Darren Rovell on the $13M Kobe-LeBron card and the collectibles market on fire

on adquick. We'll uh we'll work on making it happen. But without further ado, we have our first guest in the reream room. Darren, how are you? Welcome to the show. How we doing? We're doing great. We're doing great. Excited to have you. What a fantastic backdrop that this is not a virtual background. Correct.

No, it is not. It's uh it's a oneofont painting of Kobe Bryant called un unfinished business. And uh you know, I was pretty close to Kobe and to have them in my office staring at me uh making me do my best every day that you know that's a good thing.

I over the weekend I rewatched uh the Kobe Bryant Widen and Kennedy ad campaign. The Kobe system. Are you familiar with this Jordy? Are you familiar with this Kobe system ad campaign? It is remarkable. It it's like this bizarre blend of comedy uh all in promotion of the latest uh run of shoes.

But uh we we we should watch and dig into that at some point because it is fantastic. Uh anyway, could you give us a little bit of background and introduction on yourself just for those who might not be familiar? Sure. Uh I was at ESPN for 13 years covering the business of sports. Uh did that for 6 years at CNBC.

Uh then went over to gambling, the quant kind of gambling side with the action network. Sold to a Danish company called Better Collective. And for the last um year and a half, I've been running collect which is on one side pretty much the best journalism source proudly um in covering collectibles.

Uh we also advise teams, leagues and brands on uh what to do in collectibles, building their bespoke collectibles. Uh have 13 clients and excited about that side business. Um what's on the frontier of like collectibles?

What's uh what what's something where that you've seen like a team or league do that's kind of out of the typical path? Um, well, we we actually just helped the uh the Washington Capitals do a a piece that teams have never done before.

So, like our our idea is if we're advising you um you're going to make something cool, we'll stand in the background and be white label. So, when Alexander Obetkin broke 895 goals, the the all-time NHL record, uh I literally was shoveling the ice that came off the Zamboni.

Uh after the second period, uh we got 125 gallons of ice. We put them in uh these kind of like receptacles that then looks like it's the real ice. Uh, it's a mini rink and you get it in a cherrywood box and the 8. 95 on the back has the shavings from the gold stick that uh, Ovuchkin was presented with by the NHL.

So, 1,500 bucks range. You know, these are high-end things that teams have never done before. So, those those type of things we're we're working on. That's very cool. Let's talk about the $13 million card. uh and the buyer that was just announced.

Can you break down kind of the the significance of of that deal, how how it came to be and and kind of what you expect out of Yeah. So, this is very non-traditional. When you hear about uh cards, you think about the most valuable and two cards come up.

The T2 206 Honest Wagner uh from 1990 1911 and of course the 1952 Tops Mickey man. For the most part, for all time, that has been one and two alternating with the small exception of Mike Trout for a little bit. Um, and how often do those actually trade like reprice effectively? So, it dep it depends on what what grades.

So, um, like so a PSA 8, eight out of 10 of a of a mantle will trade maybe twice a year. A PSA 9 will trade maybe once every two or three years. and a PSA 10 mantle. There's three of them.

They're probably in order for someone to to trade it at this point among those three guys, they'd probably have to get 40 million for it. So that hasn't traded in 10 years. Wow. Um the the the Honesses, there's 60 of them. They trade usually once a year.

Um, and now you have these other cards, these modern cards, which in 2003, Upper Deck started coming out with these exquisite and logo man cards essentially gives you signed uh from a couple of players and then patches of that where Upper Deck says that it's been representative to them that this is a game use patch.

And these cards back then were $35,000 to $100,000. In the last five years, they've become easy million-dollar cards. And you know, there's not many of them. Most of them are one of one. So, the Kobe LeBron, the a Kobe Jordan, whatever. And this one was seen as kind of the most coveted.

Um, couple years ago, probably would have sold for 5 million bucks. And now there's a lot of interest. Um, there's interests from the people that bought it. uh Kevin Olirri and Matt Allen started secure collectibles which is essentially we think um a fund to buy into these modern cards.

Previously we've had like funds for like vintage and get into these vintage cards but the modern cards seem to be the ones that people are into. Um and uh it's hard for me. I have about a $15 million collection. I've been collecting for 20 years. It's hard for me to get into the modern cards. What is that?

I dropped uh I dropped No, no. It's just a big number, so I had to swear. That's a huge collection. Congrats. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh but I don't really I collect real oneof ones. To me, this is I'm not trying to to shoot it down, but this is manufactured scarcity, right? The car company says it's one of one.

I'm collecting something that's like really one of one, like, you know. Well, this has played out somewhat in the in the car world as well.

