.png)
Slabnomics
Finance-Bro turned Card Bird explores the intersection of collecting, investment, and market theory for sports cards.
Think Financial Analyst meets Sports Card Collector.
New Episodes drop Tuesdays @ 7 AM CST.
Slabnomics
Slabnomics Episode 17: Scouting Cards Ft. Cajun Cardboard
Don't forget to like and subscribe, it helps the channel tons! đ¤
In this episode of Slabnomics, host Matthew Worley sits down with Cajun Cardboard (Bryan Denison) to talk about his incredible journey through the sports card hobby. From flipping raw Giannis Antetokounmpo Prizm rookies and Luka DonÄiÄ cards to building one of the most respected collections of Michael Jordan inserts, Bryan shares hard-earned lessons on consistency, strategy, and long-term collecting.
We dive into:
*Why consistency in content has fueled Cajun Cardboardâs YouTube growth
*Market cycles, liquidity windows, and how new money from breakers and repacks is reshaping the hobby.
*Why only âone-name playersâ (Luka, Tatum, Cade, Messi, Ronaldo) truly sustain card value.
*Card Scouting for the best player on their team only
*Matt's Soccer Mount Rushmore that will enrage 3.5 Billion people
Whether youâre a collector, investor, or soccer card speculator, this conversation offers both caution and opportunity. Learn why Michael Jordan inserts remain bulletproof, why Messiâs 2014 Prizm Gold PSA 10 may be the âMickey Mantle of soccer,â and how to think about timing, liquidity, and legacy in todayâs market.
Weekly Newsletter Signup: Slabnomics.com
đĽYoutube
đ¸Instagram
All right, everybody. Welcome to Slab Nomics. I'm excited to bring on our guest today, Cajun Cardboard Brian. So good to have you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I've tuned in to your podcast time and again. You put out a lot of episodes. How are you able to stay sane and put out those episodes?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I put no preparation into it, no organization. There's no order. There's no discipline. And I just hit the record button and start screaming. And uh, you know, just because I talk the most doesn't mean uh what I say matters the most. But um, you know, that's it's kind of what I love to do. So just try to get to one a day and see where it takes us.
SPEAKER_01:Nah, it's some good quality stuff. One a day. So four years you've been doing one almost every day for that whole time span?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think I'm like 1400 videos or something like that, maybe 13 something, 14 something. Yeah. So right at one a day. Some days, there's weeks where I've done 10. Uh, just depending on the week and what happens that week, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Consistency. Is that what you chalk it all up to? Just what's your success come down to?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Consistency is a big part of why my channel's grown for sure. My YouTube channel. Uh, you know, I my tagline is I may not be the best. You may not like me the most, but nobody's gonna, you know, be more consistent or outwork me or put out more content than I do. So uh at least not in basketball cards. It's just kind of my outlet. You know, I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, man. So if I don't hit record and start talking on the channel, I never get to talk cards because nobody down here does what I do. Um, so that's kind of how the channel started. I wanted to talk to guys like you and and make you know all the friends that I'm making in the hobby, and my channel's my outlet.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's about picking your lane, right? It's hard to find that lane for a while. But uh Okay, so let's go back to you as a collector a little bit. I know you're known for your Jordan insert collecting and a little bit of soccer, which we'll get into a little bit later. Uh, tell us how you came into that and how you chose Jordan.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, so you know, my origin story is gonna mimic um so many others. We'll just make it really quick. I'm 51 years old. I started collecting baseball as a kid in the 80s, junk wax era hit, girls thing, same thing everybody says. Then came back in heavy around 20 uh 16. I noticed uh yeah, I was a big fantasy basketball uh guy, so I had a fantasy basketball league and it was a dynasty league, right? And so we're drafting guys that you know are coming out of college, maybe overseas prospects. And I noticed this lanky kid that I saw on some granny video named Giannis Anadakumpo. And uh and I was like, that's not normal. He looks different, he moves different, he's he's really tall. He was like 6'7 at the time. Um, and so I was like, I wonder if basketball cards are still a thing. I jump back in, I get into Prism. Prism is what I stumble on. I look for Topps Chrome. That's how long I had been out of the hobby. I looked for Topps Chrome Yannis rookie cards, and finally somebody's like, You're an idiot. Tops Chrome doesn't make basketball cards anymore. It's called Prism now. And I was like, Prism, that's dumb. Uh dumb name. But uh I started buying every Prism Giannis rookie card that I could buy, a Matt. And so um bought them all raw, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and then graded them, flipped them, made a lot of money. Um, and at some point I'd rinse and repeated with Doncic and some other guys, and then I decided, you know what, I need to find a a little bit more risk-averse place to put this money. So I started buying Jordan stuff, and then the rest is history, and I fell in love with it. You know, it I came in as a pure investor, and Jordan has turned me into more of a collector than an investor for sure. Uh, but I still have that investor bug. I like to turn profits and then reinvest that money into you know the Jordan cards that I don't have that I wish I did.
SPEAKER_01:So Okay, really cool. So, what would you say led you to those people? You said with the Greek freak you were looking at someone who's different and he just moves different and does different things.
