The Sleeping Soccer Storm Ft. Scott @thesocoexpo

-First interview for Slabnomics featuring Scott, cofounder of the Soco Expo @thesocoexpo: THE sports card show for Soccer enthusiasts.

-What's the soccer market look like and what can we expect from the World Cup?

-How does one even start something like this?

and more

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Flavonomics, the intersection of investing, collecting, and market theory for sports cards. This is episode five of the leading soccer video. Featuring our first ever interviewee for the podcast, Scott, one of the co-founders at the Soko Expo. Very exciting to welcome him on here and talk about how the expo is in the second year. It features only soccer card vendors. I'll be there myself under my canary cards brand. Really hoping to see some of you guys there. The community is amazing. That's something that got alluded to frequently in this interview. And he also speaks a lot about what it takes to actually put on a convention and how it actually happens. Really good stuff in here, really fun stuff for anyone that has ever thought how do I put on a really helpful for you. After the interview, I'll jump back on here and give you guys the outro and one more thing before you go. Obviously. So enjoy the interview and I'll catch up with you guys in a video. All right, Scott, thanks so much for joining on this episode of Slabnomics. Really excited to share with everybody what is going on at the end of next month, what kind of exciting things we have leading up to uh 2026 with the World Cup, and just kind of introduce you to them and pick your brain a little bit about soccer card as a hobby. So thanks for coming on. Oh awesome. Thanks for having me, man. Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about what you've been up to. Like what's what's been going on in your world in the past few days.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Really just kind of gearing up and planning. Today we're 47 days away from the Soko and just end up announcing yesterday and put up the link for showcase rentals for all the vendors who are going to be there. And just really kind of putting the final touches on the show and everything that we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah. Really excited about what we have going on with the Soko Expo. I hear it's going to be bigger, better than ever this year. Let's get into a little bit about you before we dive into what the Soko Expo is. We'll leave that for a little bit later as a teaser here. But uh tell me a little bit about you and your card collecting journey.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I mean, cards really have kind of gone full circle in my life. Um, I started collecting as a young kid, mostly vintage, really. Late 60s, early 70s baseball. I had a business called World Series of Cards in the 80s, and I'd set up at card shows from pretty much ages like 12 to 18 and set up at about four to five hundred shows in my life, collected everything under the sun, and eventually you know made my way on to uh playing division one ball in in college, and I had stopped collecting at that time. But early on, I actually ended up meeting my father-in-law while I was selling cards as a teenager, and so the cards have really come full circle within my life here.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, you got distracted during the old college days, huh? Chasing skirts and playing sports.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, I mean, I was busy playing, but also it was uh junk wax era, and when I end up getting out of the junk wax, so like I was buying directly from tops when I was in middle school and high school, and I would set up at a weekly show, um, longest running show in the country every single Wednesday. Mom would pick me up from middle school, drop me off at the show, I'd go and sell cards, she'd pick me up later that night, and that that's how that ended up happening. But if you got your cases in a week before me, you sold them for a premium and I couldn't sell them for what I paid for them. And then that's when I end up switching to buying like N172s, T206s, stuff like that. Um, as I was making my way out in you know, 91, 92, I stopped buying anything new and started buying stuff that's a hundred years old.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So basically you kind of saw what was coming with the junk wax and you still loved what was going on. You just needed to kind of pivot.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Oh, w without a doubt. Without a doubt. That was kind of what I was getting into as I ended up getting out of the space. And you know, there wasn't any soccer or anything at that time, really. You know, it was basketball, baseball, football, hockey, the primary uh sports that uh buy and sell.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, I'm a big fan of vintage myself. That's kind of my one true love when I go back to it. Any players from the vintage eras that you really focused on and loved?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Oh, I mean, look, I was like a six-year-old kid and I had Nolan Ryan rookies, Reggie Jackson rookies, Johnny Bench, Rod Carew, you know, Roberto Clemente. Like that that was just so much fun for me to be able to see and and to be part of and and to collect those guys at that time.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

