welcome back loyal listeners of the stacking slabs podcast to season four episode thirteen of the wnba card podcast as you may now know my name is caitlin and i go by at cold lunch cards on the instagram machine but other places as well sometimes on twitter sometimes on discord all those places on the internet and i am so so stoked to announce that i'm joined by my amazing cohost once again brett mcgrath at stegging slabs the guy who made this season possible he's joining me on the mic to close out with this season finale brett how are you doing today so excited to be back i was remarking to you we'll let the listeners in on this we you know i had so much fun building this show with you up into this point and taking a step back and tuning in and we're gonna get into all of it listening to all the voices and having you run point was probably my most enjoyable part of this whole run so far but the the negative side effect of it is that we didn't get a chance to have these weekly conversations which became a part of my workflow and i became so accustomed to just the dialogue between us but sometimes you have to sacrifice some things for something better to come out on the other side and i would say what you just built and created is certainly i think better than anything that existed in advance a lot of that is because you you have shared the platform with so many awesome collectors and curating those voices and it's just been so fun but i'm thrilled to be back in the saddle i am thrilled to be talking with you and the loyal listeners of the wnba card podcast and i know maybe this isn't on the agenda and i tend to throw things turn things sideways but i feel like because i don't know when i'm gonna be back on this we gotta take like maybe one minute like we got a week and we're we're playing real ball like that's fun i don't know i'd love to we haven't we used to just talk wnba all the time so it'd be fun to kinda get your perspective on how you're feeling about the links what's happening across the league like what's on your mind right now i'm feeling i'm feeling not as good the outlook is not as good as last year or the year before at the start of the season brett for my minnesota links my team captain my lifeline of women's basketball is out for i don't know we don't know how long half a year at most i mean during the draft ryan said on the air like she's out for the first half of the season and cheryl comes back and says well i don't know where that information came from but i guess it's nice that they know when phee's coming back but that being said i'm excited about the new rook we got your i mean she's she went to notre dame and then transferred to tcu but i associate her with notre dame more so olivia miles at the second overall pick i was praying to god that it was a guard and it happened obviously i wanted pham the most but i'll take miles and seeing her start to play is making me feel very optimistic for when phi does get back on the court that pick and pop it's gonna be nasty that being said it doesn't it doesn't feel good without phi it doesn't feel like championship from day one my last note on lynx brit my opinion is phi my one critique of phi which if i may i i don't think i've ever critiqued her ever before is that she tends to peak too early she peaks in like series one or series two of the playoffs well if she gets kind of that slowed down runway of not playing for a couple months maybe she'll peak at the perfect time that's my optimistic kind of view on the situation but yeah i'm just excited for a season to start it feels like i've been experiencing withdrawals from the w for sure yeah unfortunately i know the feeling of having the star player out all too well and no matter how excited you get yourself there's always that piece missing and it is the biggest piece i'll share some perspective here on just how i'm feeling please as a fever fan and my excitement and enthusiasm for this upcoming season really hit a pivotal moment last night where it's preseason game you've got dallas indiana and indianapolis and i'm just watching ball enjoying it and then i'm like what is happening right now and then i got up out of my couch and i looked excuse me tickle in my throat getting excited the i i was looking at the stat lines and it's it's the first half of course you've got caitlin versus paige which everyone wants to see paige played twenty minutes in the first half twenty points three assists caitlyn played sixteen minutes she had twenty one points and four assists and i was just like sign me up for this this is what i need this is what i want so it's so nice to be back it's so nice that caitlin clark is back on the floor there was a scary moment when one of the former players on your team had a not so clean closeout on caitlin when she was shooting a three and the you could just hear the crowd gasp and she got up and she kinda rolled her ankle and was walking around fine but it's fun it's fun to have new players like when raven johnson checked in last night it was her first time playing in front of a home crowd the crowd just went nuts and you could see this like subtle reaction on her face and for me it was like i just wanted to tell her i was like that's what you're gonna get here every night so welcome to indiana but yeah it's i'm excited i'm i'm not going to be one of those people and say like we're gonna run the table and this and that because so much can happen but i do like the prospects of this fever team if everyone can stay healthy so we'll see i agree i mean way too early for me to be making any bold predictions but the fever are a complete they look more complete than they did last year and last year i doubted them and they proved me wrong so i guess that means probably hopefully good things for you and your fandom maybe some tanking on my end maybe that's what i'll be cheering for there's some good players on the other side exactly exactly well that was fun i i do miss our like weekly check ins of how the league's going of our fandom of my rants about courtney williams that happen every single week and somehow find their way into every episode this season i've been enjoying those by the way because i don't know if an episode has gone by where you haven't trashed courtney williams so i i'm like cutting the grass to the pod and i'm just like laughing at your constant and persistent vitriol that you