it and I don't want to say I was right, but I was right in that moment that that was a flash in the pan. It's not that it's coming one day. You can't fight, you know, technology progress, but I think a lot of that stuff crashed and burned because it didn't really have us core, solid core. It was just kind of very glitzy in the moment, but I do see the value even in like fortnight, what their character has on and how much they'll spin for that. And that that cache A means something. And it's so there's value even in digital assets that younger generation have, right? It's part of it's part of youth culture now for sure is some some digital expression, you know, what they're sharing on their social channels on their TikToks and and who they're interacting with. And you know, that community of influence that they've, you know, embraced, you know, in their content consumption patterns, you know, where they're going for content and who they're going for two for expertise. And I think that that continues to evolve. And I think there's a big place for digital stuff in the future of our population. I think smart companies and smart creators are going to find ways. But I'll tell you what, there's nothing like the thrill of opening that physical pack. And, you know, holding the cards, I mean, you call me old school, but, you know, and now how beautiful the cards are and the designs and all that. That's a hard experience to replace. And I don't know that it has to replace it. I think it's, you know, again, and not or, you know, in that regard. You still need to open your packs. Are you following what they're doing with sort of these real world repacks that you open online? Yeah, sure. If it's a media group or one of the reoclub yeah, like little, I mean, what are the breaks and whatnot all that? Yeah, I mean, we have our own whatnot, like we've sold 500 items already. Like we're in it, man, we are in it. That's why Brian sent me the Linux crew here. We can get our whatnot sponsored by a loadx or something. You know, that's what yes, I involved. Like, you know, the rad collective, that's us. Yeah, rad rips, rad collective and our own breaking rad.com. Are you kidding me? We need to talk. So what we are working on a really cool breaking content initiative with one of the biggest companies in the world. And we should talk about what we can do. Yeah, and it'd be fun. Yeah, it's a fun industry. And it's, look, it's brought my sons and I call them, you know, I have, I'm not sure how these companies in my kids. No, I do podcasting. No, no, I have like some influence online and all that. But like, you know, I haven't really cared. But once we got it, I'm teaching them business through the sports cards now, you know, like how do I, we got around Shopify site that I've built and showed them how to build and like ecom and social and then whatnot and all like, you know, it's like giving me an avenue to teach some things that I would have liked to teach them through what I do every day. But it's meeting them on, you know, a grounds that they like. Yeah. Yeah, my buddies at Big Night Entertainment Group started hit Card Vault a few years ago. You know, sort of it was a fun side project during the pandemic. They had all these nightclubs and bars that were shut down. And they, you know, figured they could entertain people by doing breaks on these stages. And they built a business and low and behold, they're now partners with Tom Brady and scaling, you know, Card Vault by Tom Brady all over the country. And that'll bring, you know, so many new collectors to the game who will, you know, see that name and the way that they're merchandising the hobby. And, you know, next thing you know, we've got a new collector going on their own fun journey and embodying their passion for their sport. So it's a really exciting time. A lot of big companies, private equity venture capital are putting resources into into the space. I think it will continue. It's one of the, you know, true ubiquitous passions. You know, it's enjoyed globally. Yeah, really truly is a global, a global hobby. You know, the NBA is collected in just about every corner of the, of the connected world. So yeah, man, it's exciting stuff. Jeremy, we're here by keep up with what you're doing with sports illustrated and you in general. Yeah, on Instagram, I'm J-A-I-S-E-N-B-E-R-G at Jason Burke, at talent brand labs, www.talentbrandlabs.com. And, you know, just keep an eye on SI.com slash collectibles for all sorts of fun new content. I love it, man. Made a lot of sense. They were smart to listen to you and, you know, the rest of your team that was kind of pushing this. So it makes a lot of sense and can't wait to kind of keep out with the content that you guys are doing and, hey, maybe the rag collective fits in there somewhere. I think we should have your people call my people. Yeah, I know. I think I know. We'll exchange numbers. Hey guys, you know, to find us, Ryan is right.com. We'll find the highlight clips, the links to all of Jeremy's social, his website, you know, brands, sponsorship partnerships. Hey, you know, you'd call Jeremy. And look, go check out sports, illustrate its new collect backslash collectibles. That's how that come backslash collectibles. Hey, it just fits, man. That's, that is where it is. It fits. And I love seeing what everything's happening in the industry as part of our trading card series, the business you need to know. Hey, if I'm eating Ryan Alfred on Instagram, thank you for making us number one. See you next time. Thanks for tuning into the show. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't miss the full video version on YouTube. You can find us at www.collectibles.show or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Oldford. Now get out there and collect yours.