I'm still trying to get a Nolan Ryan rookie.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Those things have not been cheap these days. I I honestly I haven't even paid any attention really to like the baseball market or some of the other markets that are there. Uh now being back into the space, I'm purely and solely focused on soccer.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

And so I know you said you kind of went away from it during the college years, played some baseball, you've come back around to it. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how that journey happened? How did you rediscover and how'd that tie into soccer?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah. Oh, well, no, I actually I played college soccer. Uh, I didn't play college baseball. Oh. So yeah, I mean, that that's really for me where where it's kind of full circle. So, you know, I heard all these crazy stuff going on during COVID, all this crazy pricing, all these different things, and I'm like, I stashed away way too many cards, and I'm like, I have these just sitting in boxes on a pallet in my warehouse. Let's kind of figure out what what might be there. That said, while while COVID was going on, my dad got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he ended up living 13 months to the day. And that's really A, what partially what I was really distracted going through COVID. And B, that's what helped me kind of get back into the hobby a little bit was after my dad's death and post-COVID, I actually started going to some local shows and started running into friends who I hadn't seen in 20, 30 years from shows. And it really became this whole social thing. And then being here in Metro Detroit, you know, I mean, I could go to three to five card shows a week. That said, right, there's no soccer pretty much at any of these shows. And so, you know, that's really where this journey started. And then I end up buying a card for my birthday a few years back, and that's really what kind of kicked all this stuff into gear.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, what card did you end up buying, if you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Well, I'm a Manchester United fan since '86, actually, pre-Ferguson. My middle school best friend was a Liverpool fan, so I chose to oppose him. And um Garnacho was the hot prospect at the time. He had no other cards out in the market outside of this, which is a leaf lunar rarity. It's number to 10. There's no parallels to it. And um, this card actually got me back into collecting again. And I I ended up winning that card on eBay for my birthday. And um, that was kind of the beginning of immersing myself back into this journey and uh eventually making my way to meet the soccer community.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

