welcome back loyal listeners of the stacking slabs podcast to season four episode twelve of the wnba card podcast my name is caitlin i go by at cold lunch cards mostly on the instagram machine but you'll see me on some other platforms as well and i am so so excited for this episode like i said this is number twelve we're rounding out our series of collector guests and this episode is super fun i'm super excited to get into it today's episode is called the future is already here the next generation it's all about what's happening today what what's happening today in women's basketball whether that be the wnba or college hoops in the past i don't know eleven episodes we've talked about past eras starting in you know as early as the nineteen twenties and we've weaved ourselves here to today to present day and speaking of today i'm joined by at the rookies corner welcome guys i'm so excited to have you we've been talking online this is the first time we're having a recorded conversation together for folks that don't know who you are can you introduce yourself to my audience yeah do you wanna go first christian or just like a rundown of where you can find us who we are you can start and then i'll just follow okay so we're the rookies corner i'm sam this is christian we have presence on instagram we bend in person at card shows in nashville hoping to expand in middle tennessee and then we started dabbling in whatnot a few months ago so we are also streamers on whatnot i guess just says like a history of maybe why we got into collecting or how we both grew up active athletic into sports christian is from wilmington north carolina so she obviously grew up a diehard unc fan i grew up in north florida i then went to auburn and my freshman and sophomore year at auburn i actually worked for the men and women's basketball team so it was countless nights of going to every home game helping during the games postgame pregame during the season off season so i my love for basketball as a child kinda went through college and then after college kind of stepped away from i guess the sport the hobby and then last few years both of us started getting back into the collecting and the landscape has completely changed since we were younger so that's been fun to navigate and then we both live here in nashville tennessee so i think it's also a good thing or fun to point out just everything that nashville has to offer like vanderbilt having that pretty much in our backyard so the men and women absolutely dominated this last season we went to a lot of the women's games so we can touch on some of the players and the cards later in the recording but that's been a blast of going and experiencing those games which has heightened our collecting and kind of influenced who and how we collect that's kind of maybe where we are now with it and then you can yeah move on i'd say adding on to what sam said right i think it's important to explain also how we approach collecting right so collecting itself i've noticed that it's really easy to collect after meaning has been assigned right so why i love why i love well with all the caitlin clarkson background yeah but i would say why i love college you know it kinda falls outside of that and when i say like it's easy to collect after a meeting has been assigned i mean you know waiting for the hobby to tell you what matters consensus is comfortable right it's when the market agrees when the narrative is settled and when the card already has a comp and a place in history but i've always been more interested in the moment right before that happens because i feel like history doesn't start at consensus right history starts at uncertainty i'd say we collect in that uncertainty not because it's cheaper but because i think it's more honest when you don't wait for history to be agreed upon before collecting it you really have to dig deep to answer why you believe in that player yeah that's that's a good way of looking at things and i think it's a good way to tee up today's conversation which has this undertone of prospecting you know when we talk about women's college basketball and the way that it's changed the way that it operates today that's a really good way to frame it up but before we get into that i kinda wanna dig a little bit deeper into your guys' origin story if you don't mind you talked about how you kinda came back to the hobby what was your starting point how were you introduced to cards were you kids were you older like what what was the starting point for you guys i mean i can start i actually it's when i was younger i didn't collect a ton of sports cards i mean some football here and there i'm a diehard packers fan right i know weird no carolina but go pack go maybe i just like winning teams i don't know no so i would collect that but i was really into pokemon right like the nineties like or early two thousand i was a nineties kid so early two thousand pokemon was kind of like my i would say my vice right like i would i would love collecting that with my sister and growing up i fell out of it you know adulthood kinda took over college you know work life and yeah that's that's really when it started and i just got back into it i would say like a few years ago got it yeah you collected sports cards though yeah i collected sports cards when i was little i grew up with all boys boy cousins my brother and that was kinda the only way to hang out with them so i was like i gotta do what they do so i i loved it i mean i'm not gonna lie so it was super fun and then fell out of it as i got older christian a few years ago maybe two years ago now would randomly just start buying cards and so something would get delivered i was gonna be like well that's a sick mia hamm auto or that's a sick alex morgan or a caitlin clark like these cards would just randomly come in and i was like oh this is cool i didn't realize i guess i hadn't seen the evolution of the cards and how different they are now than they were so it was it that pulled me in i was like oh i'm i wanna see what else is out there yeah and we started kind of going to different platforms to purchase cards and it was a flight to phoenix we were going to see friends and i'm a great flyer i have no issue with it but christian is super anxious and so we were like okay what's the best way to distract ourselves whatnot let's just go and thank you whatnot go on the internet and so we're doing that and then we're like well we could do this like we have a ton of extra cards because we've been collecting and we were ripping some wax and so we just had extra cards that may not be in the pc and we're like well we could sell those cards and this is fun we were starting to learn more about the w community and we realized how much we liked the w community so it wasn't much of just like let's sell for money but let's join this community and interact with these people because this so far has been a great experience so it was on that flight that we came up with the name we came up with the logo i have a horrific sketch of the logo on the flight with all the turbulence but funny that's that was i mean that in a nutshell is the origin of the rookies corner and then kind of more history as to kind of both of us how we got into this hobby again i guess yeah i'm glad you guys are here and i i kinda wanna dig a little bit deeper into both those aspects i wanna hear let's start with i wanna hear about your pc who you guys collect what kind of things you like but then i wanna dive into what the rookie's corner means to you guys and the community that surrounds it maybe let's start with the pc part and i just the audience loves hearing about what people collect and why they collect it so do guys have any personal collections i would say i'm the like massive collector over here right like i