So last night as we record this, Luka, played his former team, Chris, and I definitely tuned into the game. And Luka did what Luka does, triple double, 19 points, 15 rebounds, 12 assists.

Also, I think, I was going back to the old games. He I was trying to clock. I think this last night was the most minutes he has played as a Laker so far is well. And so I also, final thing, I saw that in correct.

Maybe I don't know if the the Internet I don't know if it's fake news or not, but has Luka really had a triple double on every team in the NBA now? I thought that had to be fake news as well. I saw that infographic too.

I guess it is true. I don't know. Anyways, it's funny because I reached out to you and I was like, dude, we what I wanna talk more about this trade from a hobby perspective and, like, the implications and everything else.

And I gave you some dates, to to talk, and you're like, well, let's do it after his game, against the, the Mavericks.

So we're here. We're gonna talk about it, but maybe let's start with the game last night and we can get into the card stuff.

Like, what did you see? Obviously, a Luka like performance, but, like, what did you see in Luka as he played his former team? In Luka. I thought he had a nice game.

Probably his best game yet. He didn't shoot. Well, he hasn't shot well since coming off of a two month break, but I think that'll work itself out. He ended up having 19 points, 15 rebounds, 12 assists, three steals and two blocks.

And that stat line had only been matched or exceeded four times in NBA history prior to '27 or after 1984, '80 '5 just because that's how far back the stat goes. And the other guys to do it were all my favorite players.

Jokic has done it twice, LeBron has done it once, and Jimmy Butler has done it once. And then now Luka joined that company. So e even in a game that was, nothing nothing crazy, he still was historic, which was really cool.

So I thought he had a nice game. I think the most important stat right now is that he was a plus eight in his minutes. So he's been he's been winning his minutes since he joined the Lakers, which is which is good too.

So I wanna try to focus a lot of this conversation around, Lukas cards, what you've seen since the trade has happened. We touched on this, last time we spoke in Cardlyer Confidential.

I've been talking about Luka on auction talk, but it felt like we're I wanna break this open because it to me, there is a lot of that we can learn, I think, as collectors in just this short time analyzing the behavior of what the hobby has done ever since Luka has moved unexpectedly from the Mavericks to the Lakers.

Let's start from the top of, like I know you're in a lot of different group chats. You probably know pea the people who are buying kind of high end Luka cards regularly.

How do you think this news how how has the the Luka collecting community taken this news, especially those individuals like yourself who, you know, have a premier Luka collection, and you've been putting a lot of money into building a Luka collection for a very long time.

And not only do you have that collection, but then you're sitting there every night watching Luka play for you know, since he's been a rookie in 2018.

Like, what is the sentiment been, post trade and how people are responding to it in the the community?

Luka collectors, I think, are generally quite pleased. Like, I I know some of his biggest collectors who are who are have some of the best collections that put that put mine to shame.

They are, from Asia, and they they already are like Lakers fans. So it was serendipity for them. And, for the rest of us or or for those of us who just are rooting for a Luka MVP and a Luka championship and stuff like that.

The only thing that made this trade not perfect was that we really felt like the Mavericks had the roster to do it this year. You know, like, they they just went to the finals last year. They added Klay Thompson.

They made other marginal improvements, you know, Dante xm is now healthy and he looks good and it just felt like this had been the culmination of years of roster building to finally get this perfect, you know, team of rim, Runners and three and d Specialists surrounding Luka plus a really great number two option in Kyrie and then a marksman and clay.

I just felt like the whole team had finally come together. So that was that that's the other sentiment is just that, like, man, they they might have been able to win it all this year.

Like but but and they blew it up. But now there's also a lot of sentiments around the Lakers having a good chance to.

And there's no doubt that LeBron James is the best player. Even 40 year old LeBron James is the best player that Luka has ever played with and maybe ever will play with.

So there's a real special opportunity right now. But but there's a little bit, I go deeper than the average fan, the average collector. Really? I have been clamoring for for big change for years.

I never felt like Jason Kidd was the proper coach. And I also saw something dramatic happen this season, which was Jason Kidd took the ball out of Luka's hands, And he moved Luka from being an on ball point guard to an off ball win.

And all of Luka's statistics suffered for it. His points went down. His assists went down. His usage rate went down. Jason Kidd was Jason Kidd. Just had if to be as unbiased as possible as as charitable as possible to kid.

Jason Kidd just had a different Vision. Jason Kidd wants a team that looks like Cleveland or that looks like Boston and egalitarian system where you have No ball dominant player. No, no Heliocentric offense.

He just had and and he was trying to make that vision become a reality this year, and I just hated it. I just I couldn't stand it. I that's that's not that that that's not the the player I wanna watch is like an off ball Luka Doncic.

So I was I was especially glad to I I either wanted to see a new coach come in or Luka change teams. So, I think part of Luka being such an on ball dominant player has been has resulted in such an appeal in the hobby.

Right? He taking the ball up the floor, doing what he wants, dishing it out, hitting a three, driving to the hole, getting foul.

Like, you know, he he has the ball in his hands, and he's making plays. And I think that has been why he's been so captivating to so many collectors, the highlight reel, clip worthy stuff throughout his career.

You mentioned and I know you're a guy who, looks deeply into analytics, into accolades, and you you you you you really appreciate, statistics, accolades, and that influences the way that you collect.

Knowing what you know now and knowing that Jason Kidd had this vision that moved Luka from on ball to off ball, even though you said, like, Dallas had a shot to win the championship with Luka on their team this year, Do you feel like his move in LA sets him up maybe for a better chance of maybe not this year, maybe this year, but just for finals more finals appearances, more potential with MVP, those types of awards that you really measure, great athletes to have or to possess in your collection.

Yeah. I think so. I think so. I I think Luka, as a byproduct of a perfect storm, found himself in an awful situation where you have a new GM in Nico Harrison.

You have a team owner who had just sold his majority stake in the team, and you have a new coach in Jason Kidd.

And so Cuban always saw Luka as the heir apparent to Dirk and was going to do everything to build the team around him and that the team was going to succeed and fail with Luka, that Luka was was the priority.

And that if we're gonna win championships, we're gonna do it because we built it around Luka, and Luka took us there.

But Nico Harrison and Jason Kidd, you know, once they entered the fray and Cuban exiting the fray, all those things coming together resulted in a power a sort of a a power vacuum or just who's gonna grab the control over this team in this in this organization.