That's amazing, man. Garnacho is also one of my favorites. He's probably one of the players I'm most invested in. So I'm with you on that. And thanks so much for sharing the story about your dad. I think we've all gone through ways in which this hobby has helped us connect with other people and also provide a little bit of a distraction during some tough times. So I think connection is one of the biggest things that I feel when I talk to people in this hobby. No, definitely. So all right, so you've gotten back in, you've gone into those leaf garnachos, and you keep mentioning connecting into the soccer community. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how that started to happen and the origins of the Soko Expo? So when did the Soko Expo start and why did it start? What were the gaps that you saw? I know you've talked a little bit about soccer cars not having a good place to buy and good price discovery. So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Well, honestly, I just wanted to see a bunch of cool stuff because I couldn't find anything here in my backyard. And so I ended up making my way to the national two years ago in Chicago. Uh the last national I went to was in 1989, and then flash forward. I didn't make my way to national until 2023. So took a little time off, made my way back, uh, and ended up buying this card uh in honor of my dad, and this is really what kind of got me back into it. Uh bought a 1957 Top St. Garren. I know that I could probably buy 10 of these at a local show uh without any issue at all. Um, but the whole point was to go to Chicago, and that's where I was at the National in 1989 that I took my dad there uh when I was 14 years old. So he was my chaperone there, dragged him around to see that card, never bought one, never owned one, and so I needed to kind of close that loop um and buy that in his honor. Being at the national in Chicago, I ended up meeting Anthony, ended up meeting Edwin, ended up finding guys walking around on the show floor with soccer jerseys on, who happened to be uh Dan's cards and Dan Church, who are in the UK. And I'm like, here, this is where the tables are. Just grabbed them over. Like, I didn't know who anyone was. If I saw you in a soccer jersey, I started talking to you. Um, I was carrying a sign that said got soccer cards on it, uh, a laminated sign I was holding up because I knew the national is gonna be crazy. I'm just trying to spend my time expeditiously because I know it's a huge place. And look, if I'm two or three deep in the middle of a row, I can hold up the sign, going, you got it? Yes, great. I can make my way. So I started meeting more people in the community, seeing other people, seeing some cards, but like we were just you know wide out in the open, no security, no anything. There were you know a couple two-foot-round tables that you could put a drink on, which really didn't make sense to put cards out on. And so I'm like, this is a great idea. Um, and it's great to have everybody together. Wicked soccer ended up putting together a trade night at a hotel. They rented out a ballroom space, uh, roughly 2,500 square feet. They had roughly like eight tables in the middle. Um, and people kind of spread out. We were all jam-packed in there, no security. People have thirty thousand dollar cards laying on the floor. I didn't show any cards when I was out there because hey, there really wasn't any space, and it really wasn't so conducive for it. I want to see a bunch of cool stuff, and there's more stuff here than what's in the national, because there were probably 13 tables that year in Chicago at the national. You know, it was nice to be able to see the trade nights actually had so much more stuff that was there, but it was still really difficult to be able to kind of see everything and to be able to interact with everybody because there's just no room. I did the two trade nights, and so I left that Wicked's trade night and I drove through the rainstorm um to Michigan City, Indiana, and checked into a hotel there. Thankfully, I had called ahead. They had lost power multiple times. They checked me in. I walk into the hotel and the fire alarms are going off. No, so but the whole time I'm not doing this drive, I'm thinking, okay, I experienced these two things. How can I how can we do something better for the community? And that was my whole thought the entire time I had this drive and where I'm going and what I'm doing. And so I'm like, well, how can we end up making this better? And that following week, right after the national, I reached out to the hotel that Wicked Soccer had booked their place with. And I'm like, how much was the space? And started figuring things out. Well, I knew it's in Cleveland the following year, and within eight days, I had found a venue. I put a deposit down and I had booked the thing for like all five days of the national. And mind you, it was a hundred dollar deposit to hold the UAW Hall for five days. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to be able to bottle it and bring it to Chicago, but that's not quite uh what's happening. I hear you down in Austin.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah. Is that where you are? Here in Austin, Texas. Yeah. Awesome city, man. So you went to the national, you recognize, hey, there's 13 tables here, but the community at the trade night is kind of strong, you know, and and they deserve kind of their own thing. Is that the the thought process that went into it? And you just were the kind of guy that said, Hey, I'll make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

You know, I ended up deciding to throw this uh in honor of my dad, you know, who kind of chaperone me while I was collecting. He wasn't a collector in that respect for cards, but at least, you know, made sure I would was able to go where I needed to be. And to be able to bring the community together and to have a place that we could all hang out and and to be able to break bread and to spend time together was just super, super important. I'd reached back out actually to Wicked Soccer to tee up this venue for him because honestly, I knew nobody, you know, I didn't know anybody in the space. I was just kind of getting my feet wet. And then on Twitter one day, I saw Adam make a post at a Blumenthal CLE soccer cards and started messaging with him a little bit. And then uh we hopped on a phone call and he's like, Look, he's like, I have the people, they want to know where to go. And I'm like, Well, I have the venue and I don't know anybody. So we kind of like left twist and right twist it, you know? Yeah, in that respect, and started kind of putting it together. And and that was really the whole thing, too. Was all this really could not have been done without our four title sponsors. Our first year we had soccer breakers, we had gold and goal breaks, uh, we had GV sports cards, and we had Pat Poles. Those four sponsors gave us the validity. And then we, you know, we also had sponsors and people would set up who were not happy that we were putting this on initially. Well, they had done their own stuff in the past and they have their own community and everything else, and no one knew me and what I was trying to accomplish for everybody. I mean, they end up coming around and they were part of what we end up doing and in fact being sponsors of it. And now, you know, and and now we have I have great relationships with all these people because they realized and understood, you know, I'm not even in the business. I'm not trying to take away from anybody, I'm trying to build. I'm trying to be able to help build the community, bring everybody together.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, so shout out to those original sponsors, and then I totally get what you mean. You know, the people have to defend the tribe when there's a newcomer that comes in, they got to test the metal a little bit, make sure everybody's working towards the same end of making the hobby stronger and better and better community. So yeah, I'm glad that everything resolved into strong relationships. And I'm glad the Soko Expo year one last year in Cleveland went well. A hundred different vendors for the first show is pretty amazing. So, what kind of things did you learn from that first success that you had and how has that evolved into year two at the end of July here?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, I mean, really the the most difficult part of throwing the thing was we had an hour and a half to turn the room. That was probably the most difficult thing that we had. Uh, we got the room at 2.30.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Somebody that's done events, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