spew at your your your guard there yeah not my point guard one anymore that's right god god answered my prayers sheryl was listening to the wma card podcast said i cannot keep putting caitlin through this and the listeners need to be need to be not subjected to this anymore but yeah anyways hopefully as the season gets going there can be more conversations about what's going on in the league but the point of this episode is really to put a bow on the season on season four this is episode fifty brett of the wnba card podcast and when i think about that that's fifty different conversations with folks this past season was you know we're on episode thirteen so there were twelve episodes before this ten of which featured a guest and then i had my first ever solo podcast which was an interesting experience and you know i was telling brett before we went on air kind of what i hope this this podcast kinda leaves behind as a sort of artifact an arc of the wnba card history told through the lens of collectors and i just feel like brett you're the perfect person to have on for this episode because you were guest number one and you were kind of the the way that this all started and so anyways i'm just excited to kinda reflect and recap maybe what this season was about why we thought it was important to bring to the table and you know just like lessons learned because to have twelve conversations with folks especially people that maybe haven't been given a platform to talk about collecting before was really special to me so why don't why don't we get into that yeah i i wanna start by saying that how far i mean if if we wanna go looks like maybe i'll take this all the way back to the the beginning of the this podcast and the creation of it and i think from my perspective i was a new person collector jumping into the wnba card market for the first time i was getting very very excited it was fun because i was trying to disc i was discovering something new i was trying to learn about the dynamics and really started to understand upfront that there is very very little infrastructure around this but there's a lot of passion and then on the other side you had more interest than ever before in wnba cards and a lot of that came from this idea or this desire to go pull a monster caitlin clark card and then go resell it and make a lot of money and we documented and talked about it we tried not to make it the the primary theme of this this podcast but naturally it came up and so the the idea really of this whole show was to offer perspective outside of the mainstream perspective which was all about money and all about caitlin clark and her cards going up and while i didn't know what all the stories were and i didn't know who collected what and how they approached it and how it all came to be i had no idea but i figured that this podcast could be a vehicle to learn more and luckily we connected and i realized very early that you would be a fun person to kinda do this and connect and try to figure this out from and that happened and then i've reached a point with the stacking slabs network where my goal is to create really good shows and to have passionate people run those shows and connect with the community and connect with the audience and you know you have been able to do that you know probably even more than i anticipated and expected which has been awesome and this season is really the the the the i feel like it's it's it's the formation of what what else could happen next so i've just my primary takeaway from this season like and we can get in the weeds and talk about episodes and people and what we learned and all that but like learned that i thought i knew something before this season but now i i feel like i i know so much more and it's because this platform has become a place where you're curating voices of people who've been there done that and wanna share yeah and this hasn't been this hasn't been a thing in this space before so it's fun to watch you grow this and it feels like a startup in a way it's like there's there's no other wnba card podcast doing this right now and so still feels very greenfield but excited about what you just did with your guests and excited for the future for sure when i think about like when i try to remember season one episode one or even before that when you asked me to like know maybe bring some ideas to the podcast i never thought it would grow to kind of this concept you know what i mean like we transitioned from season one two and three which were you know kinda ad hoc like we're coming up with ideas week by week we're trying to make it current but still kind of like you know relevant if you were listening a couple weeks later this season felt different because of its kind of staying power and it felt to me like when we talked about you know where we started about how caitlin clark was kind of the catalyst and i don't think that anybody is denying that i think it's true but when you look at the story of wnba cards through caitlin clark you're only seeing you know a tiny bit of the big picture and while that's a really bright spot of the painting you know when we're thinking about it caitlin clark isn't the entire picture and so my goal was to have a more mature conversation with lots of different voices that acknowledge her presence and acknowledge what she did for our segment but also kind of amplify the players the cards the arrows the collectors that came before happened during caitlin and it will persist until the hobby forever like it i think in one of our season one two or three i can't remember and one of them i said like caitlin clark is not the beginning and she is not the end but she is a very very long chapter i think that this is true and i think that you know season four was kind of the way to hopefully bring that to light for people that either are new to the hobby or to this part of the hobby or to people that have been here that are like damn what happened to my segment like you know what what what happened here hopefully this season can kind of help us figure out those answers and we can kinda set it down and be like alright season four you are a book you are a textbook and i can come back and read you and read a chapter by chapter start on chapter six start start on chapter nine it doesn't matter but but if you start at the beginning it's kind of this this oral history and so yeah i