And Luka didn't, and Mark Cuban lost it, and Jason Kidd and Nico Harrison took it. And they had a different vision, and and they wanted something different.

And so I don't think it was ever personally, I don't think it was ever gonna happen in Dallas under those conditions. With that coach, with that GM, with that vision, I don't see it working.

So I I I do feel like and I felt like this for a few years. Ever since this new regime started, I did feel like Luka can get him close. Luka could get him to the finals. You know?

And and even though they don't want to play Luka Ball, when the rubber hits the road and it's the Western Conference finals and it's, you know, game two against Minnesota and, you know, the Mavericks are gonna go up two o and they're down two points and there's five seconds left, Luka takes the ball, and he gets Gobert on a screen, and he shoots the three, and there's nothing Jason Kidd can do about it.

And there's nothing Nico Harrison can do about it. So there was always still that chance that he would just when the moment occurred, that he would just do what needed to be done anyway.

But then you get to the finals and you just see Jason Kidd being outclassed on every level by Joe Missoula.

And it just reaches a point where you do start to get pessimistic again. But then, you know, Klay Thompson comes in and, like, I love Daniel Gafford. I love PJ Washington. I love Dante X. I love Kyrie Irving.

You just you still believe that there can be a chance, but I think he's so much better situated now that he's with an organization, with a general manager, with a costar in LeBron, who all have the same vision of building an offensive juggernaut with Luka as the engine of it.

I mean, LeBron had a quote.

LeBron has been total class from the moment Luka got traded. Now he he's he's he's older. He's more mature. He's sophisticated. He's very intelligent. So it's not really fair to compare him to, like, 20 year olds and stuff.

But the way every public statement he's made, every social media post he's put out, every play and every game, you know, it he's just been the consummate colleague for Luka. It's just been total class.

Even last night when the game was ending, and LeBron had an amazing fourth quarter. If we're being honest, LeBron should have been the player who got the postgame interview because his fourth quarter was magnificent.

But what you know what LeBron did? He walked off the floor with with as the time was expiring, he walked off the floor so they couldn't interview him.

So that they had to give the interview to Luka so Luka could have his moment. LeBron did the same thing. During Luka's first game, LeBron said, hey. You know, I'm LeBron.

I get announced last, but you're gonna get announced last when they do the player introductions, Luka. We're gonna give you that slot. I mean, everything he's done from the gestures to symbolism, it's been total class.

And so for Luka to be in that environment now, it's a total one eighty from the Mavericks environment where now it's clear that Nico Harris and Jason Kidd were leaking things to the media to try and coach Luka through the media to that, like, when Brian Windhorst had his rants during the finals last year about how Luka's so fat and crybaby and out of shape and all these things, these narratives that got formed off of it, it's pretty obvious now that that came from the Mavericks organization and that they didn't wanna have to confront Luka or bring their I mean, maybe they didn't believe it would be effective to bring their criticisms to him directly, so they were doing leaks to the media.

And and the reason why we know that it's them now is because the the same sources are receiving very well timed leaks such as yesterday.

An an article comes out in The Athletic from, you know, league sources that's say, oh, well, you know, Luka was smoking hookah and drinking beer.

It was pretty obvious that high high ranking people in Mavris' organization were leaking bad stories about him for reasons if we wanna give them the benefit of the doubt, the reasons were to try and get him to be more motivated in the way that they wanted him to be more motivated.

But now that's a very toxic environment that he's out of now. So that alone but then you you combine the the way that the Lakers have set it up, and it's I mean, it's it's a total one eighty.

So you you started becoming a Luka collector by ripping packs of twenty eighteen prism and hitting Luka parallels and realizing this guy's fun to watch.

And you kind of, from what I've gathered through talking with you about Luka over the years, you kinda became a fan of him through cards.

So that has let that led to not only you following Luka on the Mavericks, becoming a Mavericks fan, but then you and Christina moving to Dallas and becoming season ticket holder.

You're I've always viewed you as a Luka fan first, but, also, like, with that comes being a Mavericks fan because that's the team Luka played for.

We're gonna talk about just, like, this dynamic and the hobby and just, like, after the dust settles, like, what decisions collectors are making.

But I'm curious just on your end watching that game last night. Like, what was going on in your head?

Like, you you you went from, like, cheering for this team, the Mavericks, to all of a sudden, you're cheering against this team in the Mavericks, and your favorite player is playing for, a competitor.

So it's just like a total role reversal. Like, what was going on in your head? Would have you already, like, cleansed yourself of the Mavericks or, like, maybe talk us through what was happening as you're watching that? Yeah.

I still have reflexes of just assuming that the Mavericks are the team that I'm rooting for and, like, my brain expects to be cheering on when the team in blue and white is doing good things and not to be celebrating when the team in purple and gold is doing good things.

So there is still a level of, reprogramming that's happening. But, I look. I I think one of the things about being a player collector is that you're always at odds with the organization.

You always are because the the organization is a great scapegoat. It's a great thing to blame if things don't go don't have the fairy tale ending for your favorite player.

Oh, well, you know, it's because of the coach or the owner didn't spend enough or, you know, they didn't build the right roster around him.

So there's always an antagonism against the team. But, the the thing that's a little different, it's easier to let go of the team. It's a little bit harder to let go of the content creators who covered the team.

Because you get into a rhythm with those guys. You know, as an example, there's my my favorite Mavericks podcast was called Pod Maverick. That was hosted by Kirk Henderson and Josh Bowe.

And that was my go to podcast. I mean, I'd listen to them probably a hundred nights a year, after games, you know, regular season playoff games. And then I would catch, you know, there are a few summer episodes here and there too.

And so just completely losing hearing from them, you know, that's that's the one that's a little bit more frustrating to let go of because I really had a nice rhythm.

I I enjoyed listening to their content. I got to know them over the course of half a decade of listening to their stuff. I would send them little DMs and stuff sometimes too.

So, you know, that that's the that's the that's a little more bittersweet. I didn't even think about the content of it all, but that's, plays such an important role, especially when we're collecting players.

I think this trade, obviously, was earth shattering, and it, exposed a lot of different things in the hobby that I think are fun discussion topics for people who have a sports card podcast.

And and the the number one thing I think that has come out is the and what I wanna dig into with you is just this, concept of at are we player first, collectors in the hobby, a majority of us, or are we team first collectors in the hobby?

And when I when I got back into the hobby, one of the immediate trends that I noticed and something that I took part in and participated in was this, okay. It doesn't matter if the player plays for one of my local teams.

