Latest news with #Osos
Axios
10 hours ago
- Sport
- Axios
How a Carolina Panthers legend is elevating a football team he now owns
Charlotte remembers Ryan Kalil as the Carolina Panthers center — the man who snapped the ball to Cam Newton. Today, the retired NFL All-Pro player has traded his helmet and pads for the role of team owner. Why it matters: American football is huge stateside, but passion for the game is growing in other countries, too. Catch up quick: Earlier this year, Kalil and retired NBA All-Star Blake Griffin acquired Osos Monterrey, a professional Mexican football team playing in Liga de Fútbol Americano. Context: Mexico's passion for football (soccer) isn't a secret, but its love affair with football, the type with helmets and pads, isn't as widely known. Attendance ranges from 6,000-12,000 per game and it's a short season. Tickets range from $25-$50, Kalil says. They rebranded the team and had roughly three months to figure out the business side, Kalil says. Yes, but: The highest level of the sport in Mexico isn't a full-time job, Kalil tells Axios. Players are there because they love the game, but they still have day jobs. The goal is to elevate their team and the league to a point where it can be a full-time gig — including everything from league exposure to fields and equipment. The latest: That starts with outfitting players with better helmets. The team is working with LIGHT Helmets, which as the name implies, is a lighter helmet intended to keep players safe without impeding performance. "We need better exposure for [players], more resources for equipment, and honestly, that's part of our partnership with LIGHT Helmets," Kalil says. "It's that first step." Kalil says this is a sign for the players and the league as a whole that resources are coming. What we're watching: Kalil and Griffin are working on a documentary (akin to "Welcome to Wrexham") on Osos. Details including the timeline for its release and where you'll be able to stream it are TBD. It's expected to be released in either late 2025 or early 2026. The documentary will focus on Osos, but it will also look at the state of the league.
New York Times
12-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
The 1977 Topps Mexican set: How a child conquered one of the greatest challenges for NFL collectors
One of the joys of collecting is to find a group of like-minded passionate people in the smallest corners of the hobby. You can't find one smaller than the Topps 1977 Mexican Football set. Sold mostly in Mexico City in late 1977 and 1978, the cards parallel the 1977 Topps set issued in the United States, but with team names and card backs translated into Spanish. So the Bears are the Osos, the Giants are the Gigantes, and the Browns are the Cafes. Even the position abbreviations are translated. For example, WR for wide receiver is AA for Ala Abierta ('open wing,' in English). Topps had the NFL Players Association license at this time, but not the NFL license, so team logos were not included on the cards. What makes this set so rare is that the price of the cards was the same in Mexico as in the U.S., except each pack contained two cards and a stick of gum, versus the 10 cards and a stick of gum that kids in the states were able to buy for the same equivalent 15 cents. (Kids wanted the gum more than the packs that initially were offered with four cards and no gum.) But this was a 528 card set. The math to collect the complete set organically as a kid in 1977 in Mexico City was daunting. Advertisement With two cards in a pack, you needed to open 323 packs on average to just about guarantee finding a specific card, according to pack odds relative to set size. But invariably you'd still be missing some and would have to start over with a new box and buy all those packs and hope you got lucky quickly. Another problem: Most of the packs in a box had the same cards. Bottom line: it was incredibly cost prohibitive for the target child buyer to build the set then. Enter Alejandro Medina and his doting grandmother. 'They just appeared in candy stores and papelerías' (stationary stores),' Medina said to the buyer of his childhood collection, Paul Cintura, when Cintura interviewed him to document the unique purchase in August of 2023. 