but okay i will say honestly full transparency you helped me whenever you said like an what was it like a one card key or something yeah she was like do that because i have so many and i was like well let me think about it i couldn't do it i tried but yeah i have i have so many cards right i collect a ton of wnba and i wouldn't say i even have a specific team i think i am a i'm just a player collector right like unless it's college i collect yukon i'm a unc men's fan i just wanna be transparent unc men's yukon women's yeah gotcha but yeah in terms of wnba i collect players so i collect rakia jackson i collect caitlin clark angel reese page beckers who dominique malanga dominique malanga is like my big one you should see how many purchases i've made with them i'm all in on her i believe in her and yeah so i did collect like i tried to set collect for a while i think you saw early on the bowman first pink refractor set so i got pretty close with that there were a couple cards i couldn't gym which drove me insane drive me nuts yeah it was it was brutal but i think once i decided hey like it's okay to shift my collection around like you don't have to hold onto something forever you can shift it into a different collection i was like okay i'm going to move these and build a separate collection and that's how my dunking collection came into play so i now collect lisa leslie can candice parker i found a candice parker dunking card so i'm adding that to the collection yep and you know britney griner and dominique malonga right but i don't think i'll go outside of that i think it's going to strictly be dunking shots if i can find and leave it at that but yeah so yeah that's one of like my favorite concepts i've seen i i'm gonna shout out another collector who dabbles in wnba but just in terms of concept collecting people are so strict about player collectors they're very strict about set collecting i want only this parallel or whatever but when you get really creative about it you can find these collectors that are super dedicated and i find your dunking collection to be to mirror kind of one of my friends that collects black hat he collects villains that has nothing to do with style of play that has nothing to do with the cards themselves that's a concept that's to the collector the individual themselves and so that i find just super interesting i wish you good luck and i hope that there's more dunking so that you can have a broader collection but yeah i just i love that concept but what about you sam what are what are you collecting oh i'm less of a pc and hold on to type collector i love collecting cards to just have it in my possession for a time and then i'm i'm i i don't hold on to things as well as christian i definitely will have it love it and then move on so i can keep like it's just it's a fluid collection you're renting you're renting the collection yeah because i love to like when people speak about cards it's like oh yeah i had that at one point in time like i don't need to always have it but it's like yeah no that was in my possession for a period and it just yeah it's fluid i the thing do keep are like memory related they're from childhood or they're from games we went to it could been an interaction we have with a player so i may have a card that just reminds me of that interaction or that game or that city something those are the things that i hold on to i'll never let go because they don't have a value or someone else's value is noncomparable to my value to it because it's a memory and not so much monetary so that's my see not as flashy as christians but i i like that we have different styles i think that yeah that makes it fun and i also you guys are a good balance for sure yeah i also just wanna say like it's okay that i feel like you're kinda hard on yourself sometimes whenever you like am i a true collector because i move so much but yeah i think fluidity is fine right like there's no set rules when it comes to collecting if you are one of those people that like to hold on to memories that's fine and if everything else moves out because you want to be able to have the funds to have something else for a short time that's okay yeah ditto sign cosign me on this messaging whenever somebody uses the term true collector that definition varies by whoever's listening i completely agree with it okay before we round out the personal perspective segment here i do want to give you guys an opportunity to talk about you know the thing that drew me to you guys like how we met and you know was the community aspect of it it's this idea of like a close knit almost online family of folks that understand that cards are cool but the people that are collecting them are usually cooler usually i'd like to hoe yeah but i guess how does how do you guys cultivate community how does community affect what you're buying give you an opportunity to talk about kinda what you're building over at the rookies corner yeah do you wanna i mean i have noticed more directly the community the influence and the relationships honestly i've i've realized how the community is growing and how we can build relationships through vending in person the online love it it's wonderful and but there's something about when we're vending in person it is that the the physical interactions talking to someone in front of you maybe a a dad with his son like i've really enjoyed those conversations but that is also limiting on who you can reach because right now we're only vending every other saturday in nashville tennessee so we can only reach the people in middle tennessee so i think online has been really enjoyable to be able to reach people from all over and we know people in canada that now are thrilled because toronto has a team so it's i think the online presence has been super fun to just reach people of all walks of life and all over and whether that is streaming or or like instagram presence so you can add to that yeah so one thing that i'll add is one of the biggest things coming into this creating the rookies corner was that it was driven by that community space you mentioned right so i always wanna make it a point i'm gonna i'm gonna call out a couple of things here we do this thing and we've done it ever since we started is writing personalized handwritten notes i got all of them that you guys sent us yeah for sure i keep all of those yeah yeah aw thanks thank you it's sam's handwriting mine's not that good you when she was in spain i was trying to write in all caps it was brutal but we've we've said it doesn't matter how many orders we get how big we get one day like we will take the time to do it i don't care how long it takes us we we just wanna keep that personable action right yeah so there's that and also like i want it to be bigger than cards so let's go back to college let's even go to the wnba right women's basketball in general i feel like has always been so good about i guess being the voices for things that matter and i'm super big on that right like i used to work in nonprofit social justice everything right so i want to use the community and platform that we're building for something that's bigger and you know one one thing we can call out is you know we're putting together charity events and we're trying to do that as an annual thing so we just want it to be bigger than sports cards in a lot of different ways like we love that sports cards bring people joy and we just want to find ways to enhance situations outside of sports cards too through sports cards and through that i mean you know there have been some people who care about the charity that we're you know hosting but don't necessarily know about sports cards that much who said that they're gonna join and you never know they may then you know be addicted like us yeah soon so yeah that