If I think he or she is exciting, I can just go collect, their cards, and then I can start following them as maybe an ancillary part of my overall sports fandom experience.

And I noticed pretty early about how player, focused this hobby was. Because of that, I don't know.

Like, what have you seen I know there's team collectors out there, and people are tried and true team collectors no matter what. But I think in this current era of collecting, there's probably more player collectors.

What is your maybe maybe overall assessment been on that, like, player versus team collectors? And then, like, what has been the result that you have noticed from the Luka trade in where people tie their allegiance to?

My brain is going in 8,000 directions. This is such a good topic. I was looking at the questions that you had prepared, and they all have, a theme, that runs through them.

You you were sort of alluding to the the player collector versus team collector dynamic, and then you touched on what comes first. Is it being a fan or is it being a collector?

It all ties together. It really, really all ties together. So I'm just gonna fire off an answer, Brett, but cut in if I go too far off or just, you know, if I if I don't go where we want this conversation to go.

But on the player versus team of it all, one of the things I think is so interesting about that is on the team side, to be a team collector and this is and and I'm taking part of this from learnings of listening to flagship stacking slabs.

Being a team collector is driven by quite a bit of nostalgia and fandom. And nostalgia and fandom are things that come prior to and are separate from card collecting.

So in order to be a team collector, there's there's almost this, this this flowchart that says, you know, do you have nostalgia for your team that you've rooted for?

You know, do you have a strong connection to this team? Team? Have you been a fan of this team? Then if it's like, yes. Yes. Yes. Then the flowchart eventually funnels you into, like, okay.

Then you might really enjoy collecting cards of the of your favorite players from your favorite team. And then your creativity can really flourish when you decide which products, which parallels, which insert sets you wanna focus on.

And I see you thriving in that in that lane with your Colt's Prism PC. The player collector side of it, and this is how it ties into fan of team versus are you a are are you a fan of the sport, or are you a collector first?

A question I've always been fascinated by. Because, like, because, like, if you really put it to somebody and you said, you have to give up one. You either have to give up collecting cards or you have to give up watching sports.

Which one would you give up? And I I would, like, run I ran a poll on this on Instagram probably, like, five or six years ago. And and it's almost always fifty fifty.

Almost like and and Josh, for example, Josh is a guy who tends to vote. He would give up cards. He loves sports that much. He loves cards. We know that he loves cards, but he loves watching sports that much that but I don't know.

Maybe he would answer it differently today. It's I know it was always a tough answer, but I was always fascinated by that. And I I I skew more of I would give up watching sports, and I would and I would have cards.

But, again, it's dude, I spend more time watching sports than anything in my life, basically, besides my work. So, like, I I would be giving up something that I really, really enjoy and come to enjoy.

But so on the player collecting side, I think about I can't when I when I returned to collecting in 2016, you know, I all I had was nostalgia and fandom to go off of and and my prior collecting experiences.

So, like, I I dipped a toe into collecting Hakim and Kobe and Michael Jordan, and I put together the Power and the Key insert set and, like, like, some Chris Webber, you know, rookie cards because I used to really like him.

And I settled on Michael Jordan. And I collected Jordan for a few years. And I really didn't even see a world where I would collect ever collect anything but him.

But because of what I learned as of being a player collector of Michael Jordan, eventually I broadened my horizons and started collecting other players.

And so it seems to be a player collector, the prior condition is that you're a collector, not that you're a fan or that you have nostalgia.

Because a player collector actually uses the prior condition of being a collector to then build fandom and nostalgia for a new player.

So that's how it worked with Luka as the first player that Christina and I started collecting after Michael Jordan was we branched off to Luka.

And the only reason we collect Luka, the only reason unequivocally, is because we collected cards first.

And we were on a road trip in the December and winter months of 2018, and we just started opening Prism Hobby boxes, and we hit a nice Luka card. I bought League Pass because I was like, Oh, this is cool. And he's on ESPN.

And then by the end of the season, I was enjoying collecting his cards and following his career so much that I went in the summer of twenty nineteen, and I bought his National Treasures RPA, and I bought his Prism Gold.

And that's what started the whole looting collection. And so then here's a final thought on this. I think that card manufacturers and the NBA are missing out on such an opportunity, and they're just blind to it.

They don't see it. Nobody who is in those organizations operates this way, so it's just not even possible for them to see it.

But think about this. So Christina and I became huge fans of Luka, and this is gonna be the most extreme case, but we became huge fans of Luka because of cards and because we collected his cards.

That's what launched it. Well, once we both became remote employees working on card ladder, we pretty quickly made the decision to move to Dallas because we're such big fans of Luka.

And we picked the apartment that was the closest possible apartment to American Airlines Center. And then we became season ticket holders, and we were season ticket holders for three years.

And we went to every home game damn near. And we bought all the concessions, and we bought all the hoodies, and we bought all the hats. And then we also ended up getting season tickets to the Dallas Stars just because we were there.

And so you look at it in from the opportunity of the leagues and the manufacturers, you have to look at it and say, how much revenue was generated for the Dallas Mavericks organization just because these two people are collectors of a player who plays for that team, and it's significant.

Now like I said, we're extreme examples, but scale the example down. How many people out there are buying here, I'll give an example of a different player PC of mine, Christian McCaffrey.

There are those of us out there who are buying 40 niners hoodies for a hundred bucks off of the website or whatever because we collect the player who's on the 40 niners.

There is this this business pathway, this channel that leads from somebody starting off as, hey. I'm I like collecting cards. I wanna pick a player to collect. And from there, it becomes a revenue generating source for the leagues.

And I would challenge the Dallas Mavericks organization, the NBA, show me a fan of this team who is who who who who you could say, I can pinpoint it's because of collecting cards that all this revenue got generated.

Three years worth of season tickets, all the concessions, all the hoodies.

The it it was a it was a boon for the Mavericks. And if we wanna really go into the Rotary Club of it all, of the, of the local business organization of it all, we brought revenue to the city of Dallas.

We moved into an apartment there. We bought food there. We did our shopping there. I mean, the the levels to this that and it all came from collecting carts.

Dude, I, I don't know why, but as you were, like, describing that, especially, like, the road trips and the ripping packs, like, parallels in my mind that I just, like, could your situation, I just couldn't, like, let it escape because I I'm just, like, thinking about, like, the way you have followed Lou Lou Luka and the reasons why you followed Luka.