We got we got the room at 2 30 in the afternoon. Vendors showed up at four o'clock. We had the show start at six o'clock that people were arriving, and we had no idea how many people were showing up. We had no idea how many people we needed to feed. We had no idea how how much, you know, we had school buses picking people up from the national and bringing people over because where Cleveland was located or the venue, it wasn't so conducive to be able to do some, you know, transportation was needed. And we also provided food for everybody since we were renting out a UAW hall and there wasn't any food or a bar or anything on site. So we made sure that everyone was fed and everything. Just the unknown was really kind of the that portion of it. Uh that was probably the most difficult part from year one. Year two, uh, yeah, we were going from 10,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet. Uh, we're going from 100, 105 vendors to over 170 vendors. Uh, the thing that's really striking me the most is we I I have at least 10 people who have reached out who have never been to the United States before, who are coming to the United States specifically to attend the SOCO. Are we getting the the Dublin cards, guys? Oh, yeah, yeah. Soccer, you can soccer cards united. They got four tables. They're back again. They had four tables last. Oh, yeah. Honestly, the who's who of everybody who's in this space is gonna be in the room from all over the world. You know, we we're gonna have 15 to 20 countries represented actually really easily. Uh, it's probably gonna be a little bit more this year, you know, the amount of staff that we had. Last year we had no staff. This year, being in a facility, they actually have a staff, they're actually gonna take out the trash for us this year. There's actually food on site, there's bar on site, there's an ice cream parlor on site, there's a retail soccer store on site. So if you didn't bring a jersey or something that you want, that's there as well. Um, there's an arcade and games that are there too. And then we have so much going on this year. Some of the stuff we haven't announced, some of the stuff we're holding back until a couple weeks prior, and some other things are just going to be getting released over the next week to two weeks or so. So as we get a little bit closer here.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, getting things trickle out a little bit. Is there anything that you want to tease specifically on this podcast? I know that's it's a little bit on the spot here, so you don't have to, but the platform's yours if you want to allude to anything.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, I mean, last year we had, I think we had over six thousand dollars in giveaways. This year we're gonna blow the doors off of that. Uh, we've had a bunch of people who have already donated a bunch of product. We have uh Kids' Day on Saturday with two kids' soccer tournaments, a kid's scavenger hunt, and um, we have a field that's gonna be essentially a field of giveaways. It's gonna be part of the collector's cup. Um, this is something that's jointly going to happen with just slabbed and golden gold breaks. And we're gonna have activities for everybody involved and giveaways uh the entire day for the three days. And um, it's gonna be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Sounds like a ton of fun. And for everybody, just so you know, if you want to go ahead and follow Scott, he's at the Soko Expo, and they're going to be running that from July 1st to August 2nd in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yep. From four to midnight.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

I should be there four to midnight. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. We are five miles south of the national. It's gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Are you still doing transportation? I need to ask you about that.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

No, we have a hotel room block that's about five, we're about three, four miles away from the venue. And then we're about five miles south of the national uh from the Stevens Center. Uh, we are not providing transportation this year to be able to hop on a Lyft Uber or a friend. Uh being in Chicago is a lot more conducive than where the IX Center was in Cleveland. That was, you know, that was a good fifty that was a good 15, 20 minute drive last year in Cleveland. So this year we're five miles away. We're just straight south. Amazing. Logistics are gonna be easier.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Do you think the year's proximity to the national will help or hurt?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