think it's evolved from what i thought was possible it took it was a labor of love and i i do wanna say thank you i mean we're we're how long is this podcast i haven't said thank you to the guests yet but each and every guest that we had on were incredible for the amount of time i asked a lot of our guests out of research and to bring their own personal perspectives in and i think you know i got a lot of comments from folks saying they were unlocking characters it felt like i built this whole cast and now everybody's and everybody in the community is kind of like you know brought to light these different people and yeah i had a really good time but it it's way bigger than what i thought it was going to be when we started yes and i will say that i really did enjoy the episode with john on caitlin clark i was loving it i was like i i love this perspective and it's like maybe it's because it's just all about my favorite player but that one stood out to me as just a really fun and interesting way to learn and listen to somebody who has been in it for a very long time and now it was his thoughts and approach on the current kind of headliner in the community and i just thought it was very interesting how someone handles that from a dealer perspective and from a collector perspective there was so much good perspective in in that chat for sure when i was thinking at the beginning of the season you know i had this kind of like layout of okay we're gonna have how many episodes how many of them are gonna have guests versus me kind of me and you or just me by myself i was doing the mapping and i had like a list of fifty collectors and john was at the top of that list i was like this guy is like a cornerstone of our hobby he deserves to tell the story of what kinda changed with caitlin clark and i that that episode got a lot of really good feedback and and shout out to john for bringing that perspective because yeah he he knew what he was talking about for sure yeah it was it was not you know and it was the other thing i i will just call out specifically because i although john john is a male and yeah kyle is a male and ryan is a male but you gave females voice and there was more female perspective in this season than maybe any other season of any other show that i have listened to and that taught me something and i'm hearing and learning different perspectives i'm thinking about the rookies corner like maybe it's because it's fresh in my mind but it's like how cool is this it's just like two females who have different thoughts and ideas about how they collect but they're coming together around wnba cards to not only share their passion but to start a business around it and you you still that's like not the story you hear in the hobby every day and it's like i think as i got done with that was like without this the wnba card podcast and you facilitating these conversations like would i even know this story existed and i'm like probably not so i just that's what i feel very i feel very proud of this show because it is a part of what i am building and it's also offering voices that aren't the typical normal voice that we've grown so accustomed to hearing and seeing through how the hobby shares and displays content so that is like that's probably the number one like with a bullet i just wanna make sure like that point gets conveyed because i think it's really really important especially as this industry continues to grow and expand it's important to have a variety of voices it's important to have different genders talk it's important to have you know different races different cultures be represented and i think that's the best part about the wnba it's like there's no other league that's more inviting and i feel the same with the community of cards and collectors it translates it radiates from like how it it's organized and shows up on tv or when we're at an arena watching a game all the way through the collecting community and like that's a story like and i don't know if a lot of people on the outside understand that that's a really powerful story and it can be told through vehicles like the wnba card podcast i agree when we when we talked when we were like brainstorming about this season that was one of the things i called out it's like i want some women in the hobby represented on this podcast we're talking about women in sports we're talking about collecting women's sports cards it's important that we do that and i think it made sense our first episode with the guest was cindy at giants legends and that episode was all about representation back in the day like back in like the nine early nineteen twenties into the nineteen forties and even earlier than that and to kinda like set the stage for the season with that kind of frame in mind thought was really powerful and to hear from folks that have been here for a long time and to get feedback from you guys like i i heard feedback from people that are saying like i've been watching the wnba since it started and you know i've been collecting cards since it started and i haven't found a huge you know circle of women collectors either on the internet or in my town and i was able to find folks through this podcast like that is like the highest compliment you could pass like possibly receive from me and so i was just excited to get folks in that kinda you know maybe don't have the same opportunity in other spaces like you're saying in terms of mainstream hobby media to give them a platform to be like talk about it like you exist you're out there and it it even translated over you know i set up at a couple shows throughout the the duration of the season and people would come up and it was a lot of women that said they were listening and that this is something that they wanted and it wasn't out there so yeah i just think that when i say like community driven or collector driven community focused like that's real and there's a reason why i say that in every episode is because i really am trying to do that and i want the community to be reflected on this podcast it's not just a bunch of old white guys collecting cards these days like that is not how it is like we need to show that that's that's the truth and so yeah i had a really good time with curating the guests that was one of my favorite parts question i have for you on just that front where the female voice in the hobby is so it's it's not