Like, to me, see it's, like, so similar to, like, somebody, like, you know, in the seventies, like, somebody being introduced to Grateful Dead and literally just, like, that's their band, and they're introduced to them, and they're they're hitting the road and traveling wherever they go.

And then eventually, right, somebody leaves or somebody passes away, and then it's like, okay.

Well, this isn't happening the way it it's happening. And I don't know. I see that with Luka, leaving Dallas or being traded from Dallas and now in LA.

So you have, through that, you know, major allegiance known. You know, we're we're we're here for Luka first, and so we're gonna follow Luka. Do you what what sort of sentiment have you received just from the Luka community?

Because I would imagine everybody who's spending whether they're collectors in China or domestic collectors, although it's not cheap to collect Luka, especially at at the high end.

So there's a fandom associated with Luka, which then in turn would want the Mavericks to do well.

So there's a a Mavericks fandom that has been born too, and you have kind of separated yourself from that, and you're kinda moving on to, you know, the the new world and with with the Lakers.

What what have you seen and what have you sensed from just the behaviors of other Luka collectors in this space?

Is is it mostly people doing what you're doing, something different? Yeah. I think, that there are pretty distinct categories here.

There are some people like myself who were luka collectors first and then became Mavericks fans and consumers as a consequence of that. Pretty easy, seamless move to just say, oh, he's playing over here, now we support over here.

And there's a lot of people who are happy about it, just because Southern California has a lot of collectors. And, you know, Luka's a heavily collected player.

So, you know, to stands to reason that there's a decent chance that people who never really had the opportunity to watch him play very often who are card collectors, but now they get many more chances.

So he went to a good geographic region for collectors to be able to engage further with, collecting him and watching him play the sport.

And then the other category are the Mavs collectors who then adopted and brought in Luka and created Luka PCs and who were sold the idea that he was the, the heir apparent to Dirk and that he was going to replicate Dirk and that he would be with this team for a twenty year career.

And that if he was ever going to accomplish anything great, he was going to do it in a Mavericks uniform. And Mark Cuban was the chief proponent of this point of view, but Dirk echoed it.

Luka echoed it. The team's advertising marketing materials echoed it. And then that all suddenly and pretty drastically started to change when Cuban exited and Harrison and Kidd assumed a lot of power in the organization.

All that stuff started to change. So, you know, it's it's not like the Mavericks were trying to hoodwink the Mavs collectors out there and the Mavs fans, but but that is how it played out.

And I think for them, some have defected and gone over to the Lakers and followed Luka. Some, I think, are trying to split the baby and continue to have Luka collections, but continue to primarily be loyal to and root for the Mavs.

But I I think most most of them actually are just kind of ultimately going to come to the conclusion that they're Mavs fans, and they're gonna collect Mavs stuff.

And and and and if they, you know, if they can tolerate collecting the Luka era, they will.

But the structure of team fandom is deeply ingrained. It has been forged over decades and decades and decades, and it's integral to the business model as they currently exist of the leagues.

It's essential that those arenas get filled and that those concessions get purchased and that those the team apparel sells out.

That is an enormous part of the revenue model of these leagues. So if the leagues had to deal with a scenario where every fan is a transient transplant who moves their fandom, you know, just is is totally, cerebral.

It's that, you know, I'm a fan of a player in LA, and I'm a fan of him in Toronto, and then I have a fan of him in Chicago. Well, that fan isn't buying.

They're not there to go they're not able they're not moving. They're not lunatics like Christina. They're not moving from city to city and following and buying all the concessions and tickets in all the new cities.

So it works the opposite. The teams need the structure of, hey. You live in Dallas. Dallas Mavericks are your team. You are loyal to that team, and you come and go as they come and go.

You know, that's the structure that, that the leagues and the teams need. So as we're talking through this, like, I'm having some moments throughout my history of being a fan that are, like, flashing in my brain.

And I'm thinking about, like, the different eras. And I think about, like, growing up going to Pacers games in Market Square Arena, and I can literally, like, smell the building. I can, like, I can, like, feel it.

I can hear it at the sights and sounds. And when I went to those games growing up, these the arena was, man, 95% Pacers fans. Now the only exception to that was when Michael Jordan and the Bulls were in town.

Then you started to see red because it was Jordan, and Jordan is on another level and would pull everything, pull fans in, and people would maybe some fans would hang up their Reggie Miller jerseys to put on their Michael Jordan jersey because MJ was in town.

And my Chicago's close, so there's that element too.

And I just remember that. Now I I remember after the fact, even during the years where the Pacers weren't very good, it was always a Pacers crowd. Then I remember when LeBron, took his talents to South Beach and played on the Heat.

I started to notice what LeBron Wade Boss jerseys in the crowd, and then it continued with new and exciting other players and then the warriors. And then it's like you go to some of these games and you're like, what's going on here?

And so it's like this there has been this movement, I feel like, throughout the league, and I think I'm trying to compare if, like, this is, this runs parallel with what's gone on in the hobby where it just seems like there there has been this trend towards a more player focused, fan where they're following the player and not the team.

And I'm I'm seeing that, you know, regularly as I attend NBA games. And I think about my hobby experience as a as a youth.

Right? Like, I'm it's more of around, like, we wanna collect the prospects. We wanna try to get the young guy and hit it big, but then we also kinda are collecting our team, as well through that experience. I don't know.

Like, can you I know you came back in 2016 and probably can only speak to 2016, but, like, how have you noticed maybe a trend within our hobby that there is, influx of people who are captivated by that one player that they are changing everything in their lives around not only collecting, but following and supporting that player in whatever team that they're playing for?

Yeah. I think so. I think so.

I and I think that's the challenge that Fanatics faces is they've already built a business in apparel that is, running on autopilot essentially because it's it it just so nicely taps into the streamlined consumer who has fandom for a team and then they wanna buy the apparel of their players and that team.

And so, like, Fanatics is serving the team fan. And that's, you know, up until recently, that's that's been the name of the game with with noteworthy exceptions like Michael Jordan and LeBron.

But you almost wanna say it's it's like the advent of the NFL Sunday tickets, and it's the advent of NBA League Pass that is actually opening the opportunity for fans to exercise a little more agency and a little more freedom of choice in which players they wanna follow.

And so once again, it's technology that is shifting the way that people are consuming a product, not unlike how eBay completely revolutionized and upgraded the card collecting experience, taking it from being something that happened only in card shops and only at local shows and transforming it into if I want to buy, sell, and trade, I suddenly now have, at my fingertips, access to people from all over the world.