SPEAKER_00:So, yeah, like I'm a basketball lifer, played college basketball, coached basketball for a couple decades, coached some NBA pros, coached in a league called the EYBL, the Nike EYBL, which is the premier grassroots uh basketball league in the United States. Um so I got to coach against Tatum and Devin Booker and Ben Simmons and Tyus Jones and um, I mean, we can go down the list forever. I mean, just ever all the guys in the NBA, uh uh tons of guys like Darren Fox, all these guys, right? So um I've prospected and watched basketball and tried to identify talent. I was the lead recruiter for our Nike EYBL program. So my job was to go around Louisiana and the neighboring states, identify the most talented players, try to recruit them to come play for our Nike program, and then, you know, let the chips fall where they may, playing against the best players in the country. And so I've been evaluating talent forever. Um, and so I'm okay at it. You know, nobody's perfect. I've got a lot of hit, I've got more hits than misses, but I've got some misses too. But um, you know, back then when it was just buy raw grade flip, it was so easy. It's hard for me to explain, Matt, if you weren't there in 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 leading up, it was just so easy because you could buy, like I was buying Giannis Prism based rookies for five bucks, eight bucks, ten bucks, something like that. This would have, this is probably more like 2014 now that I think about it, because Giannis came in. He was 2013 rookie year, so he was kind of playing a little bit minutes here and there. So this is probably around 2014. Um, but I did it with Giannis, I did it with Doncic, I did it with uh De'Aaron Fox, I did it with Ben Simmons, I did it with Donovan Mitchell, um, I did it with Tatum. Uh, and then it got to the point where it no longer made sense because the hobby had grown. Well, now, you know, after Luca Not like a Zion-based prism comes out, well, that card's not a$5 card. You can't grade it and sell it for$400. That card was like$50 or whatever, or$60,$80. I don't remember. Um, but the game just changed so much because so much more demand was in the hobby. There was new money in the hobby, everybody was doing what I was doing at that point. And so that's when I decided to pivot and zag a little bit and do and get into the Jordan world. Um, and it started with just buying a bunch of Jordan rookies. You know, I just bought, I just kept buying and buying and buying Jordan rookies, and I was like, well, this seems safe. I can hold these forever. Um, and then those did exceptionally well, obviously in COVID. Um, and then after the rookies, I was like, this is kind of boring. It's the same card. I had like 50 rookies at one point, and I sold all those and did great. And then I was like, let's I started watching these videos on you. It's funny, I'm a podcast. Well, I'm not a podcaster, but I have a YouTube channel. You have a YouTube channel while I was watching a guy on YouTube talk about the top 10 Michael Jordan sales, and I was looking at it and I was like, none of these are his rookie cards. What are these? These are what are these things called? They're inserts and parallels. And then I was like, oh my God, these are beautiful. And then I went down a completely different rabbit hole that I've never come out of, and now that's my life is uh is 90s Jordan inserts and parallels. So um that's just kind of my pathway here from investor to collector and from shiny prospecting and flipping to Jordan collecting forever.
SPEAKER_01:On the prospecting piece, what would you say is the one marker that you say sets people apart so that you can get in on it early?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um it like I said, the price point was different back then. So you could buy low, grade, sell high. Now it's it's almost ass backwards, man. It's been flipped. It's like guys who are, I can already tell you, some of these guys are not gonna be worth a damn in three years, and their cards, you know, they're still, you know, they also overprint everything now. Remember back then, I mean, if you go look at the print run on Giannis Silver Prisms versus today, Amin Thompson Silver Prisms or Anthony Edwards, it's just like uh apples and oranges. But uh but as far as identifying prospects, I mean, it you have to think that that player can be the best player on his NBA team. You you have that's number one. If like if you look at a guy and you're like, oh man, he's really good. He's a great shooter. Like uh, I don't know, I don't know how much you watch basketball, but like there's all kinds of players out there where they're gonna be good players, but if if they're not Cade Cunningham, Luka Doncic, you know, these these ultra like high usage rate players that are gonna get all the touches and all the attention and control the outcome of games, then it's not worth it. You don't want to pick up three and D guys. You want to pick up guys that can be one name guys, basically, right? Guys that are known by one name. If I say Luca, you know who I'm talking about. If I say Cade, you know who I'm talking about. If I say Spida, you know who I'm talking about. You know what I mean? Tatum, I mean, these are one name guys. If you can't be a one name guy, then you're probably not the guy that you need to be putting your money into. Is Cooper a one name guy? Cooper is gonna be uh a one-name guy, but I have a confession. Like, I haven't bought an ultramodern basketball card since like uh well, maybe one or two, but twenty twenty-two. So I haven't I didn't buy a single Zion card, I didn't buy John Morant, I didn't buy Cooper Flags. I mean, I think Cooper Flags is gonna be a can't miss, but I can't touch his cards because I already see I see what his non-licensed stuff is selling for, and it's like there's just it doesn't make sense. It's too much risk. Why risk it when you can go spend your money on the hobby over here with very little or no risk? You think that's a similar situation to Wemby? I didn't buy a single Wimbanyama card. He is an absolute the only thing that can keep Wimbanyama from being one of the greatest players that's ever played the game is injuries. Some kind of obviously clot or something like that. You know what I mean? It's gotta be something like that. It's gonna be a catastrophic injury. He absolutely will be one of the most dominant defensive players that the game's ever seen. Um, on an offensive standpoint, I think he can be electric as well. I think he's just gonna score so many easy baskets just being so freakishly tall. Um, I I think he's a camp miss, but he could be a really big miss on the hobby aspect of it, just because there's so many options out there. If you buy the wrong cards, you're gonna get murdered. It doesn't matter who it is. I mean, Luca Doncic w made all NBA four straight years to start his career and his cards crashed. It crashed. He did everything that everybody wanted him to do. And you know, except win a title. Right. But he got there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's some good points in there, especially about market dynamics and how if they overprint the card, then you have kind of a lower floor, and then the ceiling gets strung out a little bit as well. Um, and you end up going mostly into golds or like really low parallels because everyone's got a Wemby silver at this point, or um, especially going back into the Zion days, the Zion silver, everybody knows that trajectory. So is that why you went into those 90s MJ inserts as well? Just because yes, they're more shiny, they're more beautiful, but also it gives you a little bit more uh room to run, maybe?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was just my way of hedging risk for sure. Like I saw it, everybody saw it coming, but I feel like I may have seen it a little bit earlier than most people. So around 2018, I was like, I gotta move this away. Like I had too much money in this ultramodern stuff. Uh and I it wasn't perfect, you know. I mean, I got caught holding the back on some stuff a little bit later down the road, but uh yeah, I mean, I was just like, this is too risky. Anything can happen. Um, you know, this kid Doncic is doing everything, he's doing everything imaginable. But he's literally putting up the best numbers of any prospect in history, better than LeBron, and his cards are going down in value, and you know, around 2021, 2022, when it starts to down. And so I was like, let me get out of this stuff. And so, you know, somewhere in that two, three-year period is where I would decide, let's just get into the Jordan stuff. 86 Fleer basketball. Um, I I set collected that a lot, which was really fun. I'm a set collector at heart. I love collecting soccer sets, which we can talk about later. But uh, you know, I just look for the least risky place to put my money, but yet stay in the hobby. I didn't take it out and go put it in Apple stock. That's boring. I wanted to stay in the hobby, but I wanted to find a very risk-averse place as a father and a husband. You know, it was like, you know, it was a good time. And COVID hit, and we thought we were all gonna go broke during COVID, and it was quite the opposite. So uh I was happy that my money was in uh was in Jordan at the time.
