Latest news with #Donruss
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Demand for Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, A'Ja Wilson, Paige Bueckers WNBA cards continues to grow
The WNBA season is underway, and fans and card collectors are excited for what's to come. With the likes of Caitlin Clark, A'Ja Wilson and newcomer Paige Bueckers, collectors are waiting for the first cards of the season to drop. The good news is with Panini Instant, fans can grab cards of big moments as they happen. Panini's on-demand offering features highlights and big moments from throughout the season, which started with the WNBA Draft. Advertisement Panini America saw big success with Instant last season, Clark's first year in the league. Not only was it a popular card release, but a Draft Night Clark 1-of-1 autographed parallel sold for $84,000 in September. The Panini Instant cards are important for WNBA — maybe even more so than in other sports. In women's basketball, the players go from college into the WNBA without much of a break in between. This doesn't give Panini a lot of time to get new products on the shelves because of the time needed to create a new card release. 'Panini Instant was so important because for us, it gave us the ability to get consumers into collecting 'W' products and getting excited for the W product,' said Jason Howarth, Panini's senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations. 'When we finally released that first product in August last year, people were ready to go for it.' This season, collectors won't have to wait as long for the first WNBA card product. Advertisement There are five WNBA sets scheduled for this season — an all-time high for the league. The newest entry will be Donruss WNBA, which is scheduled for July. Donruss has made a name for itself in the modern collecting space, especially in football, where the popular Downtown inserts can be found. Downtown inserts will soon feature WNBA stars with this summer's release. 'Donruss will be awesome from a Downtown point of view,' Howarth said. Panini has built WNBA collecting since it took over the card license in 2019. Before that, there may have been one product a year andit often came as a complete factory set with a chance of autographs. That product made about $50,000 in sales a year, according to Howarth. Advertisement Panini has revamped the WNBA card collecting space by making more traditional pack products, giving collectors a chase with parallels, rare inserts and autographs. As the WNBA has grown in popularity, so has the demand for cards, especially over the last year with Clark becoming the face of the league. 'I think you think there was a point in time where WNBA Prizm costs more on the secondary market than NBA Prizm,' Howarth said. 'I think that probably tells you the story about demand more than anything else. I think it always had a place in the category, but I think you saw a lot more migration and transition from other collectors of other core sports into the 'W,' and it is now viewed in that group of core sports. You've got the NFL, NBA, MLB, and now you've got the WNBA.' This year's offerings will look different again. There are five WNBA products scheduled, up from three last season, which was also up from two the year before. Last year saw the release of Panini Prizm (and the Monopoly version), Origins and Select. Previously, Panini also put out Revolutions. Advertisement The release calendar is always a work in progress as the brand team finds the right pieces for the season. One thing they knew they needed for Clark's rookie season was Prizm to make its way to the WNBA. Prizm has become a staple for Panini and one of the most highly sought-after rookie cards. 'To have the class that we had last year and not have Prizm would have been a complete miss for us and collectors,' Howarth said. 'It would be one of those things that you look back on and wonder why Caitlin [Clark] doesn't have a rookie Prizm card or Angel [Reese] doesn't have a rookie Prizm card.' As the WNBA continues to grow, creating household names and superstars, the league continues to leave its mark. From the women's college tournament, right into the WNBA Draft and then the start of the WNBA season. Advertisement While big names like Clark and Reese created a buzz last season, there is no slowing down. 'This class is equally as exciting,' Howarth said. 'We've seen that both from a collectible point of view just off of the Draft Night cards that we released here a few weeks ago. Lots of excitement around the product and lots of excitement and anticipation for more 'W' products.'