And and it's it sort of parallels what happened with with what League Pass and NFL Sunday Ticket open up for consumers of the NFL and the NBA product is that all of a sudden I I actually could.

If if I got if I'm sick of watching the Bulls tank for a decade, I can find somebody else I like.

But but but the problem becomes, how do you decide who to like? And there's usually just not a model in place to do that. You know? It's like, oh, well, like, okay.

Like, you know, everybody likes Anthony Edwards, and, you know, he's got some cool highlights, but that doesn't really speak to me. That doesn't really let me express any original authentic aspect of myself, but cards does.

Card collecting is the model. It is the mechanism. It is the form of mediation that enables and serves as a launching pad for individuals to choose to follow and become fans of players and and even teams that are not local to them.

And it's the and it's the card collecting that lets you have your own identity associated with it. That's like, okay. Well, maybe everybody's collecting maybe everybody's a fan of Anthony Edwards, and I like him too.

But this is how I can make it authentic to me is I'm gonna only collect, you know, Anthony Edwards' Flux parallels or something. That's just completely made up, but it's like this is where the authenticity can start to step in.

This is where you really can engage a much higher level of consumer is when you have this this auxiliary or this accessory of card collecting to pair with the consumption of the product.

Now you're building super fans. You're you're building power users. You're you're using the technology that has enabled people to become fans and choose whatever they want.

And you're you're now giving them skin in the game, which is, you know, it which is what, which which is part of the appeal, I think, the marketing pitch of of sports betting.

But collecting can collecting just has so many more dimensions to it that make it so much stickier.

I mean, there's just such opportunity there, but that's that's what fanatics has to figure out is we know how to market to fans of teams. How do we market this whole other vertical that we have now with cards?

How do we market that to the person who is using technology and in combination with card collecting to express a level of fandom that is new and novel, especially to entertainment as an industry as a sports industry as a whole.

You know, that's a big challenge.

And, like, car the the answer the blueprint is already there in card collecting, but somebody's gonna have to pick up that baton and run with it. Okay. So this has my, brain spinning a little bit and you asking those questions.

And I I what I wanted to get into is just, like, the the money behind it, and I wanna get into the when you're selecting a player, like, cards are the types of cards that everyone who's listening to this not everyone, but there's a large population of listeners of this show.

They're they're it's one of those things where if someone who didn't follow the hobby, came up and asked, oh, how much did you spend on that card? Like, it's really easy for people to be like, I don't wanna talk about that.

But then when they when they do talk about, no. No. Tell me. I don't wanna talk about it. Well, tell me. Well, that card was, you know, $3,500, and then people, like, spit coffee out of their mouth. They're like, what?

And so I think about, like, the the money behind it, and I think about, like, when you're when you're collecting a player and you're following the player, especially a player like Luka, like, you're putting a lot of money into expressing yourself by acquiring key cards that you wanna represent your collection and make yourself stand out or look unique maybe than other collectors in the space.

So I think about the money behind it. We see this all play out regularly in the hobby. Like, new hot prospect comes in, people dump a lot of money.

Hot prospect fades over time, people lose a lot of money. But then there's exceptions to that, right, with players that transcend that, like Luka would would be in that category.

So I'm I'm I wanted, like, I wanna put that out there because I wanna get your reaction to that. But before I toss it over to you, you said something about fanatics and and the model and what what what they do to capitalize on this.

I my my fear and what I my fear of what is done is what we see being played out, and it's this over indexing up to the gambling side of the hobby and the win it big, get this hit.

And I was I was doing a little research this morning, and I posted this on my story, but I had avoided looking at the new WWE Chrome product.

I was just like, I don't know. Like, this just doesn't feel like it's for me. And I was just like, well, let me look at the checklist.

And I looked at the checklist. The Rock has a base card in that this checklist, but then The Rock has 10 variations in this checklist, which means total 11 super fractures in this one product.

And I think about that, and you can take that to NFL because it's gonna happen, licensed stuff, or NBA, and there's licensed stuff.

And I'm like, is the move that they're gonna make, they're just gonna make a a fifth and someone DM'd me and said, hey. The Rock isn't even the most.

Randy Orton has 14. Charlotte Flair has 14. And I'm like, so is the move that we're just gonna have, one base Luka card in the Chrome product and then 20 variations? Is that the where we're headed? Because that's the way you get clips.

That's the way you get hits. That's the way you get promoted on Instagram, people pulling your stuff all the time. So I fear that operators and people behind these businesses might look at the landscape and say, well, shit.

Let's just put more Luka in this product, but that's not what I don't think most of us want in the hobby. So I just wanna get your reaction.

I just said a lot with the the money component, maybe talk about that, and then just maybe, like, early industry trends that we potentially could see to, hit on this that might not necessarily be ideal to us collectors who like to collect a certain way.

Excellent insight. And it's it's a primary concern. Do you mention which product is it that has the 11 rock variations with the 11 super frag? That that's gotta be tops some tops It's it's the chrome.

Tops chrome. Yeah. So, some something to, put us at ease a little bit is that the people who are building the products at Tops, and who are at Panini, a lot of these people are industry veterans of twenty or thirty, even forty years.

A lot of them started at Beckett magazine under the tutelage of doctor Beckett. And if they don't fit that mold, then quite a few of them were trained by those people. And even, it's it's the subject of litigation right now.

But, a year or two ago, some three or four dozen of Panini's best employees and their some of them are product builders, they were they were aggressively hired away by tops. Okay. Or or by fanatics.

The the old the old poach. The poach. The poach. And and there's ongoing litigation about this. So, that that's good. I I just think, like, on some level that, like, this isn't people just kind of jumping in head first to the industry.

But, we have really high quality seasoned, incredible people building these products who've been doing it for a long time, and they they understand, a lot of these concerns that you're raising.

It it doesn't obviously, it doesn't prevent it from happening because it did happen.

But we do hope that on balance that, that that the that the intellectual foundations of card collecting aren't issued in favor of a short term money grab. And and, ultimately, it's bad business.

It's bad business. I'm gonna give you the quintessential example. Michael Jordan, who I I like, as an aside, in in in one of your most recent Patreon episodes, you sort of were saying, is Michael Jordan the blueprint or the exception?

And it's such a great question. It's a fun thing to think about. And and I'm going to present Michael Jordan as a blueprint in this instance.

So Jordan, highly, highly collected player from the nineties, obviously. And many of those cards have not only stood the test of time, but are just some of the most important collected and valuable cards that we have.