'Back then we often had to go to the papelería to buy illustrations of Benito Juarez, Emiliano Zapata, etc. to complete our homework assignments. Lots of kids went there, so those were the perfect places to sell cards and candies. That's where we discovered them.' Medina told Cintura he came from a family with means and his grandmother was charmed by his passion for the cards and constantly fed him money to buy more during the months that followed. A family connection who owned a newspaper and magazine distribution business gave him whole boxes but that didn't prove very fruitful due to the boxes generally having the same cards. Medina collected the cards as the kids to the north of Mexico generally did, organizing by team with the checklist on top and targeting players by name, not card number. And storing them in a shoebox. Medina said friends and cousins collected the cards, too, and lived in different neighborhoods in Mexico City, with different inventories. So trades were a huge part of social occasions in the months that followed, and especially during the holidays. Advertisement Soon Medina had all the cards, and was the only person he knew who could make that claim. He never played with them, so they remained in 'collector grade,' according to their current owner, Cintura. (Basically the equivalent of a PSA 5). Fast forward to 1982, when unsold inventory of the 1977 Mexican football cards was stored in a factory. It turns out the cards were the flavor of the month, quite literally, with grape and banana gum included in each pack (and thus often spoiling one of the two cards it was pressed against in the pack). But they quickly fell out of favor, hardly surprising since American football was barely known in Mexico, where soccer commanded near complete attention. The excess inventory was ultimately returned and 10 cases of about 40,000 cards ended up sealed in a Mexican factory until they were rescued by card dealer Jim Ragsdale, a vintage football specialist and, according to Cintura, the set's biggest advocate. So now in addition to the first generation of 1977 Mexican football cards organically collected by children upon their release, we had a second generation of more pristine cards, many in high grade. (Note there is no PSA 10 in existence since the Mexican cards were perforated rather than machine cut and thus can't meet PSA Gem Mint grade requirements, according to Cintura.) From this second generation, Ragsdale compiled three sets with every card averaging better than a PSA 7. All together, combining the first and second generation 1977 Topps Mexican cards, there are just 39 sets known to exist, according to Cintura. That's a microscopic number. Consider that Beckett's #3 Baseball Card Price Guide published in 1981 said that there were 380,000 1975 Topps baseball sets then completed (but who knows how many parents subsequently threw away). A PSA 8 example of one of the 60 Hall of Famers in the set can run upwards of $5,000, according to Ken Gelman, a football set collector who has one of the top PSA registry sets, meaning that PSA averages their grades for every card in the respective sets. There are supreme rarities within this rarest of all sets — nicknamed the 'Dirty Dozen' (pictured above) and 'Bakers Dozen' by Ragsdale for their impossibly short print runs. Advertisement Cintura's set is the only one known to have been completed out of packs bought at the time by a single collector. It's one of 70 football complete sets he said he owns, most in top grade. But it's this one Medina completed nearly 50 years ago with his grandmother's support that means the most to Cintura. For years, Gelman chased the Topps Mexican set like a proverbial white whale, really the only way to have a chance to capture it. After attacking the set piecemeal pre-pandemic, he saw how impossible and astronomically priced his pursuit would be. He contacted Ragsdale, who had the three sets averaging over a PSA 7 in grade, including the only one with an average grade over an 8.0, for advice. Sensing Gelman's passion, Ragsdale gave Gelman a price for one of his three sets and offered to let him pay in installments over time, with cards shipped upon each payment. Three years later, the deal was done. With every card graded, Gelman's set is now No. 4 in the world in average condition, 7.39 according to PSA. Gelman says his set is worth 'over $100,000' but they are hard to value more precisely outside of an auction sale. And good luck finding one since they are prized possessions of their avid collectors. The joy of completing one of the hobby's most daunting, time-consuming and fully immersive journeys that's priceless to this small 1977 Topps Mexican set community. 'This is a legacy set for me as a football collector, and it was also the era that I grew up watching football,' Gelman says. In his gigantic collection, Cintura's prized possession is his one-of-a-kind organically collected, first-generation 1977 Topps Mexican set. He's hoping that if Topps ever has a museum, even a virtual one, that it would be displayed, along with the story of its one-of-a-kind provenance. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Blake Griffin, Ryan Kalil Mimic Wrexham in Mexico Football Buy
