Transcript of 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 league and sports is collecting. When the licenses were being held by Upper Deck and Tops and Fleer and Donruss in the '90s, it sparked a lot of innovation.

Welcome to The Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From Chasin' Grails to Colin Bluffs. I'm going inside the hobby Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Allford.

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 Card series. We had Brian Ludden from Luddex on. We've got one of the biggest collectors in the Southeast that's coming on. We've got some other big names, and that's why I went to Jeremy. Jeremy Eisenberg. He is not only an O. G. Trading card guy, talent brand, Labs founder, and I think just a sports junkie. Is that what it is, Jeremy?

That's fair. Sports has been a big part of my life since as long as I can remember.

Jeremy, I did go through your background and Brian shared a little bit, but I was like... And I got blessed to work on Verizon, some big names. We did some sports sponsorship stuff, but it wasn't... To say that my background in sports brand, marketing, all that, would not be painting the... I'd say more wireless and tech. 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 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 getting a PhD in genetics and took a leave of 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. I pinch myself. It's been an 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 casehits@collectibles. Show. I want you to send 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 value, it's 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 them 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 want to feature you on Collectibles Show. You need to name that name, though. Our listeners that knows... If you're even golfing, maybe not golf, you'll recognize this name. We talked a little Might be one of the first influencers in golf, wasn't he?

David Leadbetter? Yeah. When I think about... I was lucky enough 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, a brick and mortar academy business, a product licensing business, a product development business, a 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 overdeliver 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. 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 explosion of all these channels, 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 a little bit. Telling your story because you came up through it all.

I always felt like I was representing challenger brands, so to speak, because I wasn't representing the agency that I work for octet. We had Michael Phelps, we had Steph Curry, but I was representing coaches and broadcasters in golf. Now, where golf had this great advantage was the people who distribute content related to playing better golf have an outsized amount of influence over their audience. If someone is promising better scores, lower handicap, more fun playing golf, they're basically promising them a dopamine high. What I've said to a lot of big technologists is golf is this incredible test kitchen for new innovative technology. 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 tour partnership. But you're able to use Hologlens and see how this holographic type interface works. And it was a great example of where golf's influence and the pyramid of that influence is so powerful and why I've been able to be... Someone like Hank Haney 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 we were out there trying to find ways to showcase our content in as many channels as we could, and whether that's through augmented reality or whether that's through podcasts, or through OTT subscriptions.

Hank had a very significant eight-figure business, 10 million plus business a month doing online content subscriptions because, again, that insatiable appetite for game improvement is undying. So the premise has held true, and guys like Gary Vee have been both friends and influences as well, is the bottom line is you got to put your message in as many places as the potential audience might be. And the gatekeeping makes sense in certain spots. But really, ubiquitous omnichannel content distribution, authentically and organically is the answer. And then if you've got the goods, you can achieve a lot.

How did the trading card thing... I mean, Where did that enter? Obviously, and you'll talk about as a kid and stuff. A lot of us have the kid stories, but where did that intersection happen in the career?

I collected like everybody. I stopped collecting. I was born in the late '70s, collected in the mid, late '80s, 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 a career.

Sounds familiar.

And then I woke up and I was 30-something, and maybe my folks made me take more of the cards home, but probably right about the time I got to Octagon, 2006, 2007, I saw cards lying around the office, and we started representing big stars, and I'm thinking, I wouldn't mind getting a basketball sign by David Robinson. I'm in the sports marketing business at this point, and I've been on private jets with Hall of Fame athletes and mayors not to ask for autogravs. So it's this- Hey, you might as well 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. Everybody's probably got a good one of these with Charles Barkley. But I was so talk about a Forrest Gump life. But I was very fortunate to become very good friends with Charles when Hank Haney filmed The Haney Project. I was on site for most of the production day is over six months and ended up being Charles' dinner date for quiet nights after a long day of filming. Charles used to say when somebody would be coming up to the table, he'd be like, Finally, I said, you're so kind to these guys. You never say no. You're always 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 is going to go 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 them off or to be nice. And it just gives you a lot of respect for how hard it is for them to find peace and quiet.

The bigger the star, the harder that is. I got to see that up close and personal. But at the same time, collecting is such a fun aspect of being a fan. So that itch got scratched again. I might have I mentioned this when we were chatting. I mean, Michael Rubin deserves all the credit in the world for his identifying collectors as the best fans. I really believe that this hobby is in its infancy from a growth perspective. Well, at Octagon, we did 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 just grow the hobby, but to make fans stickier to their teams and the league and the sports is collecting. It's clearly acknowledged now by... I'm talking to the NHL about the opportunity to engage young fans through collecting. It's identified now as one of the pillars And the growth trajectory for collecting in general is pretty exciting. And one of the things we'll talk about is what we've built in partnership with Sports Illustrated and Authentic Brands Group and MinuteMedia, who are our partners in the Sports Illustrated collectibles business.

