Welcome back, loyal listeners, the Stacking Slabs podcast to season three episode four of the WNBA card podcast. My name is Caitlin. I go by at cold lunch cards on the Instagram machine and on every other corner of the Internet.

I'm joined by my amazing cohost, Brett McGrath at stacking slabs, and we're con we're excited to continue to deliver collector driven and community focused content to your headphones, to your earbuds, to your radio, to your car speakers, to wherever you're listening to us today.

We're glad to have you guys here.

Brett, how are you feeling? You know, Halloween is over here at Stacking Slabs HQ, and I think we're trying to bypass Thanksgiving. Although, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. But we are eyes on the prize.

It's like Christmas season's already begun. My oldest daughter, my wife, told my oldest daughter about American Girl dolls, and she's like, when I grew up, my family couldn't afford American Girl dolls, and we didn't have one.

So I think she always wanted to introduce it to her daughter. And I'll tell you what.

If they say, like, collecting is in the blood, I I think that's true because I'm I can't tell you how many videos on YouTube we have watched of, like, fifteen minute influencer videos in the American doll Girl doll segment of, like, setting up the hotel set up and all the bells and whistles.

And it's it is, like, on the surface level, it's, like, crazy. And I'm like, but I said to my wife today, and this relates to cards and collecting.

I just said, you know, I was so into action figures and cards as a kid that if this content of people just like showing me their stuff and set up existed when I was a kid, I it's all I would want to watch. So it's really fun right now.

Tis the season. But for me as a dad, it's fun to be getting to begin to see the seeds get planted. And I I think we've got a collector on our hands. I've seen some things that I'm like, that's what I would do if I were you.

So needless to say, American Girl doll season is upon us here at Stacking Slabs HQ, and mom and dad have to get ready to, make some purchases that won't be cards, but they'll make they'll make, my kid really happy.

Wow. That is amazing. I'm glad to hear that you have a collector growing up in your household.

I never went through the doll phase. I was in my card phase from birth till now. So maybe you can kind of, like, convince her to move to the card segment, but it sounds like that's a long term plan for you.

I'm not sure which is more affordable because looking at the American Girl doll market and set up and accessories, and I'm just like, I think this is about as just as expensive, if not more expensive than if we were to just buy her a box of Don Ross to rip.

You know? It sounds like we need to get in contact with the card manufacturers that produce the Labooboo set to produce the American Girl doll set directly for Brett McGrath and Indie. Seems like a no brainer.

How are you? I'm doing well. Like you said, Halloween season is over. So now I'm just getting excited for, the cold fall here in Minnesota. I'm excited for basketball to start up again with college hoops finally around the corner.

It feels it feels good to have that back on my on my TV screen for sure. Yes. It, it's seasons are changing, sports endings, new sports beginning, but cards are always constant.

So I'm excited for today's chat. Yeah. Before we tip it off, why don't we plug our sponsors today, Brett? I'd like to shout out Great Lakes Trading Cards Co like we do every week.

They ran a very successful women's sports card show last week at Dual Citizen Brewery. I got lots of feedback from folks who attended, saying, you know, this first of its kind type of event.

People were excited to be able to walk into a show and not question whether they were gonna find women's sports card, but be guaranteed a wide variety and of selection.

And sounds like Chris and Spencer, the owners of, Great Lakes are thinking about doing this again, hopefully, multiple times.

So I'm excited to keep you guys up to date, if and when those start to hit the calendar. But per usual, guys, support your local card shop, especially if it's Great Lakes in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Saw some photos and videos from that event. Incredible. Love to see it. And, yeah, I would love to see more of those events happen throughout the country and try to support them any way we can.

I wanna shout out our good friends at Card Ladder for being the official data provider of the WNBA card podcast. Their this show wouldn't be possible without Card Ladder, so I wanna thank our good friends there.

And I am really excited for the topic at hand today. I'm before we, like, introduced it formally and, obviously, if you're listening to this, you probably saw the title and description.

You can gather some perspective. But maybe Caitlin is this is like we're this is like dreamland scenario. I've I said in the opening that, you know, when you're in this period of time where it WNBA is not gonna happen for a while.

Obviously, we got college hoops around the corner and, unrivaled starting up at the beginning of the year. But, you know, you you gotta fill the space with some, Dreamland content, and I think we've got some here.

I wanna know in today's topic, I'll introduce it, is if you ran Panini, how what would you do? How would you fix the WNBA card segment of it?

When you've I guess, when when this came across to your desk and you first saw that this was the topic, and, obviously, you were going to have to provide your color commentary on any questions I made up and asked.

I'm like, what was going on in your head? Does this make you feel comfortable?

Are you ready to go? Or, like, what's your perspective before we get into it? I'm, like, really nervous, and I thought about it for, like, five seconds when it first hit my brain, and I was like, oh my god.