So one of the big detriments last year, and I mean, look, I'm from Detroit and still nothing against Cleveland, but you know, many people from around the country and around the world, it wasn't so conducive to be able to get to Cleveland. You know, they might have to take multiple flights and stuff like that. Chicago is a lot easier. Um, I think that the attendance at the National is gonna be far greater this year than it was in Cleveland last year. That's part of why we're going from 10,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet. Uh, we've sold out the soul show floor for a while already, but yeah, the attendance this year is gonna be off the charts.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Amazing. 8x on the square footage, if my math serves me. Indeed. I'm a finance guy, you know. I gotta put that in there.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

You know.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

That's amazing. So really excited for that. I think the Toko Expo is one of the events I'm most looking forward to this year. Sounds like a ton of fun meeting amazing people. Uh, you already called out some of my favorite people, Sach with Anthony over there, and then Edwin with Ajax, some people I talk to a lot. Mad respect for those guys. Let's talk a little bit about the card market in general. You know, we we're dealing with a market, I believe, that's just about to hit a big maturation spike with the World Cup 2026 coming on and the marketing that's going to be pushing that forward. Uh the Toko Expo seems really well positioned for that. But can you tell me a little bit about? how you see the soccer market having been dipping in and out for a pretty long time.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I really saw and when I kind of got back into it is really the opportunity for growth and seeing that it's so niche and that it just so new. I mean it it's it's amazing that really modern cards really weren't started to print until 2014 and 2017 and 2018. So you know we're only talking 10 years being in that space when you know I know baseball history getting back into you know the 1880s 70s 60s of when cards started coming out. So this is so new in that respect. I know stickers have been around for a long time but I really love being able to see how how this has been evolving. And I'm with you I think with the World Cup coming to North America again, you know, first time since 1990. And now it's going to be in Canada and Mexico as well. And now that there's actually soccer cards. The world's changed quite a bit and I'm really looking forward to kind of seeing what ends up happening. I think uh either Club World Cup ended up kicking off yesterday or today for like the next month here in the United States. So we'll see how that ends up doing. So I know we're getting uh bombarded with uh international games and teams which is only which is fantastic and I think it's only going to help grow the sport here and grow the attendance and stuff here uh you know would hope in turn that that means that the market's going to end up doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Absolutely and I'm right there with you I think this is a true black swan event for the community. I think we'll look back in a year and say, wow it seems pretty obvious that this was going to happen. But to that point, you know I I've had some talks with people that are looking at things from an investment angle and they want me to be able to tell them hey this is the past results when we've had World Cups. How does that lead into valuations? And what we had last World Cup in Qatar was a spike of 3x in volume of traded on eBay. So that was when the World Cup was in Qatar. Now we have it in North America and the North American team is a little bit differently positioned that it was in 2022. And the market as you said has grown up a lot since 2022 which was kind of when the peak of COVID um had already passed and everyone had started to sell out. So the funny thing is you look at 2022 card prices and you actually find that they were going down when the World Cup was starting up. So I think people look back on that and they're like well if they've been the game for a while, they probably think to themselves last World Cup it'll probably do that again. I think we're in a different dynamic. I think this is way different than 2022 when everyone's coming off of COVID and prices are so inflated. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