SPEAKER_01:Of course, we all have different time frames, but macro, do you think this is a really good time to within the hobby and where it's going in the next year or two?
SPEAKER_00:That's a very uh open-ended question that I yeah, I like to talk because I could talk for an hour on that. But go, man, go. No. Uh look, my opinion of the hobby is we're seeing card prices in every segment of the hobby. Like I was looking at the card ladder, card ladder is an affiliate partner of mine. I was looking at the indices, right? Looking at the different indexes uh of the different sports: baseball, basketball, football, high-end this, high-end that, middle, Yu-Gi-Oh! wrestling, tennis, golf, whatever. And almost every single one was green over the last year. Almost every single one was green over the last six months, every single one was bright green over the last three months. I've seen this. Um, I, you know, I've seen this in 2021. This exact same thing happened. When cards go up too much too fast, they're gonna come back. And people don't want to hear that and they don't want to talk about it. Um, but I've lived through it, I've seen it, I've missed opportunities. And I'll probably miss opportunities to liquidate here because I covet my cards too much, and I'm fine with that. Um, what'll happen is the cards will come back. Some cards will come back much more egregiously and harsher than others, as far as price goes. And then a new floor will be established, and then it'll start to move up into the right again. And I don't know when that peak is. None of anybody who says they do, they're crazy, but it could be yesterday. We don't know. It could be next week, could be uh a year from now, but we will crescendo and it'll be a mini peak, we'll call it. We called it a bubble in 2021, right? Everybody's like the bubble of 2021. Um it just depends on how you define bubble, but yeah, it peaked in 2021, it receded for three or four years, and now it's peaking again. And the stuff I collect is way beyond 2021 now. And so we're gonna see it happen again. You know, too much too quick is is fun, it's exhilarating, and it it you know, it justifies what it is that we do in the sports card hobby, but um, at some point there's gonna be a reckoning, the card prices are gonna come back, and then they're gonna find a new floor, new saturation point, and they'll do it again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a simple maturation cycle of any market, right? It's gonna go up, it's gonna come back down, it's gonna go up, and then the long-term trajectory, it's gonna go up. Stock market does the same thing, guys. Same thing. Right. Um what do you think are the tailwinds that have led us to that point here in 2025?
SPEAKER_00:This is now now you're getting way outside of my lane. Like this is like a macroeconomic question, but I don't I don't own uh a Bitcoin or any crypto. I don't understand it. Uh I heard it's doing well. Uh I own very little stock. I heard it's doing very well. Uh I heard Ethereum is doing very well. Um, you know, the one thing that's not doing very well that I know is real estate. Uh but uh when other alternative assets move and there's more liquidity and more money and more disposable income out there, somehow uh in the world economy, there must be more disposable income out there because it is flowing into the hobby. And I believe personally that the money that is pouring into our sports card hobby right now, and I'm talking about all segments, soccer, like you and I collect, basketball, vintage, shiny ultramodern quarterback prospecting, all of it. That's new money. That's new money that's coming into the hobby that was not in the hobby in 2021. It's money that's never been in the hobby. It's not us same guys spending more money, it's just not. Uh, it's new money. Um, a lot of people point to breakers as being part of it. I don't know enough about that. I don't mess with all that stuff, but um, that's part of it. Repackers funding some of this stuff. Some people think repackers are a reason for this. I don't know. It's not really my lane. I just kind of I observe the changes and you know maneuver accordingly with my own collection and just kind of adapt from really honestly at the point right now we're like a month-to-month deal. Like one month could be wildly, you know, more volatile than the next. But uh seems to be trending upward in price, but I I gotta believe there's a a peak somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:Well, some really salient points there, especially considering we do have more money sloshing around. And I agree with you 100%. I think it's new money coming in. I think there's also some tailwinds coming from Tom Brady and Cardvault, and just the, as you say, the repacks, the breakers, that is technology technically when we apply it to the hobby. So with new technology, usually comes more efficiency and and more money that comes as a result. So we've teased it a lot, but let's get into soccer. I know you collect the same set that I collect 2014 Prism. What? Yeah, yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00:So we're competitors. We're competitors.