You know, this sounded so good in theory of being the CEO of Panini, but I'm scared to death, and this is, like, the hypothetical CEO scenario.

So I think it's a very thankless job that gets a lot of criticism despite the fact that they're driving our entire community forward. Without them, there would be no product.

So as much as I will have some suggestions and things that I would change, at this moment in my life, I could not be prepared for that amount of criticism and feedback, especially unsolicited. I'll tell you that. I love the honesty.

I love the transparency. That's what we do here. I'll probably add my 2¢ in, when I feel appropriate. But to give you, the listener, the background on why this is a topic, it really started last week or whenever that happened.

The when the rumor mill got turned up. And I try not to respond to rumors. I try not to, like, add perspective because the news cycle shifts and changes so quickly.

But I got so many questions from individuals about, hey. What do you think about this rumor of fanatics buying Panini? And I my comment on it basically was like, it wouldn't surprise me. But I just it's rumors.

It's hard to get into that. And then we saw Collect per put out an article, and Collect's article essentially suggested that they were talking to some high up top sources at, Fanatics, and there's no no deal is imminent.

So it's interesting when these things get spun up.

But when stuff like this gets spun up, it's fun to speculate. It's fun to, like, figure out, okay. Well, if we were in charge, what would we do? What wouldn't we do? What would we change?

And so that's what we're going to do right now. I'll say this. From a from a Panini license perspective, in all of the and I Caitlin, I'd love I'm gonna turn this back to you just to see if you've seen anything different.

In all of the articles, in all of the content, in everything that I've consumed regarding the WNBA license, there is no, next year that WNBA license is moving over to fanatics.

It sounds like from everything that I've consumed, and I don't know how long, but it sounds like Panini has this license for the foreseeable future.

Have you read or seen anything differently regarding kinda license ownership? That's been my understanding as well, Brett.

But I will say it does have a bit of a, if statement there, which is if Panini's viewing the WNBA as simply a component of the NBA, which I wouldn't, you know, put past them, I think we could be a little bit well, we could be reading into it a little bit by saying that, but that's an option as I don't know if Panini if if the WNBA goes hand in hand with the NBA.

If you get one, you get the other or vice versa. And so, the lack of that clarity or on that distinction does raise a couple questions for me. But there has been I haven't seen anything explicit saying WNBA is moving.

Only only NBA, I have seen that kind of language around. This is what we can tell you, and Caitlin shared me shared with me a release, schedule for Panini for I think it was the rest of the year. And so we can share what we know.

And what we know and, obviously, things change, release dates change, but we know, obviously, Don Russ just came out on December December should be a great month for even though WNBA is nowhere to be seen on the court, and it's the off season.

It should be a great month if You're in WNBA and you have cash to spend on the holidays, like, here you go.

But it sounds like we're getting impeccable on December 4, which is a first time prod or first time WNBA product, and we're going to get Prism on December 11.

You know, I don't wanna be a skeptic here, but to to think that Impeccable and Prism are gonna come back come out back to back, I'm I'm I'm gonna be a little skeptical on that.

What do you say, Caitlin? I'm not holding my breath. That would be nice. It would be cool, especially to have them, like, pretty tight timeline next to each other.

I would like it, but, you know, this would be optimistic thinking, I think. Yes. And I think if memory serves me correctly, 2024 prism, I think, was right after the holidays is when that came out.

So, yeah. Anyways, December, we've got cards coming. Also, right around the corner, although there hasn't been any update, I would imagine because unrivaled is going to be, tipping off in January.

Maybe we will see the beginning of the unrivaled and Panini license come to fruition based on us just seeing a picture, Instagram picture, and that being announced by unrivaled, you know, during last season.

So there's stuff happening. We're excited.

But what I wanna post just generally before we get into the details is, Caitlin, if you were running Panini right now, you're a fan of the WNBA, you're you have a podcast about the WNBA, what would you do to elevate the WNBA based on everything we know?

And everything we know is NBA license, Fanatics and Topps, NFL license, Fanatics and Topps is imminent.

This opens the door for more of a focus on women's basketball cards and a license that is only gaining traction and momentum. But just the core question, what comes to your mind first? Like, what would you do in this scenario?

Well, I think we just hit on one of the big pain points, which is the lack of transparency in this entire schedule release, what these products look like, who's gonna be in them, are they gonna are they gonna exist next year?

I think some more transparency around the planning and the scheduling would be my first order of business at Panini, which I'm sure is much harder, to do in practice than it is by me just saying it.

But that would be my first order of business. I think we're getting into we'll get into some of the more specifics of how I would make that happen, but I would also focus on the products themselves.

So it's not only about increasing the transparency and the clarity for collectors to know what to expect so that they can plan efficiently and around their, collecting north stars, but I would also, hopefully, make some improvements to the existing or or potential future products that could hit the market.

I love it.