New York Times
15-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Caitlin Clark leads WNBA trading card and collectibles boom that's continuing to grow
The WNBA collectibles market is booming and showing no signs of slowing down as a new season begins. Panini, which has the exclusive license to produce WNBA trading cards, will bank on the popularity of Caitlin Clark to continue to drive interest as the company says sales of its WNBA products have grown 'exponentially' since taking on the license in 2019. Advertisement According to eBay, Clark was the third most searched athlete on its platform in April, behind only Michael Jordan and Jayden Daniels and ahead of J.J. McCarthy and Shohei Ohtani. During that month, her two Prizm WNBA base cards were among the four most transacted sports cards across online marketplaces, Market Movers data showed. That's part of the reason why Panini will bump up their WNBA card portfolio to four traditional sets, after offering three for the first time last season, now adding Donruss (set to release in July) and a high-end product that will be revealed later this year (set to be released in September). The two new sets will join Prizm, Select, and the print-to-order Panini Instant line to provide collectors with more WNBA card variety than ever before. Donruss' WNBA addition means Clark and other big names will appear within the wildly popular Downtown insert series. The new Downtowns should draw in buyers well outside diehard WNBA collectors given the hobby craze for the cards across all sports. Panini won't kid themselves either, though. They're more than aware how much Clark's presence creates business for WNBA cards. The company also holds a long-term exclusive autograph and memorabilia rights contract with Clark. Earlier this month a release of 24 different variations of Clark autographed jerseys, basketballs, and photos ranging in price from $500-$1,250 quickly sold out on Panini's website. Panini isn't the only major collectibles company that sees value in the WNBA, though. Funko made its first ever set of WNBA figures available for pre-order this week, with Clark, Angel Reese, A'ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, and Lauren Jackson among the initial offerings. Clark's two most expensive card sales occurred within the last two months, according to CardLadder, which tracks trading card sales across online marketplaces. Her 2024 Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl autographed one-of-one rookie card sold for $366,000, a new record for any women's sports card, on March 29. A month later, her 2024 Prizm WNBA Throwback Signatures Gold Vinyl autographed one-of-one rookie card went for $244,000. Advertisement 'We started working through our exclusive with her in October 2023,' said Jason Howarth, Panini senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations. 'She was going into her final season in Iowa. We made a significant investment in Caitlin at that point. I think there were some people that were in our building that were not sure about it. And then there were certainly other people in our building who were like, 'If we're going to plant our flag, who are we planting our flag with?' And Caitlin was the answer for that. 'Everyone was going to start paying more attention and watching what was going to happen with Caitlin,' Howarth said. 'We knew that if we signed Caitlin, if there's one female basketball player that's going to show up on ESPN, with this being the measuring stick, right? If there's one female basketball player that's going to show up on ESPN SportsCenter every night, who is it? It's going to be Caitlin.' Clark led all WNBA players with over 105,000 graded cards through industry-leading grader PSA during the offseason (May 2024-March 2025). For WNBA cards overall, PSA witnessed a 62 percent increase in graded cards as of March 2025 compared to May 2024. WNBA players with the most cards graded by PSA in the offseason: That's not to say there isn't still a market for players like the Chicago Sky's Reese, the Dallas Wings' Paige Bueckers — the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft — and the Los Angeles Sparks' Cameron Brink. As of Monday, via Market Movers, prices on Reese's graded rookie cards have increased by 9.4 percent in the past 30 days, ranking third among all basketball players (minimum 100 sales). Only the Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton and the Memphis Grizzlies' Jaren Jackson Jr. rank above Reese. Bueckers will likely see continued growth if she fulfills expectations in her rookie year and the same goes for Brink as she comes back from a season lost to injury. Expanding Panini's WNBA presence also comes at a critical time for the card company. Topps will take over licenses for the NBA in October and the NFL in April 2026. Without licensing for those two sports, as well as MLB and NHL, Panini's WNBA sets will be the most notable cards to possess team names and logos within the company's portfolio. Advertisement Howarth sidestepped a question concerning the topic, instead pointing to other licensed products that will remain with Panini once the NBA and NFL leave, like LIV Golf, FIFA World Cup and NIL college deals, specifically with Texas quarterback Arch Manning. But Howarth firmly believes in the WNBA product. The current numbers validate his belief, even compared to the NBA. According to Waxstat, which tracks pricing for sealed boxes and packs of cards, the average price for a 2024 WNBA Prizm hobby box in the last 30 days is $984.95. A 2024-25 Prizm NBA hobby box currently averages only $419.95, as the set's rookie class lacks star power. The WNBA hobby boxes even stand tall with 2023-24 Prizm NBA hobby boxes with Victor Wembanyama as the main chase card as those boxes average $1,149.95. 