is that's so awesome and and what i found through you guys' community even just like interacting with the folks that are in your streams or folks that you know interact with your instagram presence is the importance of having women friends in the hobby like it's something that doesn't get talked about a lot there's not a lot of women there are a lot of women in the hobby but their voices are not being amplified in part of this season i've had on men and women and people from all different walks of life but something that i really do respect about the ricky's corner is just the emphasis on women's basketball and women's collectors and yeah i just think you guys are killing it so i'm excited to get into more of this conversation thank you yeah this this is kinda where i wanna pivot a little bit we've talked about who you guys are what you collect what your business is you know throughout this season we've been covering different eras and it's supposed to be kinda this oral history guide of you know you're gonna be able to pick up this season and listen to it and kinda walk your way through the history of wnba cards and so this this episode is all about college hoops and the next generation so why don't we get into context and state of the league and i'll ask you a couple questions and maybe you can tell the audience you know what you guys think about it does that sound good yeah so my first question for you guys is about how do you characterize this era that we're talking about and what i mean by that is what's kinda happening in the wnba or in the college women's college hoop space today of the next generation the quote the quote next up and how does the state of the league influence how people collect cards today versus say collecting college cards twenty years ago it's a good question i think we were trying to think about this earlier and i think there's two ways to look at kind of the state of the league and and collecting there's the investment mindset and then there's the collector mindset so i think with the popularity and the attention of the w right now and seeing caitlin just caitlin clark take off i think some people who may not have been paying attention during her college year are realizing oh her cards her prices her comps have spiked and she has cards from college if only i collected when she was in college so i think people are starting to see the the investment aspect that maybe the w has brought to women's sports and cards so they're starting to then collect earlier and then there's just the collector mindset which i feel like i kind of ride in right now just finding those first appearance cards of players that we're watching that like aubrey galvin from vanderbilt did not have a presence in this release today actually of the new bowman so we're hoping next year she does but like i'm gonna be all over getting her cards justine passat who now is drafted by indiana fever she had mcdonald's cards from a few years ago so i think and now with all all the women that were drafted lauren betts keke rice like their college cards their mcdonald's tops chromes cards like some people are looking at like oh i have had i invested early on and i'm over here like well i was watching early on and trying to get in just because i enjoy their style of play and i enjoy watching them and they're gonna be big one day and i just know it so the collector versus the investment mindset i think is kind of the landscape we're looking at with yeah college going in a w yeah add on that yeah i said i'll so all that said from the time that i got back into collecting at least right up until now i've noticed a few very like noticeable patterns people were after investment cards to sam's point which in itself i'd say is still kind of exciting to see right because if you think about it historically most people wouldn't have considered women's a women's sports card and immediately thought there would be a long term financial gain from this i'd say a second point is a lot of people felt more connected than ever to the players and therefore their cells would be elevated from that so that's the emotional collector mentality playing its part to your point and then some people were stepping outside of the predefined i'd say comfort zone whether they were being iced out or not because prices have gotten high and they were paying more attention to prospects they felt had a major potential who they could afford or who others weren't always talking about and i was hearing often that they knew they'd blow up eventually so you think aubrey galvin i also wanna point out kiki eriafin was a big one right and now she's on the usa practice team and we now know she can dunk as well yeah and her cards in comparison to other rookie counterparts right were relatively low so another example i'd say more recently is kate harpring a name that some may know and others might not but will likely very soon she just graduated from high school and was named i wanna say what was it jersey mike snaismith girls high school player of the year yeah and recently played in the mcdonald's all american twenty twenty six game and if you know the history of mcdonald's all american you know that that was historically the moment the world got to know yeah you player and it opened the door to so many recruit possibilities right but now we're hearing about this girl before the all american game even happened so he has cards already in leaf of course they released a woman's sports line but i've seen people dropping good money on her and that just shows that the hobby is growing and that's kind of exciting in my opinion yeah oh i completely agree it almost feels like like i set up at a show this past weekend and i was telling people they're like how do you how do you pick out the players that you're gonna be targeting in terms of investment when we talk about walking the line between investment and collector and i'm like it feels like i'm staring down the barrel of the shotgun i know what's coming like you just have to watch the games it's like these players are being noticed so much earlier these days than what they used to and even when they were being noticed back in the day we don't i mean i'm just thinking about candace parker because her name came up earlier in the conversation yep people knew who she was but there was one nothing to collect and nobody amplifying it it just wasn't the same scene and i guess i'd love to pick your brain on some of those factors your brains two brains about some of those factors that's influencing kind of the popularity of the game and of women's basketball cards i'll i'll throw it at you just different things with you know just cards the card market booming if we look at card letter sales it's just growing exponentially nil social media what do you think is kinda like driving this era of growth yeah i mean i can yeah go for this is like bread and butter right here nil through and through right so nil is the biggest thing that comes to mind what was happening in women's basketball at the time wasn't just growth right it was continuity i've i've said that the gap between the college the pros the fandom like all of that started to disappear so yeah you could almost follow those player story without interruption right and in nil was that huge inflection point i i it didn't just i'd say change how players were being compensated but it was how they were being seen yep and i i mean i've said that a million times over and over again that nil really kinda gave them that forefront to and gave collectors the forefront to collect from something reactive to something participatory right mhmm like they got to know these players on an emotional level they got to grow with these players right and i think now going back to my earlier point about how everything's