Let's we're gonna give, Panini the benefit of the doubt in this one, or at least I'm going to try to knowing that, yeah, you've had some behemoths that you've been tending to and putting resources around in, but they're no longer here.

So we're talking about future state. And we're gonna try to not just make like, we both love Panini products. So we're we're not here to, like, with our pitchforks.

We're just here to dig into this a little further. And maybe we'll start, on a positive note. And, Caitlin, what do you think Panini has gotten right with the WNBA license since they've had it?

So I think they've done quite a few things. Right? Because we're still here, and we have an entire podcast dedicated around this lane. So let me just start with that headline.

I wrote down three things that I thought captured the wins that Panini has had since they took over, which was they've kept it relatively lean, meaning the product cycle hasn't been too oversaturated.

I mean, it's we can dig into it. But I think, in general, it's been an appropriate number of releases, and the cards haven't been overprinted into oblivion, as much as in other lanes.

The second thing that I wrote down is that they've consistently put stars at the forefront of their product.

They did capture the Caitlin Clark moment. They, you know, hell, they even made an entire product about Caitlin Clark. They, had an entire rookie royalty product.

So what your feelings on those may differ, but the truth of the matter is that they do not ignore the stars of the league, especially the young ones. And then the third thing that I put down is that they've added legitimacy.

Prior to Panini entering the market of the WNBA, Rittenhouse was kind of seen as this outsider. It was a different kind of manufacturer that people weren't familiar with.

It didn't have that sort of, quote, unquote, authenticity or legitimacy because of its lack of comparison to other lanes like the NBA or NFL or other big leagues.

I think that Panini entering the market and showing that consistency across lanes really built legitimacy for collectors.

That meant not only for collecting personal collections, but also for the market. We've seen big sales, big money, enter the market, and I think that that has created, a sense of urgency and a sense of legitimacy among collectors.

So those were the three things that I put in where, you know, lean, stars, and then legitimacy.

I wanna just dig into a couple of the things you said because I find it interesting, and I never thought about it like this where it's like, yes.

I the the there has not been any oversaturation of WNBA product, and, yes, they have focused on the stars.

I think what's interesting and something that we've never talked about up until this is ever we and everyone else was so focused on rookie royalty and being like, yeah.

Like, this really isn't for us, and, yeah, we would have wish we would have done things differently.

And I think in a moment where you're dedicating an entire product to that rookie class and specifically because, you know, Clark is in it, What Panini did not do, which you see other companies do at times, is just start releasing products just to release products.

And I guess, like, from your point of view, would you rather have had, like, let's just say, three to four new products from Panini every month because Caitlin Clark was driving the market?

Or would you rather have the current situation where you have this rookie royalty product that exists and we've talked about not for us, but you've got slower release cycle and slower, minimal release schedule?

Like, what what what do you think as you, like, reflect on those two sides you prefer? I think the alternative timelines of what you just suggested are much scarier to me as a collector than where we're at right now.

I'm pretty happy with where we're at. I'm gonna have a lot of things that I think could bolster it and make it better.

And, you know, I think Panini could make a lot more money if they took took some of this advice, but I I don't think it was the end all be all of rookie royalty.

I just kind of ignored it and moved on with my life. It wasn't for me, and, you know, that's okay. I think some things aren't for everybody, and some of the things that I'm gonna suggest aren't gonna be for some of you listeners.

So my point being that, where we're at right now, I can imagine much scarier scenarios. You and I both. Where where on the alternative side, where do you think Panini has missed opportunities?

I think the timing has been a mess, truly. Like, so many releases not only are delayed, but there's no, clarity on when to expect them. Not only that, but they've kind of missed out on some of these big events in women's basketball.

So, the two that I wrote down were the Olympics. It's like we had almost no cards or anything around the Olympics when those happened. The the the other thing that I thought about was these new franchises that are entering.

There has been a lack of regard for the Golden State Valkyries who made a historic push into the playoffs and captured the hearts and minds of one of the biggest basketball fan bases in the world, which is the Bay Area.

And in Don Ross, to not include them in their, purple uniforms, I thought was a huge missed missed opportunity.

So I think those expansion franchises, are also a place where Panini could have capitalized more. The other thing that I thought I called out as a good thing on the wins is that they focused on the stars, and I think that's good.

But at the same time, there's a lot of players that, you know, collectors love that aren't those big names, and they aren't, you know, sec first or second year rookies.

I think that, you know, sometimes we get really caught up in the hype and I understand that that's where money is generated. But I'd love to see more focus on some of the vets and even some of the legends.

Because Panini wasn't there at the time of their, careers, I'm speaking about players like Candace Parker or Maya Moore or, you know, Diana Taurasi was in there because she played for twenty years, but, like, they weren't at the beginning of their careers.

I think there was more opportunity to spotlight some of the players that, you know, built the foundation for this league instead of just focusing focusing so heavily on the young up and coming talent.

And then the final thing that I thought, which I'll get into more is the the releases themselves.

