what's going on everybody welcome back to a very special edition of stacking slabs your hobby content alternative i'm brett i talk a lot on the microphone i work a lot behind the scenes i'm building the stacking slabs network for you the collector and for those of you who are working in the sports card industry we have a major release here this week this isn't the football card podcast we're just jumping in we're delivering something to you football card related though we have to talk about the topps chrome football launch of it all and i promise you we're not going to be doing it from the perspective of resharing news that you saw from the topps industry conference no we will not be doing that we will not be sitting here reading the sell sheet and talking about all the features and the releases and all of the parallel all the we're not gonna do that you can go do that yourself you've probably seen the reels of all the news and everything that's happening we are going to take a very interesting angle for this episode on the other side of this episode tops chrome football is launching which is a really big moment for the football card community when i got back into the hobby i was obsessed with trying to understand the football card market of it all the structure collector behavior and have been sharing my thoughts on football cards ever since i've launched this brand football cards are near and dear to my heart i love football we created a whole separate podcast for football cards with the football card podcast and so we are in an important turn of the cycle the passing of the baton from one manufacturer to another we're gonna be talking more about the reaction to the specific cards on the football card podcast but what i wanted to do here today and release this episode the day before tops chrome football officially releases is to talk about the fact that this is the first time in the history of tops chrome football where it is going to be released out standing tall on its own without any competition so what does that mean for us as collectors there is something unprecedented happening we are getting an old friend back but the twist is there's no rival product think about this since nineteen ninety six tops chrome football was debuted in nineteen ninety six there were always other options and so i want to talk about that and i want to understand how that impacts us as collectors on the other side of this big release where there's no other options or competition so let me ask you all something out there listening you collect football cards you don't collect football cards i just wanna ask you something what happens to you as a collector when there's no alternative there's no second option there's no competing product there's no different path to take just one brand one product one lane this is what we are about to experience with tops chrome football and i don't think most people are ready for what that actually does to their behavior because for years we had a choice you might not have thought about it that way but your entire collecting identity has been shaped by competition maybe not so much in the panini era right we are getting off of one of these eras i am referencing more my life as a collector you had overlap right there was a period from twenty twelve to twenty fifteen where it was prism versus chrome then when you moved into the panini era you had brands competing competing brands under the same umbrella optic versus select even if you only bought one of them the existence of the other option mattered it gave you a reference point it gave you something to compare against it gave you a reason to say i like this more than i like that but now this disappears and when that disappears something else shows up and i think it's really important to understand and again i'm putting out this episode just as an observation and also i will caveat it by saying while i might not be first in line to go spend a bunch of money on top scrum football i think this release is important and it's really good for the broader football card collecting community but this puts puts pressure the circumstances put pressure because now the question is what do i like more it becomes do i participate or not and that's a completely different psychological game most collectors i don't think realize that yet right we're infatuated by the new shiny toy by the big hits by buying into breaks by trying to figure out what parallels we collect how we're going to jump in we're evaluating the product we think we're evaluating the product but we're we're not we're being forced to evaluate ourselves and let me explain this further when there is competition you can hide inside preference you can say i'm a prism guy i don't like chrome or i only buy optic i don't like select that's comfortable that's safe that gives you identity without pressure but when there's only one product there's really nowhere to hide now your decision is to engage or not to engage it's a direct reflection of your conviction as a collector not your preference your conviction and that's where i think as a collector and as a creator in this space that's where things start to get very interesting because i would imagine some of you are going to feel pulled in immediately you're going to see tops chrome footballs back and think got to be involved look at these cards they look amazing i love football cards not necessarily because you love it because can you love something that is brand new that's a question i ask as a collector like when something gets released right out of the gates can you fall is it can you have a love at first sight moment or is it just you're so sucked in and you're pulled in by it that you think you love it maybe it's it's not because you studied it but because it feels important it it like the market is telling you that it matters and i'll i'll i'll say this out of the gates and i've commented this in the patreon group and i just put out a saturday slabs episode in the patreon group this weekend where i i couldn't praise fanatics tops enough for their ability to go to market in this modern era and to gain interest from consumers right we we did not go to most of us did not go to the tops industry conference but it feels like we were there because the audience wasn't just an audience the audience was a promotional distribution channel for topps we all followed along on our phones from pictures of dealers who were there saw the updates of the slides we got insights based on people in the stadium not necessarily directly from tops this is the way we are moving as an industry which is feels a lot more like twenty twenty six than it does twenty sixteen so kudos to them for their ability to get people excited that's their job to gain momentum that's their job to get people to pay for this stuff that's their job but because it feels because it's standing alone and because there's a sophisticated go to market strategy it very much feels like the market telling us that it matters and so there's a very important distinction because it's brand new because it's standing alone because it's the return of a big brand does that mean we just have to go collect it that's the question we need to wrestle with ourselves and i don't think just because a manufacturer makes a move and gains a license and puts out a product that we have to go buy into it that's that's not collecting that's compliance and on the flip side some of you are going to reject it you're gonna say i'm out i don't like this but if you're honest with yourself is that about the product or is that about control because when there's no competition you don't get to play your usual game you don't get to compare you don't get to optimize you don't get to hunt for the better version and i'm sure some of you have felt this way during the panini era i'm on the opposite side i got back into the hobby during the panini era and i've been infatuated with prism ever since but i understand many of you who never took a break in collecting who've been