SPEAKER_01:We are, we are. In fact, I just bought. Here's a I'm gonna be talking about this tomorrow, and we'll have already posted this, but I just bought a 9.5 silver messy. Okay, and I'm gonna do a whole video about why they're undervalued, and I'm going to be comparing it to Tom Brady's first year Prism Silvers. So uh tell us a little bit about 2014 Prism and why that's what you collect on the soccer side.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, so 2014 Prism uh World Cup put the base PSA 10 set together. I think it's the only one. It may not be, and it's not crazy valuable because there's a lot of those base ones printed, but I loved it. I love the set. Um, so I put that together, and then I got pulled into um so what I do, Matt, just to kind of let you know, in the soccer world, I am almost exclusively a set collector, and I'm gonna include in set collecting Rainbow Chasing. Is that what they call it? I don't know what they call it now. Uh basically all of the messy colors from this particular set. Like I consider that set collecting to me. So uh so I collect the 2014 base set. I put that one to bed. That one's done. Uh, I collect uh Color Messi and Ronaldo from 2014 Prism World Cup. I collect Color Messi and Ronaldo from 2018 Prism World Cup. I am almost finished with the 2017 Topps Chrome Refractor PSA 10 set, which will be fun. And it's really not, it's a lot less expensive than you would think. And then I am, and this is the big one. I am about halfway through the 2017 Topps Chrome Gold PSA 10 set. That's the that's my baby. That's that's my real passion project in the soccer world, is that 2017 Tops Chrome Gold set. And there's uh I know for a fact there's two guys out there that are ahead of me, and one guy's almost at the finish line. I think he's three cards away. Um, and so I'm just you know a minnow trying to swim with the whales right now in that. But it's fun, man. I got a big mouth and a lot of friends, and so anytime somebody sees one, they say, here it is, you know, and it's a blessing and a curse because every time I see one, it's like it's$500 more dollars out the door, you know. So, or 4,000 or you know, whatever. So I love soccer set collecting. I'm having a blast. I'm a I'm a soccer dad, man. I got three kids that play, two girls in college, and then one travel kid who's 11. So um I I mean, dude, I built a soccer field in my backyard with walls, turf, and goals and everything, and lights. It's I'm crazy. I love that. Soccer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the the 2017 gold. Do you have the big ones? Do you have Messi Mbappe? There's three big ones.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So, well, you know the three big ones. There's Mbappe, Messi, and Ronaldo. Uh, I've got the Messi and Ronaldo tins, and I do not have the Mbappe 10, which will be the most painful purchase that I ever made because I just don't collect Mbappe. But as a set collector, sometimes you gotta, you know, sometimes the biggest cards are, you know, guys you don't really love or collect. Um, so yeah, I don't have the Mbappe yet. But after Mbappe, the next most expensive one that That I don't have is probably Pulilic, believe it or not. Probably, you know. I believe it. I got the Sala and the Bale and the Eniesta. And I mean, it's an unbelievable set. You know, you know the set. It's 99 cards, and they're just there's a lot of really good players in that set. It was a great time for soccer.
SPEAKER_01:2017 Tops Chrome, Tops Chrome Gold is probably among my favorite parallels of all cards. Really, really beautiful cards. And I have not started going down that set collecting journey yet. I in 2014 World Cup Prism, I do have the full master set for base. It's not graded, it's just raw. And then I'm working on the silver raw. And I kind of want to get it done before World Cup because I think Messi's better. Yeah. Even Messi's silver, there's there's a PSA 2 up on eBay, and I keep talking this guy. It's up for$999.
SPEAKER_02:What?
SPEAKER_01:In a PSA two. And I'm like, I'm like, my guy. I'm putting together this set. I am the one that's going to buy this from you. No one else is. So just sell it to me. Like, come down to like 400 and I'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_00:Does he have a big thing that says pop one? One of one. eBay one of one. Yeah. I don't think he does. People.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think he does. I mean, if he was smart, he'd crack it. But hopefully he just sells it to me. And then, you know, it goes to a good place, good home. Um, but yeah, it's so fun putting sets together and they are so beautiful, so clean. And I believe that they're undervalued. And a little bit of a spoiler, go to my video, which probably should be up by the time we have this, and check out why. One of the things I do want to talk about against your particular MJ collecting, do you believe that soccer is undervalued? Do you compare it against some of the other things that you've collected in the basketball realm?