It felt kind of like a rinse and repeat strategy up until this year of Prism, Donros, and Origins, and then that's it. And that felt very autopilot to me of Panini.

It didn't feel like they were prioritizing new creativity or taking feedback from collectors. When Donner's came out in 2019, it was well received despite the fact that it was more of a niche market.

But then to not bring it back for another six years, I felt was a missed opportunity. So there's there's all these different things that I think that could enhance Panini's standing with the WNBA card collecting community.

But like I said, there were definitely a lot of wins. These were just some of the misses that stood out to me.

We don't have a lot to talk about because there's not a lot, and that's just the way it is. And I'm I I don't wanna put words in your mouth. I'm I'm just assuming your answer is not going to be rookie royalty.

But what what product that currently exists under the Panini umbrella do you think best represents what you or the general consensus want, as collectors? So I think me and the general consensus might be a little different.

So I'll go with the general consensus and how I read, the the masses, which I think I think goes back to 2019 Donros, which we've been, you know, talking about now for episodes and episodes in a row.

And I think that twenty nineteen Donros hit the nail on the head for so many reasons, but mostly because of its scarcity factor.

With a limited checklist, limited parallels, hot like, very highly desirable chases that weren't unattainable, those optic cards, and then an affordable entry price that, you know, set it up nicely for good resale market and good prices, but wasn't unaffordable for, casual collectors.

I felt like they killed it on the Donruss release, but then they moved away from it, like I said, and it didn't come back till this year, and they didn't incorporate those same wins that, you know, collectors have expressed that they liked.

So I think 2019 Donruss was really a good a good product that everybody can agree on is something that Panini should work towards. It wasn't my favorite product ever.

My favorite product is Prism, as I'm sure Brett probably agrees. But I think that, you know, from a general perspective, 2019 Don Ross was the one that really best represented what WNBA collectors wanted.

Don Ross, what how would you measure that product right now? And just in terms of excitement, momentum, what have you seen?

Do you would you say and I know it's it's only been a few weeks. Yeah. But how would you rate what's happening, whether it's the product itself, responsive product, all those things bundled together?

How would you rate kind of the what's what's going on with Donerous right now? Maybe, like, a b on the on the grading scale. I think like I said, there was a lot of room for an improvement.

I think the lack of Valkyrie uniforms coupled with the lack of optic, were misses that could have brought it up quite a lit quite a bit higher in my scoring criteria, as well as the price.

I think the price was very off putting. People were expecting this to be something that they could break into either in personal boxes or via breaking platforms, and I thought that that was a bit disappointing.

But the cards themselves look great, and I think they, people really like them. And I think people are chasing certain inserts or case hits like downtowns.

And I think that that was a win for sure. Yeah. I asked that question because I don't know. I'm just maybe I'm used to this just industry buzz that has been around WNBA cards and collecting that has been unprecedented.

But it just feels like it's not it's not it doesn't have, like, very strong momentum where I'm constantly seeing people post their cards.

And I think I try to, like you know, you've got Paige. You got the rookie. You you know, there's a lot to be excited about, but I don't know. I it might be a price point thing.

I think it's like collectors are just like, I'm not spending $500 on a box, and, like, I'm just gonna wait for singles to die down. So I was just curious if we haven't talked about that. But, I think I think yes.

I think yeah. I think I completely agree, by the way. But I think there were some new things thrown into the product that have really driven some of that excitement, whether it be, like, more of the, like, fun cards, like the mascots.

I've seen a lot of people getting hype about these, like, SSP mascots, which then we saw in the Bauminiuk Chrome football release. And so that feels like an opportunity that Panini is capitalizing on that people are excited about.

The problem with those is that they're super hard to hit. I've seen people open cases, and they don't get one. I watched on the football product.

I watched this is gonna I I let my hair down a little bit, everybody. I decided to do something I don't normally do. I bought into the the football product breaks, Bowman, Chrome U, and I I I will admit this.

I watched 11 cases, being broke, break broke broke. However you say it. And I like saw two mascot cards, like, the entire time. And so then I saw, someone later on, whose rips for card collector to hit the Wisconsin, Badger.

Bucky. Bucky. Yeah. Superfractor. So I've got some enough Wisconsin friends. They might have sent it to a couple. But, anyways, people love mascot cards. People love mascots.

That's my point. Like, these little kind of more gimmicky things, I think, are working well for them. Another one in the in the WNBA front is this these announcer cards, which are supposed to exist. I haven't seen them.

But, like, those more SP things, I think have really like, that's a that's a big win for them. I think those are good. It's just about lowering the the point of entrance for me, the price, and then it would people would respond better.

So we've talked about the loss of NBA and NFL, which I can't even like, I just think about it from a business perspective.

It's like you're losing your two biggest clients. It's like, okay. Obviously, not ideal, but it it frees up resources.