Like, you know, I think from from what I understand, like the the sort of true classic Ferrari market has somewhat slowed it in that uh the the younger generation, the Instagram generation, uh the millennials are probably more focused on some of these modern supercars.

Like they might be more interested in a acquiring an SP3. Yeah. That that has happened. that has definitely happened. Um, you know, the question becomes obviously the $13 million card. So, so, so this card now has surpassed on the price alone, the honus and the and the and the mantle.

You know, the question is like there's there's a lot of people still collecting a lot of these modern cards and they rely on we're in a degenerate economy and my my friend Howard Linden, that's his term that he loves.

Um, and uh, you know, my my son opens up packs and he's 11 years old and if it doesn't have a number on it, if it's not out of 25 or have a gold little foil or whatever, he literally throws it in the garbage. It's in the garbage.

And you're having these businesses now that are So, are we getting are we getting the the youth hooked on on gambling at a young age? Is that is that is that I think everything is on tilt. So, so if they're not gambling, straight up gambling, they're they they know about Bitcoin already.

They know about things that trade nonstop. You know, the stock market stops. Um uh and so they're always like these repacks. Have you seen how these digital repacks? Basically, what happens is you open up cards that they've scanned in the system. Okay?

So they've opened the packs, they have cards, they've scanned in the system. You open it, it it spins, it opens, it's like a slot, and then if you and then if you don't get what you love, now you could you could take that, they could send it to you.

If you don't get what you love, you could sell it back immediately at 80% of the value. Now, normally you'd say 80%. That's horrible. Like I lost 20% and you know, that's that's so bad. However, if you come in from a gambling world, 80%'s great cuz it's a zero sum game, right?

Like if you're gambling, when you lost, you lost. It's zero. And so if you compare it against the gambling world, so these companies are, you know, this company Courtyard July, they did $60 million in repacks and they're making the delta every time someone returns something back or if they're shipping it to them.

And so, yeah, I mean, we're we're all on tilt right now. We can't go back. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, what is the give us a read on the overall state of the collectibles market right now? On absolutely on fire.

I mean, if you go to Fanatics Fest, if you go to the National Sports Collectors Convention, uh, 125, 150,000 people, kids walking around with briefcases with $30,000 worth of cards. Um, it it is it is not what it was when I was a kid. I think the energy is there, but the the money and the I mean, it's it's outrageous.

There there are going to be things that will pop. I don't think the whole thing is a bubble, but there are a bunch of things that don't make sense. Um, I think there's just a lot of very interesting markets. PSA, which grades everything, just started grading magazines, you know.

So, what what magazines do you want to grade? I I I say, okay, like everyone finds their own niche. For me, it's it's Hollywood debuts. The first time someone is has come on a on a magazine, right? And so, hold on. Hold on one second. Hold on one second. No worries. Let's bring this let's bring this bin over here.

We need PSA graded arena mags and colossal. So, you know, we got let's see. I mean like this is a beautiful Forbes, you know, you got you got the craw daddy, you know, Acroy Belushi, you know that that that's an early that's an early one. You got the first time John Candy appeared on a magazine in 1985.

A Canadian only, you know, you got the first Ralph Machio here. I I just appreciate how how I know I know I know like two out of the 10 names. Yeah, right. Exactly. um uh give it but but talk about the shape of the market and who the kind of key players are.

I know that e eBay uh at at some point or another I think people were kind of writing them off but they seem to have no the the the issue is that live commerce is the thing you know and right now eBay live is just not as great as whatnot um which is just doing tons of business um and and so they're they're a little bit behind I think so the so live is and And live is is dominating the traditional auction.

Live is dominating and a lot of it has to do with breaking, which is also gambling. So I told you about repacks. Breaking. Breaking is essentially I buy a team, right? So like let's say I spend $3,000 and I want to buy the Golden State Warriors and they open up a box and all these people are watching.

Do I get a Steph Curry or do I get and if you don't get one, they have to give you kind of some sort of card because otherwise it's an illegal lottery. Again, these things are on the cusp of will attorney general, you know, get into these and say these are this is gambling.

But yes, these are breaking is is just another reason why, you know, live is just going crazy. And what's Fanatic strategy been to date? I know they've been inquisitive and they now have an advantage, right, in terms of actually they have all the rights. They have all the rights.

They're about to take over the NBA rights. They have the Major League Baseball rights through Tops. They're about to take over the NFL rights. Uh they have Fanatics Live, which is breaking. Um they, you know, clearly have a lot. They have Fanatics Collect, which is uh their auction house.

So they're really really involved in the game to a point of you know almost or definitely monopoly power. Interesting. What do you think of Labou? We got a question in the chat. [Music] [Laughter] I I I I think it's hard to figure out.