SPEAKER_00:Again, I want to be very clear. If you ask me about Michael Jordan cards, I know as much as most. When you ask me about soccer cards, I'm just going to speak from my perspective and my experience. I recognize uh, I mean, I'm friends with some of the biggest soccer collectors in the world. I know my place. Okay. I dip my toes in the water, and these guys have been swimming uh for years. The issue with soccer, right? It's it's the biggest sport in the world. It's the most popular sport in the world. The fan base is bigger than basketball, dwarfs basketball. NFL football is a f uh drop of water in the ocean compared to soccer fandom around the world, okay? Uh Americans may deny that, but the world knows soccer is by far the most popular sport. The issue with soccer is the folks that love soccer uh don't necessarily collect. So much of collecting is based in Asia and North America. It's driven strongly by Asian and North America. Now, again, some of the greatest collectors in the world live in Australia, they live in Europe, they may live in South America. In fact, the best messy collector that I am aware of in the world lives in South America, Central America. Okay. Um But uh the issue with soccer, I think, is that the folks that do collect soccer, they collect they collected stickers for the longest time. And now here we are with cards. And so um, unlike baseball, which has always been cards, right? Stickers are an afterthought, and basketball, which has always been cards, and football, which has always been cards, soccer has to overcome two hurdles. Number one, you got to convince folks that love the sport to collect something, and then you've got to convince them to ignore those, don't worry about those stickers, move along, and let's collect these cards, right? Um now, another perspective is that stickers, cards, whatever, the hobby's the hobby. And I I like that approach to it as well. But me specifically, I don't know enough about the sticker stuff, so I'm I'm I'm really just a card guy because I'm coming over from a basketball card world uh into what I you know, what I know, which is soccer cards. So I don't think they're undervalued. Uh and in fact, I don't even like using that word because they are what they are. The market dictates what they are. If you ask me, do I think soccer cards will be worth more a year from now than today? I'm my answer is hell yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't be buying them. Um and will they be worth more in five years than today? Yep. In 10 years, yep. I do believe that. And uh and I believe that it's a sleeping giant. But you know what? We've said that for a long time. You know what the parallel is? Uh I mean, you live here with me in America, we've been talking forever about soccer is the fastest growing sport among youth sports. Soccer's the fastest growing sport in America. We've said it for freaking 20 years, and our national team is still, you know, pretty significantly behind, you know, many of the other teams in the world. And, you know, we do have a flawed youth system, so that's a big part of it. But sure. Again, I sound like the guy just, you know, screaming the same thing over and over. Soccer cards are coming, soccer cards are coming. I mean, everybody's saying the same thing, and and I do think they're gaining traction, though. I think they're getting traction from uh I think it starts, I know this sounds weird, but it's gonna start through Messi. Basketball folks, baseball folks, football folks will come over into Messi the same way I watched football folks come into Jordan in the same way I see my basketball friends get into Brady, you know. It'll always be through that first, you know, mega goat type guy. And so Messi Ronaldo, you know, uh it's pretty nuanced. It's gonna take a while for folks to get into R9 and and Zidane and I mean Ronaldinho and some of the greats that came before those guys, you know. I think Messi's gonna be the entry point for a lot of new money into the hobby, and we might be seeing that now. I mean, you know, I mean you see what's going on with the Messi prices.
SPEAKER_01:It's the goat doorway. Yep. And we talk about it trickling down. That's kind of how I talk about it with the with my friends. And we are seeing it because Messi, he's doubled in the last month or two. And it's all because new money is coming in, and the first place they look is messy, and they first start buying those national landmarks and the stained glass and the color blasts. And I believe that's how it's going to go. And you, as a basketball guy, you totally get this, right? People buy those really liquid assets of those color blasts and all the case hits. So I think those are the first things that are going to spike as we start really getting marketing dollars go into the World Cup. And as you accurately point out, a lot of the markets aren't fully on board with soccer, especially the Asian markets and the US market. And with the US market being 52% of the total cards market, I think it just takes soccer being boosted here in the US for it to achieve its maturity and legitimacy. So I'm a hundred percent on board with in a year it's going to be a lot higher, and we're gonna look back and say, why was stuff valued like that? You know, why we all saw this coming.
SPEAKER_00:So you must not have seen the Instagram post. Uh apparently the 2014 Messi Gold sober for over a million yesterday in a private sale. Oh, really? In a private sale. I don't know. I'm not the uh breaking the news here that I have no personal knowledge, but I know on the soccer card pages that I follow, it looks like sports card Yoda, who has a hellacious collection, posted that a new uh record was uh achieved on the Messi 2014 Gold Prism PSA 10, and it was over a million dollars, and then it was reposted by soccer cards HQ, who I'm sure you follow. Yeah, awesome page. Uh so I don't know how much truth there is that, but that's a lot of money. And so, yes, that that would be right on along with your Messi's cards are doubling in prices.
SPEAKER_01:There's your double right then, and I think that's a fair price to be assessed when he retires, and in 20 years, when people are looking back at it, it's like that card, you'd never see it anymore. It's like the Mickey Mannel of soccer cards.
SPEAKER_00:Way it's way better than that, Matt. Because the Mickey Mann, it's the same card, and there's a lot of them, right, but the grade makes it rare. Messi gold is a serial number to 10. There's ten of them. And so it's a little different. It's even more special in a you know, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There's two tens of the 1952 Mickey Manel, right? So there has to be around that in the Prism Gold. I'll have to look at that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the other difference is, you know, just to be fair to the vintage baseball car collectors who are screaming at the screen right now and telling me to shut up, there was only one, well, uh let's just say one two one or two, depending on your perspective, Mickey Mantle rookies, the 51 Bowman and the 52 tops. That's it, right? Whereas Messi's got a bunch of different cards, and some people would say, well, the prism's not even his rookie, first of all. And then you would say, well, he's got a rookie, but then he's got like two or three or four different rookies. So there's more buffet, right? So I don't want to say there's only 10 messies that matter, you know. Obviously, there's a lot of messies that matter, just like there was a lot of mantles that matter, but uh, but there was only really two mantles to choose from. That's why vintage is so it's hard to compare ultramodern or modern and vintage. There's so many more options in modern stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Man, that's very well said. I I was going to say that exact point. The card market for the specific player can vary a lot depending on when they were printed. And even with Messi compared to someone like Mbappe or Erling Holland, right? They have all these parallels in their rookies, whereas Messi had, well, he had three or four different cards. I think it was 12 if you count all the variations of Catalan, Spanish.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I did a little study on that earlier. The parallels make it so that the supply was just so much more, and basketball has the same thing. You go back to Jordan rookies. Sure, you can do the 84 star and then the 86 FLIER, and then you can count the stickers. But other than that, you know, that's about it. So the supply and demand economics, that's something I am going to go through and at some point develop the rookie card market cap. Yeah. And I'm going to basically try and evaluate players' cards through their entire market cap of the rookie card, yeah. And then try and create like comparisons between the two. Like how much is Tom Brady's full market cap if you take all of his rookies versus Mbappe versus Giannis, right? Versus Gresky. So um that's going to be a huge undertaking. I started it and it'll probably take me years, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00:Would you say soccer is far and away the hardest sport to identify what a which one is the rookie? Like you people like really intelligent people, people that know a lot more than me about soccer can sit there and really argue about what the rookie is, or which one you should buy, right? It happens all the time. Like I don't even like if you told me uh I've got the Mbappe rookie, I would have I would have to ask four questions to figure out which card you're telling me you have. You know what I'm saying? Or maybe 10 or maybe 40. Basketball's worse, don't get me wrong, but you know, but even back then when Mbappe was was rolling as a rookie, you know, it's it's hard. Like we I was arguing with my friend about the Thierry Henry rookie the other day. Uh-huh. And he's like, This is his rookie card. And I was like, wait, I thought I thought this red one with the him with the Monaco, you know, was a sticker. I I think actually, maybe it was a card. I can't remember. I was like, I thought this was his rookie. He's got a mustache and you know his hair looks different. And so I don't even know. Even back then, it was hard to tell what the rookie card is, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, with Messi, you got the 2004 Mundi Chromo versus the 71 Biss, right? So perfect example right there. Mundi Chromo came out first, right? And yet people are like, well, I want the the bigger set, star versus Fleer on Michael Jordan, right? So yeah, interesting stuff.