And if Panini owns the WNBA license, like, obviously, it allows them to maybe be more creative, invest more, put new people on those products. What do you think that might mean for the focus of w cards for the foreseeable future?

I wrote out three different cases of what I think could happen ranging from best case to more, like, the realistic probable case, and then finally, like, the worst case scenario. So let's start with, like, my optimistic best case.

I think, like you said, this frees up priorities, whether it be time, attention, money from Panini, to be more creative and explore with risk taking and different product differentiation, more storytelling weaved into the cards and the releases, and most importantly, more education around what the lane is and why people should care about them.

I think that's the best case. The more realistic case is I think they'll double down selectively, meaning, you know, flagship sets will be kept, new products will come out like impeccable, like we said.

But there won't be a ton of risk taking and there will be a proliferation of parallels.

And when I say that, I mean, you know, we saw donors from 2019 to 2025 just completely blow up parallel structure. Went from, you know, under 10 at the high mark in 2019 to almost 30 parallels.

That I think is going to continue no matter what. And then my my worst case scenario is that, you know, instead of becoming a priority, the Panini says, you know, this is just kind of an afterthought to us.

We're not prioritizing this. We don't see the value and we're gonna focus our attention elsewhere.

Personally, and, you know, we're biased. We have an entire podcast about it. I think that would be a complete, you know, complete malpractice, from business perspective.

But, you know, it is something that could happen and innovation could stall, and we could really see, the product just take a back seat to other places where they might explore more. So I think Panini's choice is is very simple.

Either they're going to use the WNBA to show they can build something. Something real, something with collectors, collector driven, content and collector driven products, or they'll watch somebody else do it.

And that other person or that other manufacturer is gonna scale it up and make a lot of money from it.

So I think either way, we're gonna see something happen. It's just whether or not, Panini is asleep at the wheel or not. Giving out a lot of, free advice in this episode. Yeah.

I'll I'll send my consulting fee, my rate card to Panini when they reach out. So we're gonna hit I figured we'll do a little, like, maybe draft style. I if we were in charge and hit, like, four rounds and just do it relatively quickly.

But I wanna start with product strategy, and we've just led up to this point. But just in the current form of what we see from Panini and it can be, like, what products stay?

What product goes? Would you build new ones? Like, if you were running product with the WNBA license at Panini, like, what what are the moves that you would make? People are not gonna like me.

I'm trimming it down. I'm trimming it down. We're going Prism, Don Russ, and Don Russ better have optic in it. Yes. And Origins. I'm keeping those three. No Select? No Select. And what what why are we why are we being minimal?

I think that that captures the three different levels of collecting. So Prism is the flagship. It's it's higher end, but not unattainable, has familiar parallels across both the WNBA and other lanes.

Donner Synoptic is more of that, like, low to mid tier, but it has the nostalgia factor of first year Panini paying o homage to, like, when they enter the market.

And then Origins, I think it's a WNBA classic. I don't care what anybody says.

I like it. I think you need a paper based card product, a thicker thicker card. They're a little bit, thicker in in their product themselves. And they're more artsy feel compared to, like, the shininess factor of Prism and Donruss.

So I'd keep those three. I like your train of thought, and I think less is more. I'm I'm slightly I'm I know Origins is like, OG, I'm taking Origins out, though. I'm gonna keep Donnerus. I'm gonna keep Prism.

And but I'm then gonna go, like, high end because it feels like you got low, mid, high, and I would probably go and and I'll there's a caveat here. It's only if you can get game use material, and I'm gonna go flawless.

And so but it's a similar mindset and mentality. Okay. Not not release, like, three products a month. I don't think that does any of my favors. Okay. You've convinced me. I'll add flawless as well, and I I would build one more.

How about that? Okay. Five total, Brett. So prism, donors with optic is the asterisk there. Origins, flawless, and then a really low end. I I think there needs to be a place for, like, cheap cards.

I don't think everybody needs to have expensive cards to be a collector, and I think that that is something that's overlooked because of the money. And I would put a score style product where it's, like, very, very low end.

I was gonna say this as you were talking through that. What just came to my brain is, how about some WNBA hoops? Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Something like that. We need something like that. Alright. Let's talk about case hits.

We have to. I feel like an advantage even if we're not chasing them or you're not chasing them like it that Panini has is case hit. So how like, how do you evaluate the current case hit landscape in WNBA cards?

I know it's obviously not as widespread because there are less products, but what would you focus on? Are there any specific inserts you would focus on? Would you cut anything? Like, what's your insert ran?

Oh. Oh, I didn't know I didn't know cutting was an option in my answer here. I would cut so many inserts. It's not even funny. But I did put down, like, a lot of the case hits that draw me in personally as a collector.

I don't know if they fall into my product release that I just named of those five different ones, but these are the case hits that to me stand out.

They're not just like a background that's shiny, but they're like a real there's some sort of connection there, whether it be to the player, the location of the franchise or the city, or a moment in time.