See, the key to PSA and the key to the growth of collectibles has been population reports. Tell me exactly how many there are. Right? So, I can tell you there's only three Mickey Mantel PSA 10s, right? On Laboo, it gives me the odds, but I feel like I need to know live how many have been opened.

How many have like how do we figure out how to have population reports and grading these things? Because that's what gives you like the the the the want and the wish to say okay I want to invest in these things other than just have again that's just a these mystery boxes are another way to gamble. Yeah.

The degenerate economy. What what about in the business collectibles space? Uh, I know there's there there was this uh signed Steve Jobs business card that traded, but what are you track? I like I like jobs. Uh, I was worried about the number of checks that came out.

I am one of two people who own a Steve Jobs uh uh signature that says go change the world. Um, I think that's a that's a cool one that I'm holding on to. Um, I own the largest Warren Buffett signature in the world. It's 2 feet long on 18 uncut unc circulated dollar bills. Wow.

I think, you know, when Warren passes, I think someone's going to want that on on their wall. Um, I'm going to I'm going to hold for now. Um, do you think there's a do you think there's a a potential play to build a a kind of vertical marketplace for just business collectibles, or is that not the way? Yeah, for sure.

I I I h I have every Bergkshire Hathaway uh meeting pass from 1996 to 2025. That's incredible. Um I don't The hardest one to get is 2000. I just got it, so I'm really excited about um the business cards are tough though because unless they're signed, it's hard to figure out if they're real.

Yeah, we're in a unique position where we're we were recently at the Figma IPO and we brought a special gong and had the CEO Dylan Field ring the gong and we were thinking about how we should evolve that maybe and we have a big studio here.

We can hang them from the raft gameong game hit gongs or something where they sign the at the IPO. That would be pretty good. Okay. I I don't know that we're doing it for it's more just for lore at this point than than ROI. Yeah, but if you had if you had if you had a hundred gongs, you know, that would be kind of cool.

We'll work we'll work on that. I always tell I always tell teams, you know, when you have a concert of a of an important figure in there, you should give them some custom thing and then you should have your own custom thing so that you get it signed. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

But it's a Listen, it's a it's a fun vertical. It's um you know, if you know what you're doing, I think like anything, you should have a take, right?

you should have a strong take and you shouldn't be a follower, you know, like why do you think something should increase in value and I jump all over the place in terms of trying to get into markets every day? I think the Beatles costly but still has a huge runup. Yeah. Right. There's two guys still alive, you know.

How do you figure all that stuff out? Yeah. Is there is there a cottage industry of people like specifically in music collectibles that are just focused on acquiring assets from artists that are emerging today? Yes. Or or do people typically kind of wait too late to start taking an artist seriously?

Well, again, it's like it's it's not too late, right? It's it's it's it's not too late in music because I think again we're still so behind um you know, Billy Joel, right? like every you could see there's now there's there's a fervor for Billy Joel type stuff. You could still get some good stuff.

Now you can't get his own his first concert at MSG cuz I own the only two in the world and I'll have to sell it to you. But you know there you you can get into these things. It's not it really is not too late. It's never too late. You have to just say okay at the price it is now what type of upside does it have?

But in music in general, I think Billy Joel, Bon Joy, Springsteen, Madonna, all early early days. Um, how do uh influencers play into the world of collectibles? I I've followed the story of Ed Bolan and the Lamborghini Mercielago market where he kind of figured out that there were maybe less of a certain type.

uh the I think it was particularly particularly manual transmission uh LP640s uh the the market had estimated that maybe it was like you know 60% people went for automatic when that car came out and when he actually put all the VINs together figured out all the numbers it was more like 99% of people had selected automatic and then he popularized that through a series of YouTube videos and I believe the market really caught up because of that does that happen you have any stories around that yeah I mean I I boot I controlled the ticket market.

So when when PSA said they were coming out with grading tickets, I said, "Okay, I got to find the hundred best tickets of all time. I got to be really quiet about it. " And then a year later, I got to say, "Hey, tickets are great.

" Now, this was not just a pump on me because I should say that I've only sold about 1% of my collection. However, I bought Tiger Woods first PGA Tour event for $1,000 and then a year later sold it for 77,000. you know, so I was able to, you know, so yeah, underwrite the entire collection.

So some big Yeah, there were there were definitely some ridiculous pops. I bought the uh the the nicest full ticket of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to JFK. Bought it for 6,000, sold it for 105,000. Um you know, so like there you give me another one. There we go. Uh so so um yeah, you you can influence markets.

Um and I do. Uh but again I it's genuine, right? I love I love I love tickets. Yeah. Yeah. I mean at a certain point like what Ed Bolan did with Lamborghini was like very much factf finding. He wasn't he wasn't manipulating the market. He was just bringing extra sharing information. Yeah.