SPEAKER_00:51 Bowman is Manel's rookie, not 52 tops. Like nobody ever talks about that. Like, I don't people just talk themselves into whatever they want, you know. But it's funny because the because the hobby just gravitates one way and then it usually sticks for a really long time, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like what does rookie mean and why do we value it? Yeah, I think that's where we have the the conversations come up. Yeah. So yeah, interesting stuff. Um, anything else in particular you want to share? We've had a good combo here. I know I've kept you for a while.
SPEAKER_00:So I could talk forever. I never get to talk soccer. So to usually when I talk soccer, I get these comments on my channel like, what the hell are you doing? How dare you? You know, this is a basketball channel. I'm like, man, let me at least talk for a little bit about soccer. You know, I never get to talk to guys like you uh about the soccer stuff, but I mean I'm happy to talk about that forever. Who do you like? I mean, what are you a Premier League guy? Who's your team? I mean, are you La Liga? Uh, what do you watch?
SPEAKER_01:So I just started getting into it last year. Okay. So to call myself a soccer guy would be very difficult for me to say. I'm still I'm very careful about not joining up with the team, and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you a story that I haven't told many people. Okay. But back in 2016, I worked for an English company called World First, and they were all about soccer. And they were like Premier League, they're all from the UK. So they're like, come, you know, join, figure out a team, Man City, United, uh, Chelsea, just pick one of the big ones. And I'm like, what I'm gonna do instead is I'm going to take a buzzfeed quiz, and I'm just going to take whatever team it gives me. So I ended up with the Swansea Swans, sorry, who you may not be familiar with.
SPEAKER_00:Good luck finding them on TV this fall.
SPEAKER_01:I got relegated that same year. So uh my fandom really took a hit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And now I'm very careful, once bitten, twice shy. And I really want to find a team that I gel with. Um, yeah. Some of my friends talk about like this team does this, like Spanish teams are more um built this way versus South American teams are like this, and then Premier League is like this. So I really want to take some time, take a year, watch the games, figure out if I like how the players play with each other, if that makes sense, and then kind of winnow it down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I if you I mean, shoot, man, there's so many great teams. If you're just talking about the teams that play the most beautiful soccer, but the problem is the personnel changes, the coach changes, and poof, it's gone. You know, I mean, we've seen teams dominate for decades and then then struggle for entire decades. Like Arsenal went through a dark period after being the most dominant force in the world. Man United did the same thing. Uh, we saw Man City drop from unbeatable to whatever the hell last year was, you know. Yeah. Real Madrid, you know, didn't exactly kill it last year. Barcelona kind of took the took all the attention. So um I don't know. It's fun to watch, man. I I'm more of a fan. I mean, I chose Chelsea. I I fell in love with Chelsea way back when because I loved Diddy uh Didier Drogue Ba. I love Drogue Ba. I loved watching Drogue Ba, watching with Ivory Coast, and I was like, wherever he is, that's my team. So Chelsea was my first Premier League team, and I've stuck with them through some nasty dark times. But I kind of am a fan of the whole league. Um, just I love watching the Premier League. You know, here in America, we get those games early Saturday, Sunday morning, so it's perfect for us, you know. Before my kids' soccer games, we sit there and we watch Premier League games. Uh, and I've just recently, as a Jude Bellingham collector, we didn't talk about that, I collect a lot of Jude Bellingham, rookie years only, pretty much. Um I've fallen in love with the whole dynamic of El Clasico and of you know every year. And I know Atletico Madrid's kind of in the conversation, but like Real Madrid or Barcelona, who's it gonna be? I love watching, I love watching that as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I like the difference because I was always an NFL guy, and the difference between NFL and watching soccer is NFL is very strategic, like a chess match, but then soccer is all about angles. Once I figured that out, that it's like, okay, it you have to shift your mindset uh when you're watching this. You're not looking for the same things about how players move, they move differently. Yeah. And when they cut beautiful angles, it's a lot more like F1. And when you appreciate F1, you appreciate like how they drive the lines. But uh, I'm sure there's a lot of sports science that goes into that that at some point I'll dig up and really get into.
SPEAKER_00:It's unique for sure. Uh basketball and soccer have a lot of similarities as far as the angles and the backcuts, uh, you know, overlaps, you know, pick and rolls are essentially overlaps like that. You know, in soccer, when you overlap, when a wing back overlaps, you know, uh a center mid or a striker, you know, uh holds up play. That happens in basketball. That's what you know Jokic does. He catches the ball on the nail and then somebody runs cuts off of him. That's an overlap, and then he kind of dumps it over the top. You know, in soccer, we have chip passes and we have uh ground passes. In basketball, you have, you know, uh lobs, and then you also have bounce passes. You know, you have all kinds of there's a lot of similarities between the angles that people take between soccer and basketball for sure. And I think that's why I love both of the sports so much. And those are the two only two sports that I watch, and I watch them too much, probably.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We were talking earlier about how we're waiting for everything to take hold in the United States with soccer. Do you have any ideas about why it hasn't in the past 20, 25 years?