represented i i feel like as well as the their volume and number of female collectors there actually are and i'm i'm i'm hopeful many of you out there are listening and you collect and you're like this is my space this feels like a place where i'm not i don't have an outlet to listen to other female collectors do like can you maybe based on the feedback based on guests maybe what have you learned on that front because i think when i was into maybe year two of just doing stacking slabs for fun that was like i i got to like year two and i my wife got pregnant and found out we were having a girl and i just remember like thinking about like i wonder if my daughter will be a collector like me and then i i remember just like being like i'm not like seeing many female collectors in this space but the more i started to explore meet people i learned that there's a lot of female collectors actually and i just wasn't like looking in the right spaces or wasn't connected to the right people but i would love to maybe get your perspective on that front like what what have you learned about like the the female gender in collecting this season like based on feedback or just conversations you had with guests i think it's really real and i'll like give some examples personally like when i walk around a card show you know you you're in the minority being woman you just feel it you can feel it you can feel people you know when i'm set up at this at a table with my buddy and he's a guy you know they're all they're gonna people walk up to the table they'll default to asking the guy well hey what you ask on that card well that's my card so you can ask me face to face that's a real thing that happens that most people they just brush that off they're like oh that that's normal interaction no no it's not you feel that twenty times in a show and it adds up this podcast and having guests on that identify as female makes that space so much more welcoming it makes it feel so much more real it's like you feel validated to be there nowadays when i set up i set up with a bunch of women and and a couple guys of course i still love my guy friends but when you've got a table full of women setting up with cards you will see women collectors flock to those tables because of the fact that it feels like home it feels like a space that you're not gonna be questioned that oh why do you like cards who are you getting this card for do you need help with that do do you need like me to talk down to in a condescending way about cards and values this podcast took that i tried my best to take that out of it like i want the podcast to be a place where there's no questioning no matter if you're new no matter if you've been here for a hundred years that this is a space that you can come and you can feel comfortable talking about women's basketball cards without somebody being on your ass about caitlin clark or about whatever like it's it's a space for conversation for people that really love it and so yeah i i learned a lot and i think that there is a lot to be said about the fact that there are a lot of us there are a lot of women collectors in the hobby and as the hobby continues to be something that's cool you know when i was growing up it was not cool to collect cards you were a nerd and you didn't talk to your friends about collecting cards it was a kinda independent thing now there's little girls that come up to my table or you know there's like groups of little girls that come up that's different and as that shifts we need more space for them to feel welcomed and to feel like they're integrated fully into the community and if this podcast move that needle point one percent good enough for me love to hear it that's awesome yeah i guess i wanna talk about like a little bit of what i learned in terms of how the space has shifted throughout the season or not just the season but like when we're talking about starting in like the nineteen twenties and then we get to the nineteen nineties with the wnba and then we get to the early two thousands and things that have changed i guess i wanna ask you too i wanna get your thoughts since you listen to it was there like anything that surprised you as we walked through the era about how the wmba card collecting space has grown like did anything strike you as kind of like i didn't see that as a turning point but now i look at it differently after these conversations may maybe it was because it was multiple episodes and it was with let's see here garrett and joy on the rittenhouse stuff maybe it was because rittenhouse was a thing way before i even consider or thought about collecting wnba cards but the common thread that continue to come up in conversation not just those two but just in general was i wish i would have bought more of this stuff when it when i could and when it was cheap and i found that so interesting and you just think about all of that that era of wnba cards and rittenhouse and all the players that who have rookie cards in that era and on card autographs and i just find that so interesting where it wasn't that long ago but you can literally look at a manufacturer and a type of cards where everybody had the opportunity to buy whatever they wanted and as much of whatever they wanted in a moment but in that moment people didn't and now people look back not that long ago and say man i wish i had access to this stuff i wish i would have bought more of this stuff and it just is like a signal to me of just how we in this space gets not just wnba's card collecting space but just the hobby in general gets so infatuated with certain things and it just it make it we it makes us blind to everything else and so i everything else and so i just i find that so interesting because it was a consensus it was almost every guest who had been collecting during that time who didn't pick up stuff in the in rittenhouse stuff like felt that or expressed that and you hear it enough it causes you to go back and be like even though i wasn't collecting during this time let me start to investigate and the more i investigate and explore not only the distribution of the product how it was packaged the pop reports the current sales it when you when you research and you're doing your own discovery on top of hearing other collectors talk about it it makes you more interested so that was like one takeaway it's like i have not bought a written i try