I do I do do you worry that do you worry that uh that so many so many different things in our lives have gone digital which just reduces the number of like collect. But is that is that a is that a positive or a negative? Right. No, it's a good point.

And and I I would say in collectibles, you can't appeal to every audience. The ticket market is going to really appeal to the 40 to 65 year old person right now. And guess what? Those are the people that have the most money to spend.

So, should I feel bad that I'm not that that that the 20 to 35year-old doesn't care about my market? No. I especially if you have one of ones, right? like, you know, I have the only 1899 silver certificate that was in the pocket of a guy who died on the Titanic.

Like, okay, my market isn't that liquid, but I need two people. I don't need 700. Yep. Yeah. Right. And that's really that's really where, you know, for my philosophy, it's like the real one of ones. Yes.

In if you collect cards, you immediately know how much that's worth usually if it's not a one of one because you go on eBay and it sold yesterday. To me, that's not fun. I I like to buy real one of ones where someone says, "Hey, I'll pay uh I'll I'll pay you $20,000 for Disney uh paying his 1962 taxes, his check.

" And I'd say, "No, I want 30. " You're not going to go and find it somewhere else, so you either pay me or whatever. So, you know, the the the real one of one markets are less liquid, uh but in a lot of ways, they're more secure if you really believe in it. Yeah. Uh what we have we have some space here in the studio.

Uh we we would like to acquire a car that has some uh like you know uh provenence with uh a great technology CEO. I don't know that we we're we'd be in the market for Elon's F1 yet. He crashed with uh with PT, right?

Uh but but what is there is there a great uh is there a great uh former vehicle of a of a Silicon Valley there are a bunch of there are a bunch of replica cars that were exact replica cars that sold uh on Saturday. Uh there was a Ghostbusters replica hearse.

There was two Jurassic Park Jeep vehicles which were kind of cool. Um I'm trying to think of like what normally if someone Larry Ellison, you know, Larry Ellison's McLaren F1 just went to auction. 23 million. Yeah. Yeah. Just out of the price range for us, but hopefully.

Which is interesting because because often if you have houses owned by celebrities or houses that were used in movies, people think that it ups the value. It actually decreases the value. Interesting.

People who are buying these houses at the three to5 million level or the $20 million level, they don't care that a movie was filmed in there or a celebrity had it. They just care about what are the bones and how much do I have to redo.

There's a there's a the house that was used uh in Hannah, Montana is near me in Malibu. Okay. And if you owned it, it would actually be extremely frustrating because every single day typically European tourists are taking pictures in front of it. So you'd just be constantly in the background of just random photos. Yeah.

That's that's kind of that's like what happened with the Home Alone House in uh you know in Illinois, you know, it's people just keep coming by. You become part of house tours. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think uh like how do you think the internet and modern technology are changing like the creation of collectibles?

Because I when I think about tickets, I feel like almost everything's digital now, people don't really get the physical tickets.

And so maybe what some of the your work and what you're doing consulting with folks like uh allows for the creation of new unique collectibles that kind of fill that, but are we seeing like net more inventory or less inventory?

Uh there's just so I feel like so many products whether I used to give someone a DVD box set or a book and now it's uh Yeah, you probably have it on Spotify anyway. Just go. Yeah.

And and I was I asked generally about this a bit earlier, but but also is there did you ever get excited about new technology like NFTTS that I so so I think there's I think there's actually the shame of it is that blockchain got thrown out with N with the NFT decline and I don't think they should be together.

Um blockchain uh has great applications um just really really good for future uh for counterfeiting for everything in this space that we've been struggle for for for friction right you can move something frictionless you don't have to get it graded then put it on eBay and so I I I do think that that uh I I'm not sure the NFTts unfortunately I think a lot of it was just grift and garbage And it just it it just is what it was.

And it and because bad actors gravitated to it, I think it got a bad reputation. I don't think all them deserve that. And I certainly think that blockchain has significant applications. I think we just need a little bit more time away and it and it will emerge. Yeah. Yeah.

We we we had a a founder CEO of an NFT company called Pudgy Penguins on the show and they've kind of gone backwards where uh they're focused on creating uh real products in the real world uh and and kind of bootstrapping the community that way.

They've already done the NFT launch and that's kind of been it's almost going back through typical licensing going Exactly. And uh and I think it's worked out really. I I just saw one gifted from a uh from a grandmother to a grandson and uh and and I had no idea that that there was any connection there.

So uh certainly at least that company's kind of figured out a way to But I do think that the the the young population does like physical still. Yeah. When it's available. Totally. Perfect. Uh well, thank you so much for hopping on. This is fantastic. Anytime there's uh any anytime more something in the news, hit us up.

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