connected social media you know as well like you can follow these players early on you know these names you know the brand that they've built and then once they're in the w and yay like it's game over like they've already established themselves they're make yes they're making more money than they make when they come into the w but outside of that a lot of these players have a cult like following right like take juju watkins for example juju watkins is a superstar i mean through and through she's one of the most talented players i've seen in women's college basketball yeah ever and i wanna say that you know i would say the brand really impacts sales too so she's injured right but we've seen sales stay consistently high which is impressive and you only see that in players who i view as like superstar status you see that with caitlin clark you know paige becker's was injured as well and i honestly don't know the trend in her sales but just looking at caitlin clark like yes her sales dropped a little bit when she was injured but they still stayed consistently high yeah people come into our streams and and come to us even when we're vending asking for juju watkins and that just shows you how much people believe in her yeah and yeah so i think that is a mixture of her playing style right the dominance on the court but also off the court in terms of the way she holds herself and that presence that social media and just how many followers she has yeah think it's go ahead go ahead oh no i was just gonna add i think social media is a huge game changer as far as having insight into maybe behind the scenes of players and teams i mean for example julie vanlu drafted by the mystics and then went to valkyries and now is sparks i love julie vanlu i love her playing style i've watched her play like i legit think she's an amazing player but i've also kind of been following her on social media like she has vlogs like she just there's something that like social media can capture people's attention and it gives you behind the scenes looks at the players as human beings and not just athletes and it just allows you to kind of relate to them on a different level and i think that can change who you follow and why so i've i've enjoyed how social media has been good in that regard yeah i think it's especially interesting in women's sports when we're comparing across categories i mean christian in the beginning of this episode you were talking about how in the wnba when you think about the wnba you think oh it's always been a voice for change it's always been a voice for social justice movements women's basketball fans not to overgeneralize but on the whole on the median care about the players as human beings yep in addition to being athletes more than in my opinion other categories so with that when you add this idea of better compensation more amplification ification more representation nil that translates at a higher rate for women's basketball cards than other categories whether it's even their counterparts in the men's in the men's side or in other leagues like ncaa football etcetera etcetera so i completely resonate with everything you're saying and i just want to add my my take on yeah why that is for sure just one other thing to that so like you brought up the compensation i thought it was very interesting like me more than anyone like i mean i'm sure all of us can agree we wanted a wnba season right yeah but i didn't come across anybody who wasn't like get your money like y'all deserve it right like we were behind them and and and that just shows you how much of a community it really is it is you know there were outside people saying certain things but like the people who genuinely follow every day who love the style of play and have been following for a long time or just hopped on board right they're like oh these girls are talented and they deserve more so we were behind them regardless of what happened during the season yeah i completely agree it's such an interesting dynamic that in cards gets brushed over so much i think in conversation because people just don't like to talk about it because it's just not present in other spaces it's something that makes women's basketball cards so unique okay speaking of cards that's what we're here to talk about today everybody here that's listening is because of cards and so the next segment is all about cards and manufacturers and i kinda wanna get your your hot takes and your opinions as people that are vending and collecting women's basketball cards at a high volume i'll start with this which sets or brands from this kinda era stand out to you as flagship i'll hit on the top three just as like titles and then you can maybe go into specifics okay my cats sorry bowman chrome u k tops mcdonald's and then on it i'm gonna throw on it in there as like solid third maybe competing for second i just i i have a a deep love for the on it cards i think they did a great job with the style on card autographs like anyways those are the top three so christian if you want maybe go into each you can more specifically i'd say tops chrome mcdonald's pushes the timeline back even further yeah right so that set stands out to me because it combined two things that collectors i'd say already respect the topps chrome brand right which carries weight across the hobby and then even mcdonald's all american game stage which i told you before has since even before my time yeah been a proving ground for elite talent so instead of just getting college cards now you're getting licensed chrome cards of players at the high school level and you know right before they even step on the college court so i'd say that's a big one but i'd say out of all of them i mean onnit really did surprise me they have beautiful cards right but i'd say out of all of them bowman u chrome let's go bowman first top notch love it i collect them hardcore got a caveat to that i wrote down some notes oh she's see i told you so i'm very analytical i went through all the checklists from so tops started in twenty one twenty two season mcdonald's they actually started in two thousand six ran for a few years went on hiatus and then they came back in twenty twenty two as well my thing my my i don't wanna say issue my concern with the tops bowman u is the percentage of women in that box so that's true my advice would be chase the card not the wax because over the years the first release of bowman u zero percent women it was all men then the second year was eight percent women and then eleven percent women and then twenty percent women and this last release which dropped today from the college percentages if you're just looking at college men n c double a n c double a women it was about thirty percent but they've now added in nba into this new release and that drops the percentage of women across all the variations bases autographs inserts whatever to thirteen percent of the percent of pulling a woman card in the wac so that's my thing is like i i love wax as in like it's just fun i don't open it to try to get my money back but now my bigger chases i just the percentage of hitting them is so low that i probably won't buy as much wax in this new product i'll probably go just after the card which is totally fine because i'm after those specific players but i just i going into that i was like excited to see the percentages rise and then just this last release didn't help but it's just an interesting fact that i that i looked into first of all thank you for looking into that that's very interesting because sometimes i feel like i live in this like kinda like you know i'm less like have blinders on to women's basketball cards and i'm like the only reason why people are opening these bowman u are to get juju watkins or sarah strong when most of the product is still men's