to i'm trying to be as methodical and calculated as possible because there was so much passion and so much information yeah i wanted to go run at whatever a guest said and talked about every week but i had to like restrain myself i told myself like wait until it's over like reflect on it all and then go back and so like now i'm at the point where this is like the punctuation point for the season now i'm to the point of like trying to like synthesize what i learned and the first thing i think about is just the rittenhouse era and just those cards and a desire to just dig in and learn more so that that's something that definitely stood out to me i i agree completely those two rittenhouse episodes in particular i got so many people in my dms or in person saying like i bought my first rittenhouse card and then at no point am i trying to like influence people to buy certain things but i was like that is indicative of a good job by a guest of showing the importance significance and just like you know why these cards matter and to like not only elevate the voices that are saying it but also the cards like we talk about the quote unquote disrespect index in like a past season the rittenhouse cards should get like a multiplier of disrespect index plus the the the players themselves and so yeah i felt like those rittenhouse episodes really were a turning point in terms of just like bringing some of the the stories to life and giving giving those cards maybe a second push in our community and hopefully you know you like i said if we're just doing like point one percent that's perfect for me like a point one percent shift in hobby perspective on putting some more respect on those cards hell yeah i'm here all for it i wanna say one more thing on the rittenhouse front because this is something that i we have said in passing and talking about sales and data i look at the rittenhouse stuff and i think about the encarte autographs and there's something very very special about the encarte autograph that is highly desirable and it is getting popularized right now in this moment in this fanatics tops run era where they have full control full control of these signings full control of influencing these athletes because of the relationships to make certain cards extra special the inscription of it all is such a chase right now everyone wants inscriptions everyone wants that personal touch they wanna feel the moment they wanna get the mvps or the number or just funny quirks from the athletes like people want that in the hobby more now than ever before this go go back and look at the go back and happening yeah exactly it's been happening so it's like i see where the hobby is going and then i hear these episodes and i go look over the rittenhouse stuff and i'm just like holy shit there is i mean i can't keep everything every time i go back and look or think about it i'm like this is really cool and also like final point on this i look at the sales i look at these cards and it continues to get elevated because there are a collector or collectors that are finally just like you know what i'm not waiting for this auction i'm just gonna smash bin on this because i believe in it so much so you're like getting the real pulse and the feelings of the community around this product in real time and it continues to get elevated through sales price content and it's just it's just a lot of fun to follow and i'm i'm having a blast it it feels like we're playing catch up and it feels like the distance between reality and you know what the market is showing is is finally catching up and it feels so good to be a part of it and to be like elevating those stories for sure so i completely agree one thing that i wanted to talk about brett and you kinda touched on it a little bit by talking about tops is this idea of like community and collector driven versus like manufacturer driven as we went through the season one of the segments that we did in each of the episode was about key players and key manufacturers meaning like who is actually producing and distributing these cards and how does that the differences in that between the arrows contribute to collector behavior and so i just wanted to get i wanna share my thoughts on that and see where it's heading i think that you know when we talk about kind of in the last episode we had the rookies corner on and they talked about this idea of the collector mindset versus the investor mindset and balancing those two things at the same time and so i kinda wanted to draw a parallel between community driven and manufacturer driven and so when i think about that i think one of the key takeaways going back to rittenhouse that i got from the season is that rittenhouse really relied on scarcity as a fact as a as a factor of demand whereas panini is going the opposite way it's almost too too accessible or very accessible in that balance of being like okay i'm a collector i'm subject to what decisions the manufacturer makes but at the same time a collector also has you know in order for a manufacturer to make any money they have to respond to the collector's needs and i just feel like at some point we're gonna have this balancing effect especially as tops takes over the license for everybody else wma is still with panini for the time being will panini kind of my question is do you think that panini will kind of contract and try to rely on the methods that collectors have given such good feedback about which is i like short prints i like on card autos i like game use patches now they lose the rights to a lot of other things and they're putting a lot more chips a lot more of their chips in the same basket of wnba does that kinda like balance the scales a little bit i don't know that's that's my question i i wish i had an answer for you i will say this and this is not to disparage panini and prism and the brands i have a majority of my collection is panini cards so i have a fondness for the brand and what they've produced what i can say is that i don't have the confidence that they're going they will have listened they will have adopted they will have changed their ways i wish i could say i did i just don't i have no signals they've showed me nothing to say already they're so muted right now it feels so muted and it sucks because the wnba cards are in this space with panini right now and it feels very muted it feels like i mean i'm like