collecting football cards forever might have felt this way when topps lost the license and now the shoe is on the other foot you either step in or you step away and i think that creates tension now let's maybe go one layer deeper competition doesn't just shape markets it shapes discipline when there are multiple products you're forced to think you're forced to evaluate which one holds up which one matters long term where is the signal versus the noise that process sharpens you as a collector but when there's only one product that sharpening disappears now the market becomes louder maybe not clear but certainly louder because all attention all dollars all conversation are funneled into one place and that is the strategy the strategy is let's blow the roof off of this release let's get people as excited as possible let's use guys like tom brady and other celebrities and athletes to elevate these cards to another level because this is the only choice this is the only option and again i think topps' ability to go to market and use celebrities and and athletes to extend sports cards out of small circles that we hang out in is really important now i have questions and i've said this a lot like we're thinking about net new and we're thinking about ten x ing the hobby but are we thinking about retention because the new participants don't matter if they're gonna churn and fall out the bottom again i'm gonna be continuing to hit the topic of retention in all of my content from a from a industry and business perspective because i think if the numbers weren't soaring through the roof right now the industry in general might have a retention problem because or a retention issue because i i never see businesses and again this could just be me i'm maybe i'm giving it a poor evaluation but businesses don't seem to be indexing on the retaining existing customers front as much as they are on trying to grab a hold of brand new attention so when everything is funneled into one place it becomes really hard to separate real demand from concentrated demand and i think that's a really big difference and most collectors if you're not thinking about this stuff deeply you won't catch it and understand this i'm not speaking from a place of authority i'm speaking from a place of i've got a this is my job my job is to not only understand cards not only understand content not only understand the industry but understand how it impacts us from a consumer behavior and psychology perspective this is what i signed up for when i started this brand because this is the foundation of this brand because when concentrated demand feels like strength it looks like strength prices move cards sell content explodes but what you're really seeing is a lack of options everything is being forced into this one narrow lane so of course it's going to look active there's nowhere else to go and if you don't recognize that dynamic you start assigning meaning where there might not be any meaning you might start saying this is the card this is the set this is what matters let's just take a small example i guess from what i've seen so far on the tops tops chrome football front now obviously the design mirrors the tops chrome basketball which i think is a pretty pretty decent design i would say the photography on the football side at least from what i have seen looks a lot better than the basketball product i thought the basketball product and the images were a dud most of the pictures were just uninspiring i'm seeing things a little bit differently on the football card side although it hasn't released yet i haven't seen a full set in all the pictures but that's just my early analysis but when you say this is the card this is the set this is what matters think about the tom brady card that's on the sell sheet superfractor it obviously is a post playing day superfractor now once that card gets pulled is that card going to sell for more than any other tops chrome superfractors that tom brady has ever sold or that has sold ever of tom brady i i i can't forecast that but i don't think it's crazy to consider that based on the market dynamics and i think that in and of itself the fact that a card like that that might not have the the same prestige as a brady superfractor from a super bowl year selling for whatever the hell it's gonna sell for is interesting what we're really saying is this is what's available and i think that's a dangerous place to operate from so let's bring it back to the football card collector because this episode isn't about tops chrome football it's really about how we as collectors respond to it what do you do when the structure around you changes do you when these undeniable forces are going to continue in the hobby decisions are gonna get made things are gonna happen do we spend our time buying in or arguing against things that we have no control over i think that's a waste of time or do you follow the crowd because the signal feels strong or reject the product because you don't like it's being forced or slow down and ask better questions i think the third option there is where real collectors who are in it live because this moment this no competition moment is one of the clearest mirrors you're ever gonna get it's going to show you how much you rely on consensus how much you rely on comparison and how much you rely on the market to tell you what matters and if you're paying attention it can also show you something what you actually care about because when everything funnels into one place the only way to separate yourself is through intention you have to define what does the product mean to me not to the market not to instagram not to the loudest voices but you maybe this means you go deep you pick a lane inside tops chrome football and build something thoughtful maybe this means you sit out entirely not out of spite but because it doesn't align with what you're building maybe that means you engage selectively you don't chase everything you don't react to every sale you move with purpose but what you can't do is drift because this environment rewards drift it rewards passive participation it rewards people who show up without a plan and those are the collectors who wake up later and realize they didn't build anything they accumulated what was in front of them and that's a big difference a massive difference so as topps chrome football comes back i don't think it's good to be asking is this a good product that's the wrong question i think it's important to ask what is this revealing about me as a collector am i chasing because it's loud am i avoiding because i don't like the setup am i thinking independently or am i reacting because in a world with no competition you as the collector becomes the filter and most collectors haven't built that muscle yet this is your opportunity to do it not by being right not by timing the market but by being intentional because at the end of the day the product doesn't define your collection the decisions you make as a collector will define your collection this is something that i think is very interesting to dig into i had a lot of passion and interest when topps chrome basketball dropped talking about this stuff i'm gonna have even more passion and interest talking about topps chrome football because i tend to lean towards football cards a little bit more now again i'm excited to open my phone up tomorrow when this drops to see the hits see the reaction i'm a fan of this industry i'm a fan of people celebrating i'm a fan of people getting excited about new stuff i just think it's important to slow down and ask yourself the important questions there's no competition tops chrome football is it are you doing it just because other people are or are you doing it because you love it these are the questions we should ask ourselves in this era it's a fun time to be collecting sports cards it's a fun time to be building collections it's an amazing time to be engaging with other people as passionate as you and the community it's awesome football cards rule and i