despite the you know women's women's growth outpacing the men's growth so that's that's super interesting i wonder like i wonder this is not a question that i had on the pre prepared list of questions for you guys but would you as collectors prefer to have a non coed bowman u release where it's just new abs no hesitation no hesitation i'm i'm after the women's and i it's crazy because i do collect men's sports i collect football right i've dabbled a little bit in baseball when it comes to basketball i want my women unless it's unc that's fine but like you know i will go buy a box if i'm really feeling feisty and wanna get a unc player right but i want yeah i want women now but did did do they have wnba in there as well no they don't they just the new release only brought in nba which is is cool because now i mean i yeah for all collectors out there it is cool because now you can go get your rookie of cooper flag and i take that back tops tops chrome bowman that's right wnba's prism but yeah mcdonald's pretty mcdonald's boxes are much better it's about a fifty fifty percent okay that's men women that's so interesting okay that and that makes sense too because i guess it's the way to go yeah so if you're gonna wanna if you're gonna try to chase players from lax mcdonald's and their cards this year i give them props they look sharp like they did a good job they look nice alright i wanna get into more of these more of these questions around cards one of the ones that i'm gonna skip to is this question around rookie card we're talking about college hoops the rookie card does not exist we have the first bowman is kind of seen as the flagship how do you think that collectors kinda navigate that how do you think that appears and what i mean by that is when i see people that are asking me for juju watkins this is a good example some of them do not want the first card because she's in that like sierra canyon uniform that's like airbrushed whereas her second year cards she's in the licensed usc but there's no first emblem on that card i guess how do you guys see that playing out when you're when you're selling cards that's so interesting i would immediately say having that first up in the right corner is is more desirable but i think also with the licensed products i think a big pull is the college is the school so and you have collectors i mean hawkeyes fans came out of the woodworks like they're all over here possessed they're possessed yes it wouldn't it's hawkeyes they will collect anyone and everyone so i think all colleges have that so i think also having the licensure with the college means a lot to collectors i just personally i love the first but now that we're talking about this i think our favorite juju cards are not her first they are the usc cards and yeah i don't know what that says it's just i was thinking about that a little bit too i was i was looking at top cards of juju that i would would want and the bowman first was there but to that point yeah the not having that jersey kinda threw me off so it's it's just with everything you guys say yeah and i think it comes back to this idea that you guys were talking about about the investment mindset versus the collector mindset and how much weight you put on those things the investment mindset usually tends to put more weight on the first logo whereas the collector mindset puts more weight on the college affiliation and that licensing which is really fun because you don't get that same kind of tension not in college college cards in general like it's just a fun space that collectors are forced to deal with those things and the market responds in really different ways than other places okay i wanna give you guys the opportunity i'm excited to hear what you have to say about this i wanna hear about key players i wanna hear your guys' take on kind of which next generation era players do you think are kinda defining this moment i've heard in this conversation we've talked about juju watkins obviously she comes to mind i've heard some vandy bias in this conversation i've heard some other names i wanna give you kinda step onto the box and make a case for the players that you think are defining this generation yeah so juju i'm gonna go back to juju watkins and sarah strong i'm i'm stuck on them so i think they both are impacting the game in two different ways right but that's what makes this era kinda special so juju brings that scoring superstar energy i'd say where every possession feels electric and sarah brings this like versatility and efficiency almost calm yeah kinda killer exactly yes where she just controls the game right so yeah what makes people connect with them is not just that they're talented but i'd i'd say they're both complete players already now when i say that i don't mean they can't grow more but i think from a college perspective they are just so mature in how they play yeah so i think a lot of people have picked up on that okay especially at least with juju one of the biggest things that has stuck out to me in terms of collecting like i said earlier is that they're buying her cards when she's injured so yeah and then sarah strong i would say you had you know superstars like page beckers you had az fudd and now that they've rolled off i feel like the spotlight is really going to be on sarah strong and her mom played right so like yeah i just feel like that super stardom is gonna like roll into her she's gonna have a lot more eyes on her and i think she's gonna handle it with grace so those are my top two players those are your two sam you have any others yeah i'm gonna go local mikayla blake's love i we she's so good love watching her play but with that i'm also gonna throw hannah hidalgo in the mix because oh that's a good one we were really pushing for we wanted vandy to go far in this tournament we we knew they would have challenges against some teams but gosh darn it when she was up against hannah hidalgo i don't think i've realized how defensive of a player hannah is until she's playing against teams i really wanted to win and she stole that ball like she has records for the steals like she is such a versatile player but her defense is unbelievable so it opened my eyes a little more to her style of play seeing her matchup against a team that i wanted to go farther in the tournament but i would put hannah and mikaela as top prospects to look out for next year that's a really good one hannah i'm a little biased for this yeah hannah's style of play is what i like to call irritating master irritating i there is no player i would not wanna like match up more against like it is it seems like it would be so frustrating to the point that i would be like just take it just take the ball leave me alone like and the matchup between blake's and hidalgo i remember i was sitting in the bar in saint paul watching it because i think i was on like yeah that was in in march madness like a good round and i was like these two are real dogs playing in the act it was a a like a slug fest between the two of them okay i like those pics i'm gonna throw a name out there since since there's three of us here i'm gonna put out the michigan girls i'm gonna say olivia olsen and okay tyler fords for some big ten representation but i think that by saying that my point is all across the country there's different styles of players i mean christian you picked out two like bigs like fours that can stretch the court they're they're massive in terms of just occupying space and strength whereas sam you picked out two players that are kinda like lean fast sneaky streaky and then i picked two players that are just like i don't know guards they just like can handle the ball and take it to the hoop and i just think that just shows that women's basketball and the opportunity within cards is so