SPEAKER_00:Success. They don't have a face. Who's the face who's the greatest American soccer player in history? It's a pretty easy answer. Let's say this the most accomplished American soccer player in history, he's playing right now. You think Polisic is far and away. It's not even close. I mean, Dempsey, uh Landon Donovan, who else? Okay, Tim Howard, maybe, right? Uh Polistici's the best. He's the most accomplished. None of those other guys were the best or second best player on uh an Italian, you know, first division team or or chit, none of them played for Chelsea. And so I think Polistic's the answer. We've never had a face, man. We never had a Tiger Woods. You know what Tiger Woods did to golf? We haven't had a person do that with soccer. Freddie Adu was that person. It didn't work. Guess who the person is now? Kevin Sullivan. So we'll see. Is Kevin Sullivan the guy? I don't know. Is he is he is he a great American soccer player or is he a great soccer player? We're about to find out because he's, you know, right there on the verge. Um, he seems to check a lot of boxes. Um, he's certainly confident, you know. I know that for sure. I haven't followed him a little bit. So we just haven't had the face, man, for for kids to fall in love. Um, and then the other thing is, and and this is, you know, people have talked about this forever. If you look at America and you look at, you know, where the greatest athletes in our country, and I know soccer is about more than just athleticism, but where they are, they're defensive backs and their point guards, you know, and uh that's it's just that simple. You know, the greatest athletes in America are defensive backs in the NFL or wide receivers and their point guards, you know. How is it that America can't have a six foot five, you know, striker that runs a 4-2? How is that possible? How could we not have that in the last 30 years? How is that even possible? You know, that we're we can't find a striker for our national team. It's ridiculous, you know. I mean, they're there, they're just playing the wrong sports. And again, that goes back to kids that see images and TV and social media, and they don't see somebody that they identify with that they dream of becoming like. Um, Jordan did that for the NBA. Um, you know, Brady did it for football, Barry Sanders did it for football. I mean, the list is long on football, obviously, of people that you know grow up wanting to be like those people. Uh and then a soccer use system is a pain in the ass because it's just so wildly expensive. It's preposterous.
SPEAKER_01:What a great point. It takes like a generation for things to actually start moving. I think we've made some strides when it comes to the youth soccer movement, and I feel like that's been matriculating really strongly. You yourself said that you have some kids in soccer, right? Are they all on the girls' teams?
SPEAKER_00:I have two girls that play Division I college soccer, and then I have a son who's in the ECNL, which is uh one of the two national leagues. So I I've I've seen the you know the highest youth level of soccer in America. Uh you know, the I've seen the pros and the cons, you know, just like I I saw the pros and the cons in the basketball, grassroots basketball as well. Uh we're just we're just way behind Europe, man. I don't care what anybody says. We're we're not really even making up any ground. Uh just if you're if you're if you have an elite player, that child is paid to play soccer for that club. Yeah. In America, if you have an elite player, you are paying many thousands of dollars for the privilege of playing on that club. It's just it's just not gonna be the same. You're not gonna yield the same fruit, man. You're just not, you know? And you're gonna weed out A large segment of the American population. I mean, how many kids can, you know, dump eight, how many kids' parents can dump eight, ten, twelve, fourteen grand into soccer? Training sessions, hotels, league fees, uniforms, travel. It's just not gonna happen, man. It's it's become a pay-to-play sport, and that's why we're behind. And we'll continue to be until we fix it.
SPEAKER_01:I know a lot of people, uh, a lot of my soccer guys are going to listen to that and absolutely agree with you. I've had those conversations with them. So spot on.
SPEAKER_00:There's gotta be demand. There's gotta be a collector at the end of it, man. You know, for an investment to make sense, there's gotta be a collector somewhere in the world that wants that piece of cardboard more than that dollar.
SPEAKER_01:That's the truth. Yeah. That's the truth. We'll see how it all plays out. I think it's really interesting stuff. There, the market economics that we're gonna see play out, especially in soccer where everything's so short printed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's gonna be so interesting.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so excited about it. I can't wait.
SPEAKER_01:I'm stoked. I've already because I got into prison pretty early. I went to the Soko Expo a couple weeks ago with the National, and I actually sold a messy purple 9.5, BGS 9.5. And I can tell you that it's about double where it was two years ago. So when I did that, I honestly look back, Brian, and I'm like, why am I selling that? Yeah, 18 months, man.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Or really, really, no, nine months would be, I would think, you know, because the it's the the hype leading up to it. I think nine months from now, hell, if we think messy cards are crazy now, I don't think messy. Jordan may may come back. There's no World Cup for basketball, and Jordan's done playing. Messi stuff is gonna build all the way up until the World Cup. Even if nobody thinks Argentina has a chance and everybody's got a fighting chance, but um, and and Messi may not be messy, you know, when it comes to the World Cup anymore. He may not be, right? He was last World Cup, but he may not be this World Cup. But I think even just leading up the World Cup, I think his prices are gonna keep going up. And I wish I had more, but I just don't, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And it's about legacy as well. I talk about my valuation metrics being uh market, legacy, and design. And the market for Messi, obviously, is huge, as you pointed out. Soccer's the biggest sport in the world. The legacy, he is gonna go down as the goat. And also, this is something we might miss sometimes as investors and collectors, but the the legacy has to do with how much he's going to be in the public zeitgeist. And Messi is not just going to like go retire to some farm in Argentina. Messi's involved with David Beckham. So David Beckham's in his ear, and he's like, you can do this, you can do that. He's probably got this five-year plan. Messi is going to be like Tom Brady.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that means his cards will continue to go up because as new collectors come in, they're always going to start with Messi.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So those 2014 Prisms are going to be where they start, and the rookies, of course. But I'm a big believer in just Messi as an investment opportunity and just as one of those guys that you can get behind. You know, he came to the United States to play for NMI, whereas Ronaldo went another place. And I think that those those choices that they made about where they want to end up.