And you can look at, you know, the PMGs, the rubies, the credentials. You know, a lot of these cards and these products and these sets, have just done exceptionally well over time.

You know, the one brand in the nineties that has suffered relative to the others, And it's it's almost amazing that it has suffered because, ironically, this brand is synonymous with Michael Jordan in the industry and its upper deck.

And the reason why upper deck products, in my opinion, the reason why nineties upper deck products have really struggled as compared against FLIR and Skybox and TOPS is that upper deck oversaturated the market with these Michael Jordan specific sets in 1998, '19 '90 '9.

And more importantly, I can pinpoint it I can honestly pinpoint it to one card. The 1998 upper deck base set, card number two thirty of Michael Jordan, has, I think, 23 variations, and each of them takes a one of one.

And that card is a microcosm for why nineties collectors such as myself make a deliberate decision at the very outset of our collecting journey that has ripple effects that compound as time goes on, that we will avoid upper deck products.

And we avoid nineties upper deck products specifically because of the proliferation and the exploitation of Michael Jordan cards at the expense of crafting traditional sets that adhere to the the intellectual principles of what makes things collectible.

So by cramming, you know, the 23 variations, each of them taking a one on one parallel into 1998 upper deck, they actually instead of, like, just even having a break even where it's like, oh, well, you know, collectors will just, you know, they these won't be treated as, like, highly desired one of ones, but they'll still wanna click no.

We we don't even look there. We don't even consider it because of how oversaturated it is.

And that that problem question for you is when somebody comes and drops into your DMs and shares, like, one of the one of ones of that variation, is that, like, the indication that you know that we've got someone new to the party here?

It can definitely work that way. And there's also to be fair, there's some people who are going to hear this and some people who already knew this and see an opportunity there.

And so, well, you know what? At the end of the day, like, the the the contours of what rarity is have changed so much over the last twenty five years, and maybe there's an opportunity here.

And then I'll, but then I would also look. That's just the one card. Michael Jordan appears in that base set, like, five or six times.

He's on checklists in that base set. Then there's these insert sets that have, like, 20 or 30 Michael Jordan only cards, and then there's entire products that are only Michael Jordan.

And it was such it just introduced so much supply, so much saturation, so much of a generic quality.

And they were all just they all are so they feel so indistinguishable, inauthentic, not unique that the decision that collectors like myself make is just we're not we're not even gonna look it up or deck because they did this, because it's because there's no reasonable way to get my head around to wrap my head around this product offering for my favorite player that I love to collect.

And somebody else who has made this point quite emphatically is Brian Dennison, who you've had on the show before, Cajun Cardboard.

He talks about this all the time. It's all it's even almost so egregious that upper decks proliferation of Michael Jordan, you know, 23 different variation one of ones, and then all the inserts set one of ones that they made.

They almost killed the one of one for an entire era just by doing that. So, you know, look, and, and people can critique that point of view and they, and they might, and that's totally fine. I'm, I'm open to criticisms of it.

And I'm, and look, a lot of these decisions get made when we start I mean, I when we come into collecting eight, nine, ten years ago when just things are simpler and you really need to have more of a refined palette and more sophistication to really appreciate how complex and overwhelming that product and those those late nineties upper deck products were.

But it it it doesn't change the fact that that is what happened and that is how it played out.

Is that the confusion, the complexity, the saturation, the proliferation has turned off an entire generation of collectors to those specific products, and it has ripple effects. It's not even just those.

It's the earlier Epperdeck products too that just we all say, well, we're we're just gonna we're really looking for FLIR and Skybox and TOPS because we never had to deal with that when we were looking at those those cards and those products.

And so I hope there's there's a lesson there that speaks to this this Topps Chrome with the 11 variations.

They all have a super factor and sort of just the the the the discomfort that it gives a collector who looks at checklist for the first time and, I mean, probably gets turned off by it, that let let's not repeat history here.

Let's let's realize that there is a precedent for trying this and it and it has not worked out well.

As human beings, we are wired. We are wired. I you think about, like, going into Blockbuster as a kid. It's like they've got this whole store of video games and VHS cassettes everywhere, and literally the whole store, walls and walls.

And where are we going first? We're going to new releases. We new music, new movies, new cards. It's whatever's new is what kinda sets the pace.

And so I would my I'm I would I wanna be hopeful that, like, this 11 variation trend isn't going to continue, forever. But if it does, I don't know. Like, I'd love for you to maybe remark on this.

I think there is our hobby has such a his a rich history of incredible sets, products, and parallels over a long period of time that I've always said, like, if what's new is coming out or I don't like the manufacturer or whatever or I'm not excited about to to to collect what is new, like, there's plenty that exists from the past that will keep me plenty of busy, and I just think of, like, the Prism products specifically.

It's like, you've got 2012 to 2024 in, and, you know, maybe another set or two, another set coming out maybe in football.

But there's plenty there. Like, if I collected nothing but but Prism Football or Prism WNBA or Prism WWE, like, to me, there's a plenty there to keep me busy and satisfy my itch for a long time.

And I just think, like, so much of, like, the conversation of what we get wrapped up in in the hobby is, like, displeasure with what is new instead of, like, turning that displeasure for what is new into, okay.

Well, let me get some energy around something old and, like, build out a new kick ass collection while all the attention is complaining about this thing over there.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That no. And and, you know the set that first came to mind as you were describing this sort of this idea that, like, hey.

You know, if if I ever need to check out from new product releases for a little while for any reason, that there's there's all these great sets that exist already.

And it's and and I'm and I'm gonna tie it into what I was just talking about.

It's the flip side of what I was just talking about. So upper deck, you know, had those those Michael Jordan products of the late nineties, which were a huge turn off.

But then look at the corner they turned in the February when they revolutionized the space with exquisite and any of the mistakes that I or other collectors felt like they made with those late nineties products, they, they more than corrected when they went in this direction of this patch autograph product.

And the and they and and and no more, you know, 30 or 20, variations to a card, and they all have one of ones and stuff. No.

Instead, they're these, like, they're these masterfully crafted base set and RPA sets and patch autograph sets and insert sets that, you know, exquisite has just this sort of this this little for basketball, this o three zero four through o nine ten window that, I mean, it's just it's a treasure chest that you could, as a collector, go try to unlock and spend twenty years collecting it and learning it and refining approaches to it and enjoying the the hunts and the pursuit of it.