I think that it's going to be interesting to see which way that it ends up going because certain players some of their markets are down and some of the players their markets have kind of skyrocketed for some reasons that don't quite make sense it it's truly going to be interesting. I know lots of people were kind of gearing up towards the last World Cup and I and I agree the the values started declining at that time even with uh you know the volume increasing at that point. I think that the volume's definitely going to end up spiking. It's going to be interesting to see what players people end up focusing on at that particular moment. The one great thing that we have the larger opportunity is there's 48 teams in this World Cup. You have 48 faces of countries where we hadn't had that in prior World Cups. So now you can actually cast a bigger net across the world and you might be able to prospect a little bit more because you might find some small country and this guy random guy scores a goal and all of a sudden your$5 card turned into like a$300 hit and you know it's all possible. We just saw what just happened after Champions League, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Yeah unfortunately I was looking through for Canada and Mexico because as you brought up them also being host countries uh they're going to get a lot of marketing media coverage and there's not a lot of faces for those two countries. There's two there's one face for each. Unfortunately Alfonso Davies towards ACL and then Jimenez down in Mexico is good, but he's already kind of boosted. I was looking trying to work some deals out lately on on him and his values aren't exactly cheap. I think people are kind of on to that scene. But we've waited this long let's bring up LaMin Yamall the guy on everybody's mind and lips so talk to me about LaMin Ya mall in terms of how he plays into the market and with the World Cup coming do you see him as a good investment or are you a little bit wary? Uh to date I don't own any Yamal cards.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

I think I was given a couple base cards and I think that's pretty much my entire Yamal collection. I mean he's getting a lot of attention which only helps the soccer market. So the more attention that he ends up getting the more that his name's out there more that he's getting compared with Messi and Ronaldo and all this stuff is just going to bring more eyes to the game bring more eyes to the collectors and that's why I I would think maybe why his prices have shot up as much as they have I think it's fantastic for the market. We've seen this with other players who have gone up I think that there's probably a bunch of hype and stuff built into a bunch of these prices because you know if he doesn't win three World Cups and five champions leagues and five Ballon d'or is where's the cap on his market is does he go up or down if he doesn't hit these numbers or is it currently built into where the market is today? And um you know that's that's what's intriguing. You know it would have been great if I actually if I bought his cards last August. I'd be a lot happier I'd be in a different financial situation. It is what it is. You might like him a bit more too you know what no I enjoy watching him play. I mean I think that's fantastic. I definitely love the beautiful game. And so to be able to watch I can appreciate and do. Personally he's just not someone that I end up putting any of my money into so you know I I'm focused and he hasn't been part of the focus.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Tough to put your eggs into that golden basket right now. Those prices are pretty high but uh he is a very elegant player. I think his touch on the ball is something that I see in highlights as being something very striking like just an elegant beautiful little touch that he can kind of mold the ball to where he wants it to go. And I think on La Minium all to put my two cents in really quick uh I talked a lot about the hidden lever of price being expectation and as you alluded to there unless he outperforms pretty wild expectations his cards really have not seen a floor yet and we're going to see a floor. He gets injured his cards will go down but at the same time I think he'll probably hold some value for a long time but I probably like you don't think it's going to keep going up and up because then it'll you know it'll be trillions of dollars at this point.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

The other thing and the other thing in the market too is you have only so many buyers who are buying the high end cards and once they have them you know it's it's going to go kind of top down with it. Some of the lower end card you know everyone's eventually going to end up getting their fill and the crazy part now there's so many auto cards and they're and all these guys are so young and even like Ronaldo and Messi there's tons and tons and tons of autos. Imagine after they end up retiring like how many they're only going to have time for more autos. You know then look I mean Barcelona their history with the young kids isn't the greatest if you look at their last three superstars that end up coming through with Ansuffadi with Pedri with Gavi they're gonna play a ton. Yamal's going to play a ton is he gonna get injured I mean I don't wish that on anybody you know I just know what the track record is and what we've kind of seen. You know there are lots of different things to be able to take into account when you're when you end up dealing with that market. And then you know look you end up seeing from uh the name above my head Erling Holland you know I've already we've seen what happened in that market. He wins a treble he breaks EPL records and then as market tanks and stuff that you bought at one point you can pay I don't know 60% less you know six eight months later so it's it's just not necessarily kind of word for the wise but it's it's uh anything can happen within this market and you know even when someone even when someone breaks records and does all these crazy things the market tanks. And so if he what's the reality you know what rationale is there to in that respect.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