So the ones that I wrote down were night moves, stained glass, downtowns, moments, and a little wild card here, vestige.

So those were the ones that, you know, when I look them up in my saved searches across sports, they stand out to me.

And a common theme here is they're all, minus, like, the downtown, they're all pretty simple and art focused. The player is spotlighted as opposed to the background design.

They really sit on top of the card, on top of the design, and they're at the forefront. So those were the ones I don't know. Those those are the ones that kinda, like, just draw to me as a a collector. What about you?

I'll say, although, like, I'm not necessarily on team downtown, I would, for sure, keep the downtowns because it's it it is a magical moment where I feel like something card related, I can bring up in my household and have a conversation with my wife about it, and, like like, she gets it.

And, oh, I brought up the Nafissa Collier downtown because of the Juicy Lucy.

And, like, to me, that's like, I'm talking about this outside of my job to my wife. That says something. So, one thing that I would do, and I don't think this is a this exists.

But for me, this is like a personal thing. I would create some sort of insert or whatever because I think this is a growing trend in the WNBA that is appealing to me based on what I do professionally.

It's like, I would have, like, a media or creator, like, WNBA card of, like, you know, you throw Aliyah Boston, you know, whoever you want, And just, like, run, like, an insert set, like, 10 WNBA players who also moonlight as media personas.

That's something that would be, I think, innovative on topic, on trend, and, yeah. And you'd like it because it'd be, like, half fever players.

It'd be like Aliyah Boston, Sydney Colson, Sophie Cunningham, like, all of them that have podcasts. They need that. You got me. Alright. Let's move on to parallels and aesthetics.

I think part of the charm of the connection and that we have with WNBA collecting is some of the parallels that we know from other licenses translate, and it makes it makes us feel comfortable collecting it.

But just curious, like, is there any specific parallels that you, that maybe should only exist in WNBA or any just thoughts regarding, like, product, aesthetics, things like that?

I think this is my personal bias in here, but, like, simplicity always wins. I don't think we need to go overboard.

With that being said, the parallels, like, kinda stick out to me in the w where I see people collecting them more in the WNBA than other lanes, not meaning that they should be exclusive to the WNBA, but just ones that maybe should be emphasized or prioritized and kept are mojos and tie dyes.

I think that the out of 10 golds are really great, and I prefer them. But sometimes those can be a little bit more inaccessible price wise and inaccessible, to find and procure.

And so the emojis and the tie does are usually both respectively out of 25, and I think that gives people a little bit more cushion. They feel a bit more safer to to pick up those.

So those would be two that I would I would say stick out to me in the WNBA world of parallels. I could that that I'm just gonna, like, cosign that because I couldn't really come up with one, but I I think your response is really good.

I am I am excited to talk about the last round, which is round four, and this is marketing and distribution. I've got a lot of thoughts. Wanna hear yours.

How would you grow WNBA collecting in the culture, if you were running the show? Like, what moves would you be making? I think we're putting education at the forefront, which I know is kind of a stacking slabs pillar here.

But I think Yeah. In order I think so. I think so. I think, that it's really important to show and tell why collectors should care about things.

And I think as we see the boom in the WNBA, there needs to be more education around why this league is great, what makes the league great, and why you should collect their cards.

So I think whether that comes in the form of content, whether that comes in the form of more transparent schedules and expectations, or even like nostalgia.

I really liked how Panini and Donruss, this new Donruss product kind of show, throwed it back to Pinnacle, with the throwback set.

Like, that's another thing that I think Panini could do to really boost education is show where we came from.

So if you weren't aware of of Pinnacle, now Dhanris gives you that opportunity to explore it. So my big headline, if I was CEO and what I would change, it would be it would be education.

You know I'm about that. I I could probably do an entire episode on this topic, and I won't. I'll just say one thing. And I'll say this. I don't know the terms. I don't know the contract. I don't know what what's possible.

But this is where I it feels like money is being left on the table. One thing you you have a lot of things to your advantage, but let's just say this. And I'm I'm I'm gonna make it exclusive to one person.

You can fill in other people too. But Panini, from an asset perspective, has the number one platform, which is a person under contract. Her name is Caitlin Clark. Everybody globally knows who Caitlin Clark is.

Does it feel like Panini has used Caitlin Clark to promote their WNBA products? Not to me. I look over and see what Fanatics and Topps is doing with their star athletes to get cards and culture and show up in hobby shops.

And it just feels like, what are we doing here? It's like everybody knows who Caitlin Clark is. Have you seen Caitlin Clark holding her Prism card in a picture or anything?

No. I haven't seen anything. What would one post do of Caitlin Clark holding her Prism rookie card? Like, how many people would see it? A lot. How about we do a commercial with Caitlin Clark?

Like, these are the things that as a marketer and, again, I don't work there. I don't know the contract terms and agreement, but it just it feel every time I'm like, this is going off like a fart in church.