So, like, that's the that's the other side is that the same company can end up producing one of the most influential brands and products ever.

And anytime that we need a break and and this is sort of like, this is almost at the heart of the Repack product too. I'm I'm gonna make a connection here that that isn't super strong, but my brain went there.

The Repack product is sort of, the rebuttal to, Bach, you know, the the the the losing proposition, the the the awful ROI that the the ordinary hobby box has today, that the repack product just came along and said, hey.

You know what? If you don't need the excitement of the brand new product right now, we're gonna make a product of all awesome cards that came before, and we're gonna price it in a way that you're gonna get a much better ROI.

And we're still gonna give you the break in experience and the fun of it all and the randomness and the and the game of chance that it that that accompanies it. And repacks are thriving as a product.

And it's and it's it just it reminds me of what you were talking about just in the sense that if people are disenchanted with new products for whatever reason, there is a really strong competitive pressure from the preexisting body of cards that should be incentivizing manufacturers and disciplining them into not having, let's call it, runaway inflation with the way that they're producing parallels because people can there is an alternative.

And it and it and it and it it might even be the thing that the alternative might be previous products from the same manufacturer just repackaged in different ways.

So that's what I think I would say that. I love that. I there's one more thing I wanna talk about, but I wanna comment on this repack, because it's fresh in my mind.

I was just mentioning to you, and we'll give him a little shout out, like he needs it. But I was just listening to Ryan Johnson's new podcast, Cards and Content, and he had, Shannon's cards was his guest.

And I enjoyed it because they're talking about something that card shows, buy, sell, trade stuff that's not really my lane, but I can learn from.

They were on this repack, trend talking about repacks and just the impact in the space. And the conversation came up about case hits and how these repacks, most no one's selling a repack without a case hit repack.

And you think about Panini case hits, and you're you're talking about downtowns. You know? You're talking about color blast.

And the conversation kinda the way it all shook out was that, basically, like, these kabooms, these downtowns, like, if you go and look, and which I'm sure you do because you you you're behind card ladder, you see the price of these cards, and it's almost like it's crazy.

Yeah. But it's crazy because you've got repack companies that need those cards in their products because that's how they're marketing it.

And so I think it's fascinating in this era to make sure that, like, when you're buying a card, especially buying a card for your collection, and you're looking at comparing a downtown of a player to an RPA of a player, I think it's really important.

You have to be a student. You have to understand where these cards are going, and that was like a light bulb moment for me. It's like, well, no wonder these case hits are always, you know, continuing to soar.

It's because the demand's always gonna be there, and the demand not might not be with the end user, but the demand might be there with these repacker companies who are promoting the fact that if you buy into this repack, you got a chance at a kaboom in every pack.

Oh, yeah. That's that's that's exactly right.

And the the repack, I I I think is a is a real com is a real marketplace alternative that should hopefully keep HobbyBox prices from just ever running away because it it it can be packaged and bundled in a way that provides a lot of the same experiences that a hobby box does.

No doubt. I wanna end, maybe kinda close out.

I I wanna talk about this card, and I know it can be uncomfortable to talk about the cards that you have in your collection, but we're gonna do that because when I think of Luka and I think of Luka's cards, this is the card I think of.

And there was this is the 2018, for everyone listening, 2018 Luka Doncic Gold Prism PSA 10 sold, on Golden Elite for $341,600, this past Saturday, which I thought based on the the previous sales, which I think was a BGS nine, I thought this was a a very nice strong sale for this category.

I I think of this card, and to me, it's one of those most important cards of this Panini era just for not only the player, but just, like, time and place and everything else.

And I know you have a copy, B g s nine five, I believe, in your collection that you've been holding on to for a long time. And to me, this is, like, one of those cards that, like, there's, like, a a it's kinda like an exclusive club.

Like, I'm sure you know all the other holders of this card, and I'm sure when this card sold, you all were talking about the sale and this and that. But I'd love to maybe, like, close out the chat with, like, that.

Like, let's focus in on, like, this specific card, which I think is really important and just, like, when you see a sale like this and everything else that's going on with Luka, changing teams, market, like, how do you feel?

Like, how are you responding to a sale like this? Yeah. I mean, it's an exorbitant amount of money, and the owner has declared himself on Twitter.

Okay. And I'm thrilled for him. That's point one. Point two is that you referenced the BGS nine sale. And I really like how this price relates to the BGS nine sale because it went for about twice as much.

And that's not a huge multiplier in the world of graded cards that, yeah. So there were yeah. The b yeah. So a little bit more than twice as much as the last BGS nine.

And I and, obviously, PSA 10 is is the best slab that a card can inhabit, in my opinion. But, I I I don't love when a PSA 10 is, you know, 50 x of BGS nine, which happens in some areas of this hobby.

But when you have a card that has only 10 copies, you know, roughly a a two x multiplier seems cool because the value, hopefully, is is really driven by the rarity and the appeal of the card itself.

And so, yeah, PSA 10 is superior to BGS nine.

I if you laid those two in front of a table, anybody would rather have the PSA 10. But I I kind of like that the the spectrum of prices from a BGS nine to a PSA 10 is pretty small as a matter of percentage.

So I I I think that's pretty cool. And then, three, a different angle on price is that, this sold for about half of what the last PSA ten prism Luka Gold sold for, which was, like, $6.

80 roughly in 2022 or June there. So this is a big, big discount off of what it went for in 2022 or, sorry, 2021, I guess, that is.

That's a big discount. And, Do we even do do we even count those years of sale? Like, how do you how do you do you put a caveat when you talk about those things? I feel like you almost have to. You have to. Yeah. You have to.

But, but but it it did happen. It is history. It did happen. And, you know, there's certainly a point of view that says 341 still should be cut in half a few more times because it's just such such a high price for a trading card.

But, you know, I've I have a lesser version than a PSA 10, and, I could send mine to auction, but I love owning it.

The pride of owning it is is really, really something pretty special to me. Do you would you have the same experience on this journey cheering for Luka through Dallas and now LA, and then who knows what's next?

Would you feel satisfied or have the same experience if the gold prism twenty eighteen rookie was not in your collection? Not at all. Not at all. How how important is that card to you?

Extremely. Yeah. It's huge. It's it's a it's a massive part of my identity as a Luka collector. I I you know, you know, my tastes have shifted too to the point to where, I don't I really don't have many prism golds except for that one.

And I do, have several other rookie year one of ones that are really meaningful to me too. But that card is is the centerpiece of of Luka collecting for me.