He gets a little bit injured Man City has a bad year and then they're just like he probably shouldn't be invested in it's crazy. And I think that's because we have a pretty illiquid market right where if the the attention spotlight can only really hold a few players at a time which is an interesting thing to think about considering Messi's autographs as well to go back to your point on that maybe this whole Messi's autograph controversy is going to be something that in the end makes his autographs more valuable when you can get the right ones because it kind of limits the supply side which is an interesting thing that kind of came up to mind while you were talking about that and I know that's on top of everybody's mind right now.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah it's going to be interesting how it ends up playing out. I mean right now as we are a smaller market before we end up becoming a greater and a larger global market because that's really where all the fans and more and more collectors are going to be um you know this needs to be cleaned up because as more people get involved there's it's just gonna, you know, it's a big black eye at this point. And it's only going to get worse the longer that it doesn't get resolved.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Right. Yeah. All right so kind of wrapping up here getting towards the tail end are there any misconceptions about the soccer scene people coming in from other sports card collecting might have you know any differences or any learning curves that they might have to go through in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

I believe overall the soccer community is just a great place to be we're definitely very welcoming in in a warm community. The event SOCO is for soccer collectors, soccer community we're like FUBU. It's it's for us, by us. This is truly grassroots. This is all people who want to be able to hang out together, who want to be able to see each other who want to spend time with each other and don't have that opportunity. You know like you said you end up talking to a couple different people you talk to them either on the phone or you end up talking to them you know via text on Instagram or whatever else. Well this is a way that we actually get to see touch feel and have people in person and being able to hang out. And I think that's why for many of the people in the community this is essentially their favorite three days of the year. Like we all get to hang out. We all get to be together we all get to be around the game we love around the cards that we love and get to shoot the shit and hang out with our friends that we don't have a chance to see. I know there are a lot of people last year who didn't get the chance to be able to make their way to the show. There's so many people that I've met since that year who I'm really looking forward to being able to uh meet face to face and to be able to see and to be able to hang out. So I think it's really good that the soccer community is really strong um that we're really sticking together and it's truly about a community.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah absolutely being community first is something that I think is very strongly felt within the hobby and uh I'm really excited for being able to see that because I haven't been to the Soko Expo yet didn't make it last year but looking forward to being there meeting with you Scott and Yeah looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

We're gonna see a bunch of cool stuff and uh we'll get a chance to be able to hang out and that's that's really the important part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

All right man well thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Let's get one more plug for the SOCO Expo with the dates and where everyone can find your info.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah the SOCO Expo July 31st through August 2nd Thursday Friday Saturday from 4 p.m to midnight it's being held at Chicago Soccer fields in Melrose Park Illinois. Can't wait to see everybody there.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Free to attend free to attend and follow Scott at the Soko Expo and then give me a follow at Slabnomics if you're not already thanks for listening and we'll catch you guys next week. All right everyone hope you enjoyed that interview with Scott at the SOCO Expo so great to have our first ever interviewee here on Slabnomics and so great to listen to the insights that he was able to give us about what it takes to start this kind of thing and the building of a community. I'll be there myself at the SOCO Expo at the end of July putting up a table under my Canary cards brand. Hope to see some of you guys there. In the next few weeks we're going to have a few more collectors and creators on for interviews very excited to have them come on. Let me know what you thought about this podcast. If you missed the long form of just me rambling if you really enjoyed having Scott on give me a shout on Instagram or hit me up over on X and one more thing before you go I was just at the Austin card show this past weekend and I noticed that there was one soccer vendor out of 350 tables. When we are in the World Cup 2026 where do we think that flipping is going to land are we going to go from having 1% into 10% 20% what do you think something I can tell you Pokemon never dies thanks for listening to Slavinomics episode five of the sleeping soccer thanks for listening to the building and I'll talk to you later