Everybody's got their hands that they know, like the collectibles realm and the trading cards. They see the smart people, are connecting the dots and building units around how you connect all these things together and how you leverage it to keep fans being fans. And I think the winners are going to, 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. It's hard not... It's had some Hockey moments, I think the fanatics and tops. There's been some stuff, but you can't deny that it feels directionally right, is my observation.

They're opening the tent wider. The Fanatics Fest, we went to the first Fanatics Fest. It was awesome. Couldn't have been a more fun, entertaining experience for casual sports fans. There were plenty of areas that they were the first to recognize they can make improvements on. I'm excited for what they'll do in the event space. I think healthy competition is good, and Panini is not going anywhere, and Upper Deck is not going anywhere.

Did that deal What deal need to happen, though? Pardon? The Panini tops. Did that deal need to happen, though? Would that have been better for the industry?

It's a great question. I think it would be better for the industry to have more than one license. I think competition is great. I think when the licenses were being held by Upper Deck and Tops and Fleer and Donruss in the '90s, it sparked a lot of innovation. You think about of the great old vintage insert sets of the late '90s and early 2000s are some of the most collectible cards on the planet. That's the pinnacle of Upper Deck's early work in memorabilia cards and autogravs. And 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 blown away by what's happened. And the collectability and the tentacles into art and into serious game-used memorabilia to museum quality pieces and investment funds, looking at this stuff through the lens of alternative asset classes. It's not related to my background as a geneticist, but 35 % of us are genetically predisposed to want to collect stuff.

Sort of a remnants of hunting. Yeah, the human condition a little bit. That fine language between collecting and hoarding.

I think the tide is rising on collecting because collecting is the ultimate expression of Fandam. And Fandam is one of those last safe spaces where we can all come together and cheer on a team and not be angry at each other for something else.

Yeah, I know. Everything is polarizing. It's like black and white. But in sports, it feels like you can... I mean, you're always rooting for one team or the other, but it just feels different than the shit that's out there that is just maddening and polarizing. I don't feel like fandom is polarizing. It's just fandom.

Almost every Republican and Democrat in Boston can agree on the fact that they want the Red Sox to kick the crap out of the Yankees.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

They come together, and where you can start to bring people together, you can find the opportunity, right? So sports has been that. And like I said, I've been so fortunate to be able to be on the journey I've taken. And this platform we built with Sports Illustrated, I chased the SI leadership for years. 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 collectors were this huge universe of people coming with kids and ready to rediscover the hobby. I was able to help broker the deal between Gary Vaneerchuk and Topps to create a to create a insert set within 2019 Top Series 2 around the best entrepreneurs in baseball. And Gary was very adamant. We proposed to Ops, developing a collaboration with Gary around what they were doing, branded sets, direct to consumer, custom-branded sets. And they launched the first one with with Bryce Harper. It was a big success. And they were looking at subjects to do the next one with. And we said, Well, maybe you should take a look at Gary Vanechuk.

He's obsessed with cards, and now it could be a perfect opportunity. And they took it and put a really fun set together that unlocked Gary's universe to the latest and greatest of modern sports cards. And lots happened since then in the hobby as well. But one of the things that was missing all through that journey, long-winded here, was a major sports media platform that was paying attention to the hobby, and that's what we were able to convince SI to move forward with.

Talk to me about what SI is doing. When you think about the collectibles, it's so ironic. Old Sports Illustrative magazine, one of the most collected things for sports fans, especially. I'm not even... Just in the last six months, I've gotten back into collecting cards, but I wouldn't I consider myself a lifelong collector. But I am when I go, I've got 10 or 20 Sports Illustrators that I've hauled over the years, and some are autografts. I went to Clemson, so I got some Dabo Sweeney and Deshaun Watson. That meant more a few years ago, but we won't go down that road. But anyway, it is what it is. But it just fits. So talk to me about what Sports Illustrated, and you've been doing. What is that division exactly?

When Sports Illustrated said, Yeah, we're into the idea of building a hobby vertical, the first thing we did was build out a team, and we hired a So I have two partners in this collaboration with SI, a guy named Chris Perrone, 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, MinuteMedia was interested in the opportunity to do the same thing, and we were able to launch si. Com/collectibles. And why that's significant is that the si. Com domain is one of the oldest and most trafficked on the Internet and has one of the highest domain authorities on the Internet, and how Google ranks sites and drives traffic.