deep compared to what it once was because the opportunities are there for that for that expansion of style and not to like bring it all together but when we talk about like your dunk pc and the dunk era that's gonna pursue after this i just think that when we talk about cards and we talk about women's basketball cards the main story of this era is opportunity it's about the fact that now the foundation has been built and it's just gonna grow it's gonna be like wildfire and so that's kinda my take on on the players yeah i love that okay okay i'm gonna keep going i feel like i could talk to you guys for hours but i wanna ask about when we talk when we think about collecting and investing you can take it either or how much do you think collecting these players that we just talked about is talent evaluation versus storytelling like you know you talk about juju being like this la born and bred wants to bring the glory back to usc or sarah strong whose mom was a legend or you know all these stories you got talent evaluation you got storytelling you got timing when you think about like the caitlin clark rookie class a lot of those players were great but they weren't amazing and they kinda benefited from the timing or popularity and i think about popularity think about players like nika mule who has scored a total of two points and yet her comps are super high or players like hailey van lith these types these are four factors talent evaluation storytelling timing and popularity how you guys balance these what do you think is going on with that it's all over the place i think it it all comes into play i i don't know if there's like one we look for most or focus on most as to why we collect this is it the popularity of the play i don't do you have any thoughts on this one i would i mean in terms of personal collecting i don't go off of popularity alone right i personally go off of style of play okay so i i typically go for like the fast paced stylish like that's one reason why i love aubrey galvin you've you see that clip of someone like hannah hidalgo and she's just like doing that spin toss-up move like i posted that clip i love that clip she's so good and fun to watch in person so i love those fast paced players who just have like a creative basketball style right but i do think in general speaking i'd say that you know i really do think popularity comes into play right like for sure a hundred percent like to your point there are some players who have gotten like two minutes of playing time who's still skyrocket in sales and i don't know how much of that is people really believe in her game or people are following suit because she's popular you never know but i do think it's a mixture of both i think going back to my earlier point it's kind of like a one centralized hub right now of like everything is kind of interconnected we have social media where we can see their life off the court you know we're seeing highlight reels from these girls from international players yep who are coming in and it just all feels for the first time very connected and i think all of that equally is driving these sales and interests yeah i like the way you put it before about this like continuity this without interruption of being able to follow a player i think that's really powerful when we're putting money into these things that's definitely a mover and i think to comment on what you're saying about style of play kind of both of you said style of play is important and it's important to me it's kinda what makes you fall in love with the game as opposed to the players themselves and i think like to go back to my point i think style has been given a lot more room to breathe in women's basketball it feels for a long time that you know people don't like to talk about it but women's women's players are coached differently than men's players and that translates to how professional sports are played to how high level basketball is played and it feels like we kinda broken that glass ceiling so to say and when we see that happening it also translates to cards because now we've got players that are doing crazy shit both here domestically but also overseas we see clips of seventeen year olds dunking and you're like what's different now you know what's so different now well what's different now is that they're being they're given the opportunity to do those things so that's just my my end point on that i do wanna also add to that because it kind of reminded me unrivaled i think the three on three league gave a lot of these players room to just show their personality on the court and so honestly after this last season of unrivaled like we're following players that we maybe didn't follow as much last season shakira austin aliyah edwards we were following a bit but i think just some of these players were able to just get more attention and eyes on them with the three on three style so i thought unrivaled they knocked it out of the park this season i was it was super fun to watch and it helped us pay more attention to other players it seems so obvious to say that representation is important but when we talk about women's basketball cards it's like the message cannot be more clear that when you give when you put invest when you invest when you give the eyes when you give the resources it will come it will come and we see that with the game we see that with cards we see that with businesses and cards like everything it's not rocket science and so it just makes me it just makes me happy i just gotta end on that now they sold out philly yeah and brooklyn i was gonna say the marketing behind them was phenomenal like i was they were sending messages to people on instagram saying get in our group chat which made you feel like you were a part of something you would never miss the game the way they timed the games were impeccable just yeah were bringing you in like constantly you know putting the players that you love in front of a camera and saying hey guys we have something special to tell you you know it was very personable and interactive and i loved that and to your point yes if you have a great marketing team and if you have people who are willing to invest in your talent you have nowhere to go except up so one hundred percent it's like folks we've been saying this for years the demand is here just bring the supply with cards with games with everything that is that is the moral of the story okay yep we've talked about your personal perspective we've talked about what's going on in women's college hoops today we talked about cards we've talked about key players i wanna talk about one of my favorite segments that we talk about on each episode is significance and influence because we've separated these episodes into different little arrows little slices of the pie when you think about them independently from the others it's interesting and so i wanna get your take on why you think this era of college hoops of nil of like bowman muse entrance to the game why why does this era matter in the broad story of wnba cards i'll start because my little two cents on this i think nil brings attention to collecting and cards for these college athletes with that though i think recognizing there are over three hundred almost three hundred and fifty division one women college basketball teams there are fifteen wnba teams so i think i mean just the numbers like there's so much more opportunity for people to go watch these plays in person with college yeah i mean like i said i'm gonna keep bringing it back to nashville our two closest wnba teams are atlanta dream indiana fever four hours four and a half hours away vanderbilt we have belmont have mtsu we have all of these schools within quick uber or a thirty minute drive to go see these fantastic athletes play so i think the attention the