Blake Griffin and Ryan Kalil have a new passion project. Griffin, a recently retired former NBA star, and Kalil, a former Pro Bowl NFL center, are leading a group that purchased a majority stake in the Monterrey Fundidores, a team in Mexico's pro American football league, Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional (LFA). Kalil declined to provide financial details but said the group purchased the club for a seven-figure sum. More from Hidden YouTube TV Feature Sees User 'Surge' During NFL Playoffs Chiefs Fatigue? Fan Poll Finds Much Love but Growing Dislike for KC Brawny New Nielsen Currency Isn't a Quick Fix for Sports TV 'Players, like fans, can be critical of management and ownership and how they might run a team,' Kalil, who is also a limited partner of NWSL club Angel City FC, said in a video interview. 'I know I've been guilty of it. This was an opportunity for us to put our critical thoughts to the test and see if we know what we're talking about.' The athlete-led ownership group includes Kalil's former Carolina Panthers teammates Luke Kuechly, Greg Olsen, Jonathan Stewart and 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Julius Peppers. Former Panthers head coach Ron Rivera, San Francisco 49ers star Christian McCaffrey, tight end George Kittle and Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold—all former Panthers—are also in the ownership group. Rounding out the cap table are Barstool Sports personalities Dan 'Big Cat' Katz and Eric Sollenberger (PFT Commenter). This is the latest collaboration between Griffin and Kalil, who are the co-founders of production house Mortal Media, founded in 2016. The Fundidores name will be rebranded to the Osos (Bears) as ownership looks to connect to a broader and more international audience. Additionally, Griffin and Kalil are planning to produce a behind-the-scenes documentary chronicling their ownership journey and the team's first season under new leadership. 'We haven't done a lot of sports-centric projects, especially in the unscripted space,' said Kalil, who wants to highlight the personal stories of the team's international players and coaches. 'We've been looking for something to do that would fit our creative acumen but also something that we're genuinely excited about. All facets of this check all the boxes.' Griffin and Kalil are taking a page from actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, owners of former fifth-tier Welsh club Wrexham A.F.C. and brains behind the FX award-winning docuseries Welcome to Wrexham. It will be one of the newest projects for Mortal, which produced a White Men Can't Jump reboot (starring rapper Jack Harlow) and Hello Tomorrow! (a sci-fi comedy starring actor Billy Crudup). The production banner has allowed Griffin and Kalil to dive into Hollywood with their pro careers behind them. Kalil, who says that the Osos documentary won't be released until next year most likely, was intrigued about the opportunity to not only be part of football again but also in a way that's more hands on than other limited ownership offers. 'The entry barrier for football at the highest level in the states is next to impossible unless you're Tom Brady,' Kalil said. 'Even if you did have that kind of money, you're just a passenger in that massive vehicle.' It's not the first time that former NFL players have been involved with the Osos. Former Cincinnati Bengals star wide receiver Chad Johnson famously played one game for the team, then known as the Fundidores, in 2017, one year after it was founded. The Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional is only nine years old, but the federation has a long history with American football that dates back to the 1920s. The country's love for American football was popularized at local universities a century ago, which later led to the creation of its college league, ONEFA, founded in 1978. The NFL, which considers Mexico one of its largest international markets outside of the U.S., played its first preseason game there in 1978 (and first regular season game in 2005). The Osos' new ownership group looks to tap into the growing interest in that market, which will see the return of NFL teams this coming season with another regular season game planned to be hosted at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca for the first time since 2022. Ten NFL teams also currently have marketing rights across Mexico where they can explore fan engagement and commercial opportunities as part of the league's ongoing globalization efforts. There's no formal partnership right now between the leagues, but Kalil says that could be visited in the future. In the meantime, he's looking to channel his longtime background in pro football with his creative and business acumen. 'I've always said that I've been in the entertainment business on arguably one of the highest rated TV shows of all time in the NFL,' he added. 'This all fits within our [wheelhouse]. We try to look at things that get us excited.' Best of Who Is Josh Harris, the Washington Commanders' Owner? Tennis Prize Money Tracker: Which Player Earned the Most in 2024? College Football Bowl Schedule and Scores for This Season