'We started with WNBA in 2019 and grew the sales exponentially in that first year. I think when we took over the license, it was at $50,000 in sales. It was very small,' said Horwath, who wouldn't reveal any sales figures other than saying the growth has been significant. Panini made $97,212.54 on the sale of a single Clark card through a Dutch auction in October. 'We felt like we would be a good ambassador for the WNBA as we continue to grow the brands on the NBA side of things.' The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How Tom Brady, Derek Jeter, and Bobby Witt Jr. turned sports card passion into business ventures
Bobby Witt Jr. is still like every kid cracking open the doors of a local sports card shop for the first time. 'It's something that has always been a goal and dream of mine just to kind of have your own card shop,' the Kansas City Royals All-Star shortstop said. The same can be said for Witt's childhood idols — Tom Brady and Derek Jeter. Advertisement All three have put their desire to be a part of the business of sports cards into practice in various forms. Brady, Jeter and Witt spoke to The Athletic about their love for collecting sports cards and their continuous desire to increase their business interests within the booming hobby. They're certainly not the only former or current athletes diving into sports cards as collectors or as business investors, either. But these two legends and one modern-day perennial MVP candidate are setting examples that could prompt others to follow. Brady cracked open his brown padded binder covered in circular hologram stickers found in Upper Deck baseball card packs from 1989 and the following few years. Each page inside was filled with nine cards, mirroring the binders of so many children growing up in that era when Topps, Donruss, Fleer and Upper Deck flooded the market. 'I've collected the past 40 years, so I've got a pretty intense collection,' the former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback said. 'I got really engaged in the hobby when I was a kid, and it was the only thing I ever collected, like a lot of us my age. I collected a lot of baseball cards and my mom, it was a reward when I got a good grade that she would bring me down to the hobby shop in downtown San Mateo (Calif.) to buy all the different cards that were available. 'So I kept the collection for a long time, and it was actually in my closet at my parents' (house) for a long time, and my house in the Bay Area where my parents still live. And finally when I got out of college, they shipped it all back to me and I basically kept it for the last 25 years.' Tom Brady shows off his childhood baseball card collection… — Topps (@Topps) April 12, 2025 Brady said he owns thousands of his own cards, as well as being an avid collector of Joe Montana, Michael Jordan and numerous baseball players. 'So they're all graded and they're in a safe,' Brady said. Even though Brady's more prominent current roles include Fox color analyst and part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, attaching his name to a growing number of sports card stores may have been the easiest, and most enjoyable business venture he's entered post NFL retirement. Advertisement CardVault by Tom Brady opened its fourth brick and mortar store in early April. The lofty goal for Brady and his partners will be to open one store per month with the hopes of franchises across the country. Brady said the goal for a national and global footprint within the industry is attainable because, thanks to an expected confidence from the greatest quarterback in NFL history: 'I think we do this better than anybody in the world.' 'You know at the end of the day it's the industry, but we love sports,' Brady said. 'And we love sports that bring people together, communities together. We've been sitting in stadiums for a long time watching fans of every economic background, race, religion, come to the stadiums to cheer us on. And I think sports in our communities, it brings people together in ways nothing else can. I want everybody to be a collector.' Even describing the vision of the company moments away from the ribbon cutting of CardVault's latest store, this one in East Rutherford, N.J., his words carried a palpable tone of inexplicability as if he were still the 10-year-old boy from San Mateo opening his own card shop. The dream before the NFL dream. 'It's all coming to life, and it's been really fun because your love of sports can be shown in a lot of different ways,' Brady said. 'And through collecting, through following certain players, obviously now with fantasy sports and so forth, there's just so many ways for us to be engaged with our heroes. And I had a lot of them when I was a kid, I collected a lot of them when I was a kid. 'Now I see myself on some of these cards here in the store, and it's still a bit surreal.' Jeter's 'relationship' with sports cards commenced long before his prized New York Yankees rookie cards lived inside wax packs after he graduated high school in 1992. His interest for sports cards and memorabilia followed him from his youth through his Hall of Fame baseball career and became one of his bigger passions at age 50. Advertisement 'I've been a collector for years,' Jeter said. 