SPEAKER_00:Dude, you nailed it.
SPEAKER_01:The legacy impact on those choices, it shows what they valued. And that's why Messi's market has continued to go so bananas and Ronaldo's has kind of gone down and he's comment here below.
SPEAKER_00:Right now, Ronaldo prices. Do you think his prices would be higher or lower than they are right now if he'd have just said, you know what? I retire. Instead of going to play in Saudi, what if he'd have just said, I retire? I think his prices would be higher right now.
SPEAKER_02:Higher. They'd be higher.
SPEAKER_00:I think going over there has lowered his prices. Messi, you know, who knows? Because he's done some some pretty cool shit since he's come over here to the MLA. He has. Messi's your goat. Who's your rushmore? You get four players. If you Messi's your one, it sounds like you got Messi one. Give me your two, three, four in order.
SPEAKER_01:In order. I would put Maradona next. Yep. And then I would do Pele. And then where it gets crazy. This is where it gets difficult. Um I'm gonna hot take it. I'm gonna hot take it, and no one's gonna like this. I'm gonna put Holland right there. And it's too early, but I'm just gonna put if Holland does what I think he's gonna do.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna put him You might have just gone viral. You might have just gone viral. You just put people in front of R9. You put him in front of Zidane, Thierry Henry.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_00:You put him in front of Ronaldo, you've put him in front of your you just offended everybody in the world. I'm worried about your planted my flag. Hey, I like Holland. I actually um my first entry point into soccer, I got in during the first soccer peak and I bought uh I think seven copies of the Erling Alain Tops Chrome Refractor PSA 10. Yep. And let's just say it was not one of the better performing assets in my portfolio. It's been tough. I'm riding it out. I'm riding it out because I think that Man City's coming back bigger, stronger, and I think one day we'll get back to those entry point prices, or at least I hope we do. I decided not to cash out for pennies on the dollar, so I'm riding uh with you and your goat, Erling Haland, uh, and hopefully he'll have a monster year. Um I think everybody, Messi Pele, most people would have Messi Pele, Messi Pele, Meridana, and Ronaldo, probably. Although most people are one or the other. If they love Ronaldo, they hate Messi. If they love Messi, they hate Ronaldo. Don't ask me why. It's kind of like LeBron and Jordan, right? Um, but man, so many great players that played in the past that I want to learn more about their cards, man. I want to learn more about I know every I know all about Zidane. I don't know about his cards. I know all about Tier Henry. I don't know about his cards. I know Ronaldinho is my favorite player to watch. I don't know a lot about his cards. Um, so I'd love to learn a lot more about those cats. And that's and not just them. There's a lot more on the list, you know. And a lot of it's stickers. That's the other thing. I don't know a damn thing about stickers. So maybe maybe I'm not looking for cards after all. I'm I'm supposed to be looking for stickers, but somebody needs to, I need somebody who's smart to point me in the right direction. Luckily, I got a lot of friends who know a lot more than me about soccer stuff. So I'll lean on them when the time comes.
SPEAKER_01:You brought up soccer cards HQ. There's a good resource right there. Awesome, man. Well, I've enjoyed this conversation. So good to have a soccer guy on, especially one that also plays in different sports, because I think that gives a lot of perspective. A lot of the soccer guys are just true blue, soccer only. You know, they love it, they're passionate about it. But I think more and more we're going to have people that dabble in many different pools. So, Brian, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your insight. And uh yeah, give a little plug to anything you'd like to. Here's your time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, uh again, I just want to say like I did not, I certainly don't hold myself out as a soccer expert. I just love talking about it. And the one thing that uh the benefit that I had in the soccer card market is the folks that I reached out to were incredibly welcoming, right? And so that is what I try to replicate in the Michael Jordan and the basketball card world uh on my YouTube channel is that all are welcome. If you don't know a damn thing about it and you're watching for the first time, I want you to feel like you're wanted. I want you to feel like you're part of the hobby, and we want you in the hobby. And if and you know, if you come in and ask dumb questions, then I'm gonna give you answers, right? And nobody's gonna say, dumb question, go find it somewhere else. You know, just be welcoming to everybody, soccer guys, basketball guys. At some point, hell, you and me, we may take a detour and go into quarterbacks, you know, and quarterback prospecting. Somebody kind of might need to answer some questions and teach us as well. So um, yeah, I just hope everybody in the hobby understands that uh the only way your segment of the hobby grows is if you allow others to come into it and encourage them and uh and stay positive with it, man.
SPEAKER_01:So everybody remember mind your manners. All right, man. Well, you guys can follow Brian at Cajun underscore cardboard on Instagram, and then your YouTube channel is just Cajun Cardboard. Cajun cardboard, can't miss it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, if you search K if you type in C A J, I'll be I'll come up on uh YouTube. So subscribe, like, hit the bell icon if you like basketball, especially if you like Michael Jordan stuff, and a pinch, a pinch of soccer. I'd like to talk more about it, but I gotta give the people what they want, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Uh cool. Yeah, check out his YouTube and subscribe over there. And man, thanks again for coming on. It's been a pleasure to have you.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, appreciate it, man. Anytime. You got me anytime you want to
