The online angst has been off the charts this week.
As is customary following the most recent record-setting sale of a sports card, and the subsequent reveal the buyers were (gasp!) a group of investors, including Kevin O’Leary of "Shark Tank" fame, social media was besieged by a familiar sentiment: “It’s no longer a hobby.”
This infusion of capital, by people driven by profit and pride rather than passion and pastime, is ruining the hobby, they claim — pricing out the little guy, sucking out the joy and robbing a once-restrained activity of its innocence.
To this I say: Get over it.
For decades, the buyers and owners of the most expensive cards on the planet have been made up exclusively by individuals seeking to diversify their bloated portfolios, groups of fat cats teaming up to add another asset to their de-facto funds and, at best, true collectors who, through other means, have become fabulously wealthy and opted to inject some of their fortune into their collection — which, by the way, they do so with the belief the value will go up.
You, me, the kid down the street and 99% of people reading this were never going to buy the $12.932 million MJ-Kobe Dual Logoman card, nor any of the other most valuable cards in history.
RELATED STORIES:
- Kevin O'Leary reveals himself among buyers of record-setting Jordan-Kobe card
- Hobby history! MJ-Kobe Logoman sells for $12.932 million, now most expensive card ever
- 'People want the best:' Why Kobe-MJ logoman represents true scarcity
- Worth it or not? Hobby experts react to record $12.932 million sale
- Top 10 most expensive sports cards of all time
- The 10 most expensive basketball cards ever: A new No. 1 tops the list
- Michael Jordan rookie from secret signing sells for record $2.5 million
Collecting has been an investment vehicle for decades.
When a T206 Honus Wagner was selling for $25,000 to Bill Mastro in 1985, it was an investment. Was it accepted by the suits on Wall Street as a genuine asset class? Hell, no. But what difference does that make for a collector at that time? The price was the same: Too much.
Now, surely this is not solely about the most expensive cards in the world. That is an oversimplification of a genuine gripe over what private equity and venture capital can do to rip the heart and soul out of an industry; whether it is local newspapers, hospital systems or even entertainment media.
But that is not the case here. There is no competition between the investor class and the collector class when it comes to slabs on eBay.
I collect Serena Williams cards. Other than Alexis Ohanian, not many uber-wealthy folk are lining up to price me out of her $50 base rookies. And even then, Ohanian is a special case, being that he is married to Williams.
The most salient and mostly valid claim from the shaking-my-fist-at-the-sky, yelling-at-clouds group is kids can’t afford to buy a box of baseball cards anymore.
Of course, prices for flagship product have gotten unbelievably expensive and completely prohibitive for most families seeking to buy a gift for their children. No argument there.
But, unfortunately, this is life in 2025 — not an issue specific to the hobby. It’s also incredibly expensive to take kids skiing, sign them up for piano lessons or buy them video games.
I won’t defend these prices, nor will I argue it is anything other than lamentable.
However, I will suggest, while preemptively ducking in case a reader somehow throws a Zion case at my head through their computer screen, that maybe, just maybe, kids who want to collect their favorite players can do it cheaply if their parents guide them well.
Victor Wembanyama cards can be had for less than $10. You wouldn’t know that if you just read the comments online, but it is true. They just are not the sexy cards, the PSA 10s or the rare relics, etc.
But if we are for the purity of the hobby, why isn’t it OK for kids to collect cards of their favorite players despite them not being at the peak of modern hobby value?
To be clear: If it was my world, every box of cards would be $1, and only children would be able to buy them. Adults would only be able to profit from the hobby in so far as they bring joy to the kids of the hobby. And Jalen Brunson would be properly recognized as the face of the NBA. But most of those things are not realistic.
Fanatics, Upper Deck and PSA and all the other hobby businesses are, as previously stated, businesses, meaning they have a profit-seeking motive and act accordingly. Same goes for the buyers of the biggest cards.
No imagined sanctity of the hobby will ever come in the way of that.