'A lot of memorabilia. I have a lot of my own memorabilia. I had a lot of my own cards. I don't want to sound self-centered (laughs). A lot of times people send them to you. … I'm a fan of athletes in other sports. Obviously baseball, but also in other sports.' Jeter still remains a heavy presence within Topps baseball products with his autographed cards prominently featured in sets every year. But his deepest dive into the sports card business occurred in 2022 when he helped launch Arena Club, a digital repack (individual cards from the secondary market that have been reinserted into custom packs) retailer, grading service and marketplace platform. 'The baseball card collection has really been sort of an underground industry, I think for a long time,' Jeter said. 'Even throughout my career, you'd see players that had card collections, but they didn't really openly talk about it too much. I do think over the pandemic is when the industry started to sort of shine and now it seems like it's just taken off again.' The reason why Arena Club struck a chord for Jeter stems from a weather event that wiped away his personal collection. Arena Club stores cards on its marketplace in 'a climate controlled, high-security, disaster-proof storage vault' near Portland, Oregon. 'When I was younger, early on in my career, I used to have any baseball cards that I was on or anything that I was collecting, my parents would keep them for me at our house in Michigan,' Jeter said. 'And we had a flood and everything was ruined. These are rookie cards of mine, people that I collected growing up. It was shameful. And when Brian (Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arena Club) was explaining it to me, I was like, 'Wow, this really hits home and makes sense.'' And like Brady, the ability to buy and sell cards as a way of life transports Jeter back to being a kid spending his summers in New Jersey with family, dreaming about being Dave Winfield, one of his personal favorite players to collect. 'I'm not trying to sound silly, but it brings you back to your childhood,' Jeter said. 'I remember collecting cards and you really couldn't care less what cards you got, you were there to chew the gum and sit there and trade the cards with your friends, right? And now this is just basically taking it to another level. It sort of modernized it. And so it makes you feel like a kid. It's the same thing. It's whether you put (cards) in the spokes of your bicycle and ride around. It's an industry I think, regardless of age, you can all relate to it.' Witt never ventures too far away from the sports card hobby. He hunts for cards on eBay. He's open to trading through an Instagram account he set up specifically to show off his collection. He's scoping out card shops whether he's in Kansas City or on an in-season road trip. And his diligence paid off during the offseason. Advertisement The Royals shortstop hunted down his grail card: a 2000 Bowman Chrome Tom Brady rookie card with a gem mint 10 grade from PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator). The card owner wasn't letting Witt, the runner up for the 2024 American League MVP behind Aaron Judge, just walk away with it though. Witt forked over a Luka Dončić autographed one-of-one card, a Josh Allen rookie card numbered to nine and a couple other cards in a trade to acquire the Brady. Could Witt afford to just buy the Brady card in a cash deal? It's likely not too heavy of a lift, given he's playing under an 11-year, $288 million contract with the Royals. Other PSA 10 graded Brady rookie cards have recently sold between $7,500 and $10,000, according to Card Ladder. But for Witt, working a trade is a part of the simple reason he's so involved in the hobby: 'It's just fun!' A post shared by @ 'It's crazy just from the fact that you have your card collectors that have been there from the beginning and that are older now,' Witt said. 'Then you have the kids now and they collect with their parents and so just for the hobby, that's how it grows. Then you've got professional athletes that collect. You see guys in the clubhouse opening packs. You see guys doing breaks with guys so there's just so many different ways to kind of get involved in the hobby. It's just really cool how much it's growing. 'I don't see it ever really stopped growing just because of how in-tune guys are in cards and just the different variations of what a card could come in, whatever type it is. It's just cool to see it's not just one kind of genre of people that are collecting cards. There's just so many.' Witt is so into sports cards that he even had custom, PSA-graded Topps cards made for each of his groomsmen at his wedding last year. Coincidently, Brady and Jeter are Witt's all-time favorite athletes. Witt jumped at the chance to discuss collecting sports cards, as well as diving into the business aspect of the industry just like his childhood idols. In February, he became an investor in CollX, a digital card price guide and marketplace. He doesn't anticipate this being his last business venture in the card industry, either. Advertisement 'I just keep seeing it grow and that's what brought me into the investing side,' Witt said. 'The sky is the limit for it, and it just kind of keeps growing and growing. You get endorsement deals, this and that, but it's just something that whenever you're able to do things that you really enjoy, it just makes it a lot more fun and a lot easier and stress-free going through it all.' The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission. (Top photos of Brady, Jeter, and Witt:for Fanatics;for Art Miami + CONTEXT; PSA)