Like, why aren't we putting some juice behind it? We've got we've got Paige Beckers. We've got Caitlin Clark. Like, these are the people who people who don't even watch the WNBA or know anything about the WNBA.

They know those players and just seems crazy to me that they're not being utilized, especially in this influencer, celebrity culture that any smart marketing team is using to elevate and extend the reach of their products.

So rant over. I just had to drop it there. That's all. I love it. I love it, Brett. Like, I you're preaching to the choir here. I completely agree. It's funny.

I think the commercial thing really just, like, lit up something in my head because when I close my eyes and thank Caitlin Clark sponsorship, all I think about is, farmer or what's the the comp the insurance company and the pharmaceutical company?

State Farm. State Farm and Lily. Those are the two, and it's because she's on every freaking commercial.

Like, can we just get one ten second panini ad in there, and we're we're, like, cooking. We're cooking. Alright. Let's, we're gonna do some rapid fire on some of these to close this out.

This is Caitlin, I think I think there's, like, so many parts to I was not anticipating this, but I just wanna talk for days. So I'm just gonna, like, cherry pick some of these.

Okay. Fanatics, as far as we know, is not buying Panini right now is at the time of recording or according to reporting, do you think the fanatics acquisition of Panini would be good or bad for WNBA collecting and collectors?

It would be fine. I think, like you just mentioned, they would kill it on the marketing side. But as we've seen in other lanes, that means you forfeit other places, whether that be in design or production or whatever.

So I think both Panini and fanatics have pros and cons, but the big pro for fanatics would be that marketing, which maybe is the the catalyst that the WNBA card collecting needs.

Yeah. We'll just I I think there's just a lot more that can be done, and I know we're both probably biased.

But I hope this conversation did not ruffle anybody's feathers at Panini. If you're I feel like we kept it pretty tame, so I hope Panini understands.

It's it's coming from a place of love. Like, Yeah. It's it's just some free advice from a couple people who spend every week doing a podcast about products that you create. So pick up your phone. Alright. So let's also, I wanna do this.

I wanna end this segment with this. We aren't the only people who have these thoughts and ideas. You out there, the listener, do. If you have ideas on something you wanna do or to elevate WNBA cards and collecting, we've got the tools.

Right? We've got Instagram. Go to Instagram. Tag WNBA card pod. Put in your story post. We'll repost it all. Like, give us your thoughts on what you would do.

I think this is the power of a podcast, and this is the power of community. So, that was fun, Caitlin. I I'm sure as, the dust settles and news transpires, we'll probably be ready for another one of these at the beginning of next year.

Oh, for sure. We got a lot left in us. Okay. So let's talk about, of course, I don't have this is what the this is what transpires sometimes. You think you're organized, but you're not organized.

Do I have a yeah. Of course. I have a bad link. As I find this, do can you can you, talk about I put the wrong link, and can you talk about the one card that's this week and I'll highlight it?

Let's do it. Card letter. So the one card that sold this week as presented on card letter was the twenty twenty five Downers WNBA page backers downtown rookie selling for $4,705.

Goddamn. That's a lot of money. That is a lot of money. So okay. Did I get it? Yes. There there has the I don't know what to think. So I saw the sale and was like, okay. That's a big sale. Okay.

People love downtowns. Paige Beckers, obviously, is someone we just talked about who we would use to extend the message. What's stunning to me, Caitlin, is that there has only been one public sale of this card, and it was this one.

And so we all know that when new product comes out, especially if it's a hot prospect, two people want their cards, you layer that into downtown, which everybody loves, repackers, collectors, everyone loves it, all segments.

But that price, $4,705, usually, I'm like, wow. That's way too much.

Look at all these other sales. But there's not. What is are these have you seen a lot of Paige Beckert downtowns on Instagram or anywhere else? Because this to me, it's crazy that there's been only one sale publicly.

This was the first time I had seen one, to be honest. It it they feel short print, and I don't know whether or not that's true or we just haven't there hasn't been enough, cases broken.

But I I think this was a super strong sale, to be honest, but when I saw the number before I clicked on the the link, I thought it was a p like, graded PSA already somehow, which, you know, would be impossible.

But, like, in my brain, I was like, this is just a strong sale at $4,700. And I think that my my second thought was immediately people are gonna compare this to to Caitlin Clark's, rookie royalty downtown.

So that's where my brain went when I saw this. Here's a, this is this is a non planned question, but this is a collector question. Two pals talking about cards. You brought up Caitlin Clark rookie royalty, so here's my question.

Would you rather have the Caitlin Clark rookie royalty downtown, which has the rookie card emblem on it, or would you rather have the Caitlin Clark downtown from the Don Russ product, which is not a rookie card?

Seeing as I'm not in the market for that card in any I I think I'd go this the latter.