What is it? 99? I That's really high. Yeah, I'm sure it starts with a nine.

And so we just get traffic when we have interesting content. So our challenge was just making content about the hobby 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 we're publishing on average 10 pieces a day. We're up to now over half a million unique readers a month, and 750,000 to a million unique article views a month, which are good numbers. 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 the domain authority. And so that's given us the opportunity to invest even further in original content. We're developing a series featuring collectors and really celebrating people's collections, and we're going to give us-How about a dad and his four sons?

That sounds like a story or a video or something.

Is going to be great. I'll email you after the call, and especially if your collection is featured in Linux, we can surface that.

Yes, it is.

That's exactly what we're doing there. We're doing fun things with the journey of collectibles from discovery. So think about sports collectible version of Antique Roadshow. So we've got some fun ideas in the hopper for video. A lot 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. Sometimes you hear something, you're like, okay, I don't know about that. This is just like, it wasn't already happening. It was really surprising, man.

Yeah. The very first Sports Illustrated had a whole pullout of 1954 tops design in the issue, the famous issue of Eddie Matthews. 1954. So collecting is in the DNA of the brand. And we all have heard or collect the Sports Illustrated for Kids cards that are the first appearance of so many icons that don't necessarily get a card in the traditional releases. The hobby has done a great job of making cards for all these alternative sports athletes coming in from different directions. And 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 It's unfortunate, but at least they had cards, thanks to Sports Illustrator, 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 pretty pricey.

For our audience that's either maybe collectors or hearing more about this industry, it's hard. Brian and I talked about this, but just big this industry is and just how popular. At the same time, it'll make your head spin, try and get your head around every parallel. Everything else, good grief. I don't even know where to start with the actual cards themselves, but it's fun.

Yeah, that's part of what SI is going to be doing here with content is celebrating collectors and celebrating their individual collections and showcasing all the different ways that collectors collect. That's a pretty broad spectrum of embodiments of collections. I personally collect vintage Red Sox guys. I collect Ted Williams and Karl Yustrowski. If you ask, what are the cards I would never part with? It's about 100, give or take, vintage Red Sox cards. The rest is fun stuff I like to own.

I got some Roger Clemens' rookies. I mean, that was in my come up-time. We're also when they got overprinted a little bit, so I don't know. They're pretty condition now, right? Yeah.

We took good care of them. And that's another whole element. There was a lot of resistance to grading when I remember first coming into the scene in the early '90s when I was still an avid collector without a driver's license. But it was like, what is this third party grading? But it serves such an important role in the growth of collecting because of the trust factor that it's injected into what was previously a pretty challenging environment when it comes to trust in cards and- Subjective condition grading. It was really a big roadblock to the growth that's happened. My I started my eBay account in 1998, so I guess I was still dabbling in college with buying and selling collectibles. But the card you would purchase in lots.

I thought I had it beat. Mine's 2001. That's 100% feedback. And 2001, my kids saw that when we got back into it and we were selling and buying a few things on eBay. They were like, doing it. My kids are four boys under the age of 15, and it's like, See, in 2001, so my eBay account was there. Yeah, it's a great date stamp.

It's one of those fun, like what's your Uber rating? When did you start Uber?

Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it just ages us or if It's definitely some cred in the buying circles. Yeah.

Gary Vanderschuck and I talk about the AOL chat rooms. I used to buy and sell them there in 1992 and '93. '92, '93. I grew up in Northern Virginia, where AOL was headquartered, and they put a DVD in your mailbox every week, back then.

I remember that. My parents got it. I was loading it on their computer. I remember it, and that noise. That dial-up, man.

Little did we know what was on the other end of that dial-up line.

Exactly. Where do you see the industry going? And what's your thoughts on the NFTs and the digital space. You can't fight it. It's coming. I like to think it's an or and not, I don't know, make your choice, but I'll let you hit on it.