i'm getting my information from like linkedin posts from the brand i'm like what this is how i'm learning just feels so weird but then i look over at what tops and fanatics is doing and it is a master class in marketing it is a master class in launching a product it is a master class in connecting fans to cards through athletes having athlete participation like we just got done with the tops tops launch tops chrome launch in nba now then on the other side we've got football topskrum football coming back and launching and those just feel like such monumental moments in the hobby that now i'm like man i wish there was something like this for wnba cards and panini has such an opportunity to do that based on the relationships and i'm just not seeing it it still feels very much like the old world and what topps is doing feels and fanatics is doing it feels much like the new world and you could disagree with prices you could disagree with this and that but what where fanatics is at and where topps is at is where we are going and they are they are flying the plane right now and it feels like if you're not on that plane you're just getting left behind and forgotten about it almost feels like how with wma cards had rittenhouse and everybody else got panini that's right you know like it's almost like we keep doing the same cycles over and over and i just wonder when that cycle will be broken my hope is that panini says wow wma is growing at an unprecedented rate demand is growing at an unprecedented rate let's reflect that in our structure of production and distribution i have no idea maybe they should maybe they should listen to the wnba card podcast to get some insights on what collectors want but that would be like my that's why i wanted to bring it up it's kind of now we've done this whole okay where were we how did we get here we're here what's next and it just feels like i can only see one month at a time with panini right now i can only see one month ahead if that with releases so to see kind of the the future of our segment i'm i'm excited about it but i'm a i'm a little nervous and i feel like i kinda do have a little bit of that fomo with what's happening on other categories but at the same time you know panini's only been in wnba now what six years whereas panini for football was there for ten plus years or or for nba for ten plus years it'll be interesting to see when and if if it shifts for sure i i this is why i don't have any confidence caitlin and i hate saying this and i wanna be an optimistic participant here but oh man this is so frustrating i think about what they have access to and we've talked about this before they have access to the players who do they have exclusives with they have exclusives with caitlin and paige two of the biggest stars not only in wnba but in collecting right now and it's like what are we doing like what are we doing like i see one instagram reel from tops about the launch and i'm seeing tom brady promoting the product saying you know what like you pull a tom brady auto i'm getting on i'm doing a facetime in in any store of of vault by tom brady i'm getting on i'm doing facetime with you it's like that like changes the whole dynamic of going from just a hobby of people collecting cards to a a hobby that's creating experiences for people and experiences for people by connecting you to the athlete it's like if i was running it over there and of course i don't know the agreements and the deals but it's like dude how about one how about one instagram reel where you're at the fever facility and literally caitlin is opening up packs and talking about it and showing her personality because good lord knows she has one it's like what are we doing like what are we doing so i didn't think i was gonna get so fired up that's that's how i feel that's how i feel right now it feels like there's a gap and that kinda brings me to just like wrap it all together it's like there's a gap with panini right now there's a gap in content about this space there's a gap in voices being amplified we're all out there and we all want the same thing which is to collect cool cards of cool players that's like the goal and so hopefully you know this pod filled some of those gaps for you for the time being and hopefully moving forward but before we kinda like close-up today i did put out a a kind of blast to at w m g a card pod on instagram to ask people to provide any thoughts that they had on the season or questions i wanna say thank you to everybody that swiped up with nice things to say they made me i i screenshot everything that you guys send me and keep them in a folder and when i'm having a bad day i look at them and it makes me feel better so thank you but i do have a couple questions from the listeners brett maybe we can go through them and if you if you wanna chime in with an answer on them feel free but maybe we can start with number one from loyal listener mark at m j s sports cards he asked what's one card a guest brought up this season that made you think differently or more deeply i had one that stood out to me instantly when i saw it and it was ryan and it was when ryan was talking about i'll actually i have i'm gonna pull this up real quick because i think i found the sale it was this card right here when ryan was talking about the twenty twenty three bowman uchrome page becker superfractor one of one sale and he sold it on golden and it sold for twenty two thousand five hundred and seventy dollars and it was it's our first bowman and i i think about that and i think about that's obviously a monster sale it's not even a wnba card it's her new yukon jersey but that like image of paige winning a national championship in a yukon jersey in this era of nil transfer it's this card is such an important card it it comes at this like moment in time where college cards are being viewed as a not only a collectible item but a form of currency and it's one of if not the best player alongside clark her best card of this product and this product that's just forming and growing and this card creates a market for page cards even before her wnba cards come out and i think about the collector it's like he took a chance on buying the like spending the money he did to buy this card originally which i know wasn't cheap but then being like alright i need to capitalize on this opportunity so then i could go buy more yeah and