cards are bringing are also maybe opening up eyes or should be opening up eyes to young collectors of like oh there are players that are in my backyard that i can go watch play on a sunday night for not a lot of money yeah so i think that's cool and should be recognized that it's a little more obtainable to kinda get in early on the college era yeah to i mean great points i hard to top that honestly but i say this era really matters right because it's the first time i personally going back to what i was saying women's basketball cards feel fully connected from high school to college to the w it's like you're not waiting for players to prove it anymore you're collecting them as their stories are unfolding so what really stands out is that collectors had to shift their mindset it wasn't about reacting it was about believing early going back to my earlier point right so following players like caitlin clark juju watkins sarah strong you know makayla blake's before the market fully caught up and i think in hell i don't know five to ten years people are going to look back at this era and realize it was the window so the time when you could still be early when the culture was growing fast and when collecting felt you know personal again not just transactional i like that and it feels with women's basketball you know i've i've only had this show now for however many episodes about a year but it feels like every episode that there's a conversation about collecting that window still exists and so it's interesting that you're framing this era as being kind of that that window being open because it feels perpetually inviting and welcoming yes it feels like that you know like it it's like come on in we all know that yu gi watkins is gonna be a superstar buy her freaking car like it's not rocket science right like and this is not investment advice at all just to be clear i'm just saying like it seems so obvious and so when i think about this era the word that comes to mind to me is just accessibility like not only do we have access to watch players in our backyard sam like you were saying not only do we have multiple products to choose from but we also have this era of information that we're living in of highlight reels of evaluations of you know being able to watch multiple leagues it just feels like a overstimulation of information which is only educating collectors more and making cards more accessible so i completely agree with your evaluation of kinda why this era matters and i wanna hear your your guys' opinions i guess of what makes it what makes it different is it the feeling is it the infrastructure is it the people what what makes this era different than say college hoops twenty years ago it's a good question i think it's simply that people are starting to believe in the masses the masses are starting to believe so there are fans that have always been around right but in terms of the masses i think whether you are in it for investing or you are in it because you truly wanna collect and hold on to for a long time they believe in these young athletes and they believe in the future of women's basketball and there's something beautiful about that right because once you have that support you know going back to the marketing or the resources it also you have to have the support once you have that belief behind you opportunities are endless for sure i mean you're talking about support you have now a little bit of pay you now have brand new practice facilities across multiple teams are building practice facilities dedicated to the wnba teams so i think i've seen this in nwsl soccer leagues i think kansas city was the first stadium built dedicated to yep soccer team i think younger athletes are recognizing the amount of support and money being put into their sport and realizing oh this is this could be the future for me this can and i think in previous eras there was the wnba or there wasn't yeah there just wasn't that post college potential and i think thirty five k a year to be the best athlete in the world like that was not incentive that was not incentive i hear you exactly so as christian said the support and the eyes on the league i think is just showing young athletes like this could be a a good future for you and keep striving to be that because we will keep supporting you so i think it's awesome and there's so much more to come and i'm excited for the expansion of the league and all these other cities that are getting teams so yeah i think there's just so much more growth that's gonna happen yeah to your point i was gonna say they can now afford to be a professional athlete yeah oh i it makes me like upset thinking about that but yes like now they can as of like yesterday like yes yeah but it's kinda cool that we experienced both sides versus side yeah yeah yeah absolutely okay here's a here's another question i wanna hit you guys with which is around this idea of lessons learned we're currently in this era so this question i usually ask the folks and say what lessons can you learn from collecting in two thousand and seven but we're in the present day right now what what lessons do you think collectors could pick up like present day about collecting that they can bring to kind of their their their next era of collecting stumped us on that i know i i don't wanna sound cliche but i think what pretty much every one of your guests has said is collect what you love like like what we've i talked about on this whole podcast is like we're collecting players that we love watching their style of play like not so much maybe the hype for i really know the reason but they're popular let's collect them i think it's just collecting what you love and going after that card and based on the numbers maybe not the wax but the card itself like yeah i think that resonates across all eras and all timelines and i would just reiterate what everyone else on your show has already said yeah and it's not cliche because it's true like it's so silly but like people i remember when i first started this podcast or when i first started really diving into w cards whether i was setting up at shows or just you know talking dming somebody unsoliciting about you know women's basketball cards and then like how do i get into this i'm like watch the game watch the game and pick a player my god like and you will love it there's no more work you have to do so i completely once again cosign everything you guys were saying christian i wanna give you an opportunity if you have a different lesson otherwise if you wanna cosign with me you're welcome to i mean half cosign i mean i would say watch the games understand how someone impacts winning right because in this era oh and also losing how they handle that if it's okay you're not always gonna win but because in this era especially the hobby is moving fast and by the time everyone i'd say agrees on a player you're probably already late so yeah i it's true i think collecting what you love is like so important yeah the losing part's a really good point and maybe relatable to recent tournaments i think the losing part does matter and i think that does grow a player and it does change maybe how you see them based on their reaction to a loss yep that's a good point i agree because one of my not to like shit on somebody right now but like when i look at courtney williams saying i'd rather get a million dollar paycheck than other champions but don't give me her cards you know what i mean like i i saw that there's definitely things to be said about the way that players handle situations and like learning how to understand what you want to collect because of that is very important and it's a learning process it doesn't happen overnight i mean all three of us have talked about kinda how we started we left we came back and we didn't