Yeah, it's a complicated one. And there's so many different directions to pull it in. I think that these digital worlds, digital communities, the success of platforms like Roblox and where that's going to be headed and the worlds that can be built within these platforms, I'm reluctant to cast judgment on a lot of this tech that is just really being a Understood how it can be used effectively. I hate to... Don't hate. Gary's definitely an influence on me. But he made a big point with his NFT launch to bring real-world tangible value to his buyers because he was certain of one thing, and that was that the journey of these things was going to be long and bumpy, and he wanted to make sure that there was value extended no matter what. So I think that blockchains, I know enough about cybersecurity to understand the value proposition of blockchain and 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 insight. But I'm hardly an expert on predicting what the commercial markets will look like. I think I come back to 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 ticketing uses. There's definitely a collectability that's a legacy of what happened during the explosion, and it's starting to come back through some types of utility. I think it's early, early days. I'm sure that 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 one of these distributed network owned membership organizations, and you were going to have access to a golf course. I think they went out and bought a golf course. But your ownership was embodied through the NFT. 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 see the value that my kids put in digital things. 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 over the other. But I have been surprised because I panned when the whole metaverse and all that stuff was happening during COVID, I panned all of it. 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 I didn't think it's coming one day. You can't fight technology and progress. But I think a lot of that stuff crashed and burned because it didn't really have a core, solid core. It was just very glitzy in the moment. But I do see the value, even in Fortnite, what their character has on and how much they'll spend for that. And that cache means something. And so there's value even in digital assets that the younger generation have, right?

It's part of youth culture now, for sure, is some Some digital expression, what they're sharing on their social channels on their TikToks and who they're interacting with and that community of influence that they've embraced in their content consumption patterns, where they're going for content and who they're going to for expertise. I think that continues to evolve. And I think there's a big place for digital stuff in 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 holding the cards. I mean, call me old school, but now how beautiful the cards are and the designs and all that, that's a hard experience to replace. I don't know that it has to replace it. I think it's, again, and not or in that regard. You still open packs.

Are you following what they're doing with these real-world repacks that you open online? I'm not sure if it's Arena Group or one of the Arena Club.

Oh, yeah. I mean, the breaks and whatnot and all that. Yeah, I mean, we have our own whatnot channel. We've sold 500 items already. We're in it, man. We are in it. That's why Brian is sending me the Ludox crew here. We're going to get our whatnot sponsored by Ludox or something. That's where we get SI involved. The RAD Collective, that's us. The Rad Rips, Rad Collective, and I own breakingrad. Com. Are you kidding me?

We need to talk. We are working on a really cool breaking content initiative with with one of the biggest companies in the world, and we should talk about what we can do.

Yeah, man, that'd be fun. It's a fun industry. Look, it's brought my sons and I close up. I'm not sure how these companies, and my kids know I do podcasting. They know I have some influence online and all that, but they haven't really cared. But I'm teaching them business through the sports cards now. We got our own Shopify site that I've built and showed them how to build and e-com and social and then whatnot. It's like giving me an avenue to teach them things that I would have liked to teach them through what I do every day, but it's meeting them on a grounds that they like.

Yeah. My buddies at Big Night Entertainment Group started Card Vault a few years ago. It was a fun side project during the pandemic. They had all these nightclubs and bars that were shut down, and they figured they could entertain people by doing breaks on these stages. They built a business, and lo and behold, they're now partners with Tom braided and scaling Car vault by Tom braided all over the country. That'll bring so many new collectors to the game who will see that name in the way that they're merchandising the hobby. 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 the space. I think it will continue. It's one of the true ubiquitous passions that's enjoyed globally. It really truly is a global hobby. The MBA is collected in just about every corner of the connected world.

Yeah, man.

It's exciting stuff.

Jeremy, where can everybody keep up with what you're doing with Sports Illustrated and you in general?

Yeah, on Instagram, I'm jaisenberg@jaisenberg. I'm at talentbrandlabs, www. Talentbrandlabs. Com. And just keep an eye on si. Com/collectibles all sorts of fun new content.

I love it, man. Made a lot of sense. They were smart to listen to you and the rest of your team that was pushing this. So it makes a lot of sense and can't wait to keep up with the content that you guys are doing. And hey, maybe the RAD collective fits in there somewhere.

I think we should talk about that. Have your people call my people.

I know. I think I know. We'll exchange numbers. Yeah, we definitely should. Hey, guys, you know where to find us? Rianisright. Com. We'll find the highlight clips, the links to all of Jeremy's social, his website, brands, sponsorship, partnerships. Hey, you know who to call. You need to call Jeremy. And look, go check out Sports Illustrated's new collect... Backslash collectibles, that's how it /collectibles. Hey, it just fits, man. That is where it is. It fits. And I love seeing what everything's happening in the industry. It's part of our Trading Card series, The Business You Need to Know. Hey, find me at Ryan Offert on Instagram. Thank you for making us number one. See you next time.

Thanks for tuning in to 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 Offert. Now get out there and collect yours.