it led to this monster sale on gold and so like this this card really got me thinking a lot differently about the possibilities of what's happening and like the college game is only getting better like it's only getting better the players are only getting better they're doing a better job of promoting the women playing and it's just i don't know like i was left thinking about this card in the sale i agree this was one of them that came to mind to me and it kinda single signaled legitimacy and conviction for me like i was like oh that's a big number you know like when you see numbers like that in a space that haven't hasn't previously seen them i think it's it's a real impact my answer was a cheaper card which is interesting my answer was the sue bird rookie game use patch from her first ever wma game when we talk about you know before about our gripes with panini or whatever manufacturer is the flavor of the month that we get to you know share our grievances about that was something that was special that happened in the early two thousands where you can actually be close to the athlete by having a piece of jersey worn in your first ever wnba game that's twenty years before the concept of the debut patch ever started folks like that's that's innovative that's something real and it's something that a lot of people don't know about when that card was mentioned i think on two separate episodes i think both anne marie and elodie both brought them up i was like that is a mount rushmore card to me in terms of significance in the hobby and it doesn't even cost like it's not even close to that paige becker's card and it still has kind of that same impactful thing of just like coolness factor you know so that was the card that came to mind for me i love that perspective alright next question brett i'll hit you with this because i think that you know you just talked about the college game this comes from at d sun cards how do you think the transfer portal will impact cards given that so many of the bowman university autos are freshmen from the mcdonald's set but over half of them seem to be transferring schools i think the uncertainty of it i think is exciting i think as someone who doesn't like structure i don't like to be told what to do i don't like people saying this should be more important than that i like to figure it out myself i think the transfer portal of it all leads the decision on which one is the best or the favorite up to the collector and this was very apparent during the conversation with sam and christian around your question around the juju card it was like they it was like no one could really lay you could it was like which one like well this is the first well this one's usc that's an ugly jersey photoshop and i just like i think that conversation is great and i think that conversation is only going to continue as these players are on more teams and i don't know like it's uncertain i who knows but i i like that there's not someone who's just like there's not this rich history telling us this is what matters it's like we gotta figure it out on our own i will cosign that i have nothing to add to that i agree completely next up is an interesting question also from the same user asked where do you see products from unrivaled athletes unlimited and eventually project b fitting into our hobby long term i'll let i'll let you do you have a take on this i i do i have a take which is not a good answer i'll i'll say that i i i will say i don't know how i see it fitting in the concept of me wanting to collect the project b card that has some like saudi arabian like logo on it does not really appeal to me compared to a minnesota lynx card unrivaled like i've been disappointed in how they've utilized that panini has utilized that that license this year because all of it came from instant drops which to me are not like you know not they're good like i've owned a couple of them and they look nice and if that's your thing great but they're all sticker autos and they all have to be purchased you know one by one kind of like in a drop format as opposed to the traditional pack opening so unless like these leads also take some feedback from collectors into what they want i kinda see them as being alternative options for folks that maybe want something more accessible or something very specific as opposed to being like this broad general stroke of like really a lot of collector demand so i don't see them as being flagship or competing with the panini license at the moment but i do think that you know as the tent gets bigger you're gonna need to have different options for different kinds of folks yeah i'll just add i'll just focus in on unrivaled we create these thoughts in fantasy land when we see certain things on the internet and my mindset was that we were going to get standalone unrivaled product and but i manufactured that thought in my head and it it's just it's disappointing because i think there's so much momentum around that brand this is not a shit on panini episode although it's coming out that way panini instant versus tops now it's like night and day it's night and day like the activation around it the whole promotion around it and so it's so disappointing that that's what you were getting i do think that if there was a like unrivaled prism product the league itself is so phenomenal at telling stories promoting the characters getting selling out arenas like they could be the marketing machine behind it into it's beyond it's like it blows my mind and this is coming from an individual like i have marketed products and launched products my entire career and it just blows my mind that i can see that and be like why we're losing all these license why don't we partner with this league and make cool shit like there's so much stuff we can do so disappointing because i would i would be very very interested in those cards i just would because the the the on the court product and the presentation of that league is is fantastic i couldn't agree more i think in my like dream state of unrivaled cards like this is just me talking is like i always when we talk about like what it would look like in your head and then what comes out is completely different i was like what if they did like location based drops where you could only buy unrivaled cards in miami like imagine like the scarcity factor that comes with that the idea of like then