come back the same you know and that's important you have to continue growing and as the game continues to grow as the landscape of women's basketball continues to grow as new people start to come in we're gonna have to adjust so i think keeping that north star of collect what you love that advice i mean you don't need to say anything else so we'll just we'll just say that for the podcast and publish it just collect what you love love it okay new title new title okay so the last segment that we do on the show and this is gonna be the last one of the season is called the canning contribution there's this concept that brett and i kind of came up with or you know adopted around trying to build what we think is iconic what we think the what we think true i'm for people that aren't watching i'm putting quotation mark true collectors what they deem is just like iconic and will continue to be considered iconic for years to come and so i've asked every guest that we've had on to pick a mount rushmore of four cards that they think kinda define this era it could be a card it could be a set some people even pick parallels which i think is interesting did you guys have an opportunity to think about your your canning contribution for this episode i think so and i mean i'd say we pretty much agreed for the most part right i i have like a fifth one that yeah i'll throw in at the end but okay so going back to juju watkins i know that we said the bowman first like jersey and everything there's two that kinda are contenders right so if we're talking judy watkins i want a bowman first super factor auto whether she's in the high school jersey or not and either that i mean i'm not loving the idea of the high school jersey if i wanted that i could get you know a mcdonald's card right but well really she'd be in the mcdonald's all american but regardless what i'm my point is it's also a sticker auto which i don't love if i had to choose and i went back and forth on this and i think i'm finally set on it the one of one camp is campus visit on card auto one of one supervisor i think her auto is one of the cleanest in the game it's a beautiful card yeah i have the on campus not one of one i i don't even know if it's numbered but it is on card and i love it so if i could have the one of one on that that would be great yeah okay that's a good one i i i appreciate the on card yes truth here i i'm also in that boat so that makes a big difference and i think having kind of the campus field of things is important to to the it is to differentiate it into the college world okay that's number one what's number two number two would be twenty twenty four tops bowman university best sarah strong super factor oh why the best why the best why are we going best is this the breaking barriers yeah variation yes it's the breaking barrier barriers variation so i'm not sure if there's a way to actually pull it up but the reason i say that is i mean if you wanna pull it up at a later time if you have you seen the breaking barriers card it's got like the lots of players in the background right yes exactly so the reason i say that card it's like i think it represents how she's a different kind of star she's played all these years with so much maturity right but she's always kinda be been in the shadows like a silent killer if you will and i feel like now she's on the forefront of this card she's always been kind of in that forefront where the players are in you know the background and there's something artistic that i like about that so that's why i love that card like pick a lot i like those that's the one that's got almost like a diagonal split down the card and it shows the players in the background i know exactly what you're talking about that's a sick one okay i like that yeah i did juju watkins pop one of it actually but not the one of one so oh no it's okay it's still very cool okay that's number two can you give us number three yeah i'd say twenty twenty four bowman chrome u first so yeah bowman first one of one super factor michaela blake's blake's color is beautiful the gold yes yeah the gold black jersey it's phenomenal i don't want auto it's sticker i mean i would take the auto if it's there but yeah the one of one super factor michaela blake's is by far one of the most beautiful cards i've seen in college i really like the call out of the color match i think it's important to college identity when we talk about college sports so much we're talking about is the identity and the association with the college itself i'm very jealous of vanderbilt fans that they get a super a super fractured color match like that's yep what more could you ask for so i like that call out a lot okay it's okay just start collecting vandy caitlin yeah okay okay okay no i'm just i'm holding out for the day that a gopher has a single card that i can collect and i will do that okay number four number four that would be the twenty twenty three tops chrome mcdonald's all american hanna hidalgo superfractor one of one okay if you look at this i think it's a psa ten found it i want it so bad it's got that vintage feel and kinda throws me back to an earlier style of sports card and i just i i absolutely love it i think it's a clean looking card it's an action shot of her running you know dribbling and yeah i just love the action shots i think the variation is actually a throwback variation it's so yeah it's like an o nine variation yeah so love it to kinda throw it back yeah and you kinda get the once again color match with notre dame a little bit if you do that and notre dame's kinda got that classic retro feel just because of like the catholicness so you get that with the design of the card and it all just kinda plays together okay that's four but i did hear sam you said you had a fifth or no you have a fifth yeah it's it looks like the rule since it's two of you it's a good one yeah it's it's not a one on one it's not a super factor it's simply the team logo variations from bohma new chrome it's they're super short prints some say case hits i just love and i think it it i mean nods to maybe some reason people collect is the school i just think they're clean cards i had adi crooks yeah first bowman of that variation there's a psa ten of makayla blake's calling name i just haven't pulled the trigger yet but i just think they're super clean cards they look great and for a college collector i just think it's it's a good one to add as a runner-up i i agree and i think we're gonna etch another i guess stone in mount rushmore for that one because me personally i was raised by a michigan man so that block m to me is kind of religious and so when i see like the sigh of swords with like the block m on the side i'm like i get it i get why these they put these in this is not a gimmick card that's like true fandom right there so i like that addition one hundred percent well with that you've contributed to the canon the canon is now closed for contributions with this episode you guys i really enjoyed our conversation today we've hit over an hour i feel like i could keep going and talking to you guys for multiple hours but it was amazing having you on for the audience just as a reminder if you guys don't follow christian and sam they're at the rookies corner you guys are on instagram you guys are elsewhere anywhere else people can find you on the internet whatnot we dabble a little bit here and there on ebay and if you're ever in the nashville area and hopefully one day elsewhere you know come find us at a card show yep i love it well thank you guys for joining us and next week will be the final episode of season four of the wnba card podcast if you guys have been listening to all of them it means so much to me and thank you to all of our incredible guests for joining we'll see you on the other side