And, you know, and it it it this really isn't the way that a collector should objectively reason when they're evaluating the market and sort of how their collection fits with, prudence with financial prudence, let's say.

But, I I have a personal connection to that card just from how I acquired it. I was sitting in a law office when I was summarying at a firm that I was supposed to join after I graduated.

And, you know, just there's there's just so many levels of connection that I have to that specific card that make it really hard to think about letting it go.

Take a a job at this legal firm or buy a, Luka Gold Prism and go build card ladder.

I kinda like the way you let it all shake out, Chris. Yeah. So yeah. In life, you roll the dice a bunch of times, and hopefully, they turn up good for you at least once or twice.

Can I can I go can I circle back to one last topic for you? Yeah. I was gonna I I was gonna I know there's always stuff in the chamber, so I was gonna ask, what else did we miss that you wanted to cover?

Just one thing, which is, team collecting. And and this ties in with sort of a theme that you've been running with.

I loved your episode exploring, post playing days cards and exploring it through the lens of arbitrary or path dependent systems of rules that we assume or that we even let govern us.

And maybe we wouldn't follow them if we actually subjected them to a more rigorous inspection, such as by simply asking why.

And and then that that question asking process can lead in multiple directions. It can it could lead to like, Andy's comments on the Patreon post.

I could leave you I'm glad you called this out because I felt like I cannot even think about this topic anymore without thinking about the passionate response from Andy at buybuy baby cards.

And for everyone else, like, if you're not a part of the Patreon, you haven't heard it.

So I gotta plug because I'm a marketer. Like, get in the Patreon so you can hear stuff like that and be a part of the conversation, but go ahead, Chris.

Exactly. Exactly. If people aren't in that Patreon, they're missing out. And Andy had a really nice, well thought out, defense of, of of carving out his collecting sandbox to focus on only playing these cards in some situations.

And and I thought what was important about his point of view and all points of view and and it can be really easy to to blur this line, but it's a line that shouldn't be blurred.

Andy was just explaining why he does it that way, and you were explaining why you do it. You have different insights or points of view.

And as long as, the conversation always stays in the lane of, like, I do it this way because rather than you should do it this way because, then it there's there's lots of room for every flower in that garden to flourish.

I have all these metaphors all of a sudden.

But, so the so the I okay. So then that that's so the the lens of sort of the rules, the the rules that the hobby gives to us, and then we inspect them, and then we decide if we want to impose any rules.

And if we do, what will they look like, and what will the exceptions be?

And this brings me to team collecting because what I I think one of the biggest appeals of team collecting is that it gives you at the very outset, at the very start of your collecting journey, it gives you a system of thinking that allows you to figure out what to focus on on some level.

Because I think probably the biggest challenge that anybody faces when they're first starting especially, but really at any point, is just if you could imagine in your mind every card that was ever manufactured sitting on a table in front of you, and you have to set and and and each one has a price tag, what its market value is, let's say.

And so you're just talking about an enormous table, and you have to decide where do I start. I mean, it's just so overwhelming if you really think about that happening, and that is what happens when you start.

Now there a lot of us are just kind of very, you know, self assured, and we just, you know, we don't even we don't get intimidated by that. We just dive in. Like, I'm whatever I pick is gonna do well because, you know, damn it.

That's how it's gonna roll. There's a lot of that personality type in cards, which is which helps it work work itself out. But but rationally, it's it's an overwhelming choice that there really isn't a right like, how do you solve it?

So team collecting is an amazing filter to apply at the very beginning that takes that enormous table of cards and shrinks it to something much, much more manageable.

And then once you've sort of shrunken it into something that that is more digestible, then you can start applying a few more filters.

The the once I've decided on cults, next I decide on prism. And then once I've decided on prism, next I've decided on gold, gold vinyl, and black finite.

And before you know it, you've shrunken the sea to something that not only is digestible and something we can wrap our head around, but now we've developed an objective that we can actually pursue. And and and then you can tailor it.

Like, you can you can adjust your filters to make it sufficiently challenging, based on my budget, based on how much time I can allocate to this, based on how difficult I want it to be, you know, how how high or low do I wanna set the standard so that if I fall short of it, like, I'm not gonna feel like crap.

You can you know, I can start adjusting all the filters. And so team collecting is a really, really useful model for doing that. And player collecting is just a different model.

And instead of the team being the filter, the player's the filter. Set collecting is is yet a different model where instead of team or player, now our filter is is targeting us a particular set. And those are just three filters.

But I bet if the Stagging Slabs audience was pulled on what is your primary filter, you'd probably get hundreds or thousands of different filters that people use because people have all sorts of creative ways of approaching.

I mean, I know people who, like, collect, only a very certain parallel from, like, revolution or, like, I mean, there's galactic collectors, obviously, but, like, there's some people who, like, only focus on, you know, one parallel or, like, the twenty fourteen totally certified, and he's, you know, now he's, like, focused on the the these handful of years of Don Russell that had, like, the Nebula looking one of one.

Like, there's so many filters to apply.

What was it, Wade Wade Zoe with the, a a he had the the binder full of, status? Yes. He and, like but that's that's cool. Like, no one else is doing it. It's a way to express what makes you happy, and I just love that.

And I I like your points on team collecting our sound. It took me five years to get to the point where I was, like, outside of just the player collector bubble, and I was like, man, this is what really resonates with me.

And I think that's what the hobby is. It's like these constant cycles of, like, figuring it out.

And this is for another episode, but I think that's why, like, people like you, people like me are really passionate about like, people are have to go through a lot of self discovery when they are entering the hobby and figuring it out, and you're gonna fail most of the time.

And but, like, if you stay, you'll eventually figure it out. But, like, it's just, like, the what what people new collectors are exposed to on the front end are, like, things that are optimized for the algorithms.

And I just think we I'm gonna I was on, Southern Collector Tony's YouTube yesterday, and I I I said this, and I'm just gonna continue to beat this drum.

It's like, we as an industry, we as a hobby can do a lot better on how we show up and present ourselves publicly because doing this show and listening to stories like today and just stories all there's so much great stuff, but I feel like our hobby is just so riddled with just the same generic, messaging and content over and over again.

And I just feel like we can do a lot better. Oh, yeah. Completely agree.

Alright. Well, we covered a lot of ground like we always do, Chris. It was fun to talk Luka with you. Appreciate you coming on, dropping your, insights and experience. Looking forward to doing this again soon, man. Me too.