I'd go with the Don Russ one. Because I really I'm really a truther of, like, this whole pack pulled true product release thing, and I'm a sucker for that.

So I guess I'd I'd forfeit the rookie card emblem and go with the Donner Russ. You don't know how proud that makes me, Glenn, because I feel the exact we're sticking to it.

We're staying on brand. I feel the exact same way. So big sale for the page, but how to get in that Clark question while I could. I love it. Well, let's move on to collector spotlight, Brett.

I don't think either of us had any pickups this week, so maybe maybe next week. But collector spotlight this week, I'm excited about this account. We're spotlighting at w m b a underscore cards on Instagram.

This individual, folks, listen closely, is collecting every WNBA card from 1997 to 2018, and they only have three left. This guy is Minnesota based, and he's getting back into Instagram.

You'll notice that some of these posts are from a little bit longer longer ago, but he has a very active stories and a very active eBay page. And is an absolute jackpot of WNBA hobby knowledge.

It's fun to look through some of these posts from a year or two ago. It's really a testament to collecting what you love. It's super cool to see some of these products all ranging all the way back to the nineties to 2018.

If you are looking for a resource to go to just to see older product, I mean, he's ripping cases of 99 WNBA hoops when Skybox put it out, so this is insanity.

I'm gonna I already followed. I need to go back and just dive through these posts because I'm sure I'll learn something.

Absolutely. Well, let's round it out today, Brett. I think we've got time for a couple questions. We're we're running with a new thing for Mailbag folks. We're gonna alternate each week.

So one week, we're gonna do listener questions, and the next week, it's gonna be Caitlin and Brett ask each other their own questions. So today, since we did listener questions last week, we've got questions for the cohosts.

Brett, number one, if fanatics did end up taking over the license from Panini, what's the one lesson you hope they learned from Panini's reign with the w? The lesson to let people know what's happening, would be as simple as that.

I just I am a maniac when it comes to communication and promotion. I think that for anything to hit at its fullest capabilities, there needs to be a drumbeat, and there needs to be momentum.

And it just feels like today, it's been like, oh, here is the product sheet that drops out of nowhere, and here's, like, a card on Instagram. And then it's, like, the next week, it's available.

And I'm like, we're not giving ourselves any time to build hype and momentum around this product. So I would hope which it I think tops, that's one really positive thing I would say about tops and fanatics.

They're they're marketing machine. So I would hope that they would evaluate just the promotion of the products and, level that up. What about you? I had the same exact thing, written down as an answer.

So it seems like this is kind of the number one point that we would hope fanatics would do if they took over. Okay. Question two. Pick one thing to change with Panini for the remaining hold on a license.

One singular thing. We talked about a lot of them, Brett. Just pick the one thing that you would change today. I want I am a creature of habit. I want to know what's happening, and I want some routine.

I want some sort of routine release schedule where we know what to expect. I think human beings love to be prepared, especially when it comes to things we're spending our money on.

And if you were to tell me a specific date in for different products that I might be interested in, well, I might save some cash for those products and buy them on release day.

Maybe that's buying a box. Maybe it's buying into brakes. Maybe it's just waiting for those cards to hit on eBay. But, yeah, just some sort of uniformity around release cycle.

I completely agree with you. What I had written down was a little bit more product focused, which was if I was CEO of Panini, my first executive order in office would be no more sticker autos.

None of them. Get them out of there. I'm voting for you. It is I have to record this. It's election day across the country here. So I'm I'm voting for cold lunch cards.

Okay. And let's finish it off with the final question. Do you think we'll look back on Panini's run, whether it finishes this year or in the coming years, as the foundation for the WNBA hobby or a warm up act for what's coming next?

Oh, that is a damn good question. You know, I will say foundation is tough because it almost disregards what happened before it, which I do think served a purpose and is very important.

I I will almost reframe it to say it, helped l it it it this era, if it ended right now, undoubtedly helped elevate WNBA card collecting another tier in terms of awareness, in terms of people buying.

So I don't think I'd call it a foundation. I certainly wouldn't call it a failure. I it would be somewhere in the middle for me.

What about you? I'm going warm up. I think that the WNBA is just starting. Like, we've seen so much momentum the past couple years, even just this year, that the growth feels exponential, and it doesn't feel like it's slowing down.

And I feel like the card market's gonna keep up with that momentum no matter who has the license and that, you know, the the golden age of the w is still upon us.

And maybe that's just me being optimistic as a fan, but I I really do truly think that.

I love the optimism. We need more optimism across the hobby. And look at us. We're two fans of the WNBA who weren't completely thrilled about our season and the way it ended.

And, you know, we're not, like, saying the hobby is or the WNBA card market and segment is exactly where we want to, but we're ending this damn episode with some positivity, Caitlin.

This one was one of my favorites. I appreciate you, sharing all your perspective. This was fun. Love it. We'll see you guys next week. Thanks for listening.