then being very condition sensitive because you know you had a you could rip them in the in the stadium itself and then you have to bring them home lots of people are traveling to and from like to me that's like prime real estate for a card manufacturer to do something different something innovative and it just feels like there's all these gaps and we're like begging for it and we once again are just getting like scraps so i don't know that's that's my take on those that's such a good idea in that way that pro like fanatics is do like wrestlemania happened they do a wrestlemania exclusive and you can only buy it at the universe store if you're in las vegas so it's that is that is happening in other segments and it's like that is such a good idea caitlin yeah charge me that like if you could just like invoice me a panini when you do that for the commission on that i'd appreciate it okay last last listener question of the day comes from ramjam sportsguards asking has going through the season changed how you personally approach collecting wma cards moving forward it i'll just say what i've already said it's it's got me engaged in a whole new way i i love learning i'm very curious there's only so much you can do on your own and just getting other perspectives it it's opened up and it's unlocked some doors for me that i am like opening and getting ready to jump in and will it lead to me buying new cards i don't know maybe but it's the learning and the experience through learning is is is had me think about just this space in a whole new light fair enough i would say my answer to this is radically yes i think my approach has radically changed to collecting wnba cards post this season and what i mean by that is i feel like i've been forced to slow down for a long time i was just looking at you know the cards that were right in front of me the cards that are available on ebay the cards that you can see and by having these conversations i was able to kinda unearth what doesn't exist out there what's been hoarded in collections what hasn't sold in twenty years what's still in a freaking can that you can you open up in a can you know what i mean like this this season forced me to slow down reevaluate what i want my collection to look like in ten years instead of ten months and to me that's kinda where these conversations were able to bring different perspectives different collector mindsets different philosophies and take my favorites from each person and try to create my own so i i would say yes it it has changed how i approach wmba card collecting and it's changed it a lot that's awesome i love it alright brett we we maybe have time for one more question and then we can close now let's do it okay how about a little hindsight twenty twenty question if you could go back and like place yourself in one era to collect those wnba cards think of the episodes that we had this season what era would you go to and why i i've i'm thinking about this and this is such a good question but i'm such a prism that i would probably just go back to to covid i'd i'd go back to the pandemic give me i'll tell you what i would take a year of covid and all that we've had in our country good bad and the ugly give me the year put me back in my home but let me go and spend all my money on the debut prism set and all the blacks all of it because it was all in front of many of us and the few that had been collecting for a long time they probably knew that these were cool cards but they probably hadn't connected the dots that maybe they should just buy everything they saw i would buy everything i saw if if if i were back in that era so take take me put the put the mask on me get me in front of the television get my phone in my hand we'd be in the infancy days of the stacking slabs podcast and i'd be spending a shit ton of money on the sabrina year that's what i'd be doing oh yeah whatever you want brett have you can do that like i will not be joining you i'll say i'll say twenty twenty was definitely top of mind for me just as like somebody who has been inundated with like prism supremacy like i totally feel that but for me i think i'd go back to twenty eighteen twenty nineteen just a couple years before let me get like age of fee let me let me just be there early and to see like see fee win rookie of the year and see aja like you know in her infancy that would be where i would go back to plus you get kinda like the transition era where you're like you get both the rittenhouse the good of the rittenhouse and the start of panini with don russ straddle between those two and just sit pretty i i'd i'd go there for sure that's my my pick that that might be the right answer just so we don't have to deal with the masks and covid and the chaos going on around our country during that time yeah that that maybe from like an a peer collecting standpoint though i'm with you twenty twenty if i could just go back and spend like literally my entire college tuition on it we'd be take it all we'd be good like we'd be sitting nice for sure alright well thank you to everybody that submitted questions thank you to everybody that came on to the season to the to the episodes this season it means a lot to me that you guys showed up and listened every week if you didn't catch an episode you know each of these episodes can be consumed like standalone so i'd encourage you to to try to listen to them we had some awesome voices on some great cards some awesome sales shout out to card ladder for sponsoring this season they've been instrumental in you know showing showing proof that the wnba card hobby is here and it's here to say so i hope you guys took something from this and thank you brent for making it possible and giving me the platform to talk talk to people about wnba cards and i'll i'll leave the listeners with this there will be a season five i don't know when it's coming i'm not sure what we have in store but i'm excited about what's gonna be happening but you know in the meantime go relisten to to an episode of season four thank you caitlin and thank you everybody for tuning in each week when this season was getting done i looked at it i was like oh man i'm the episode next and i just sent caitlin a note i'm like i wanted i want you to do more so the i think we're telling people there will be more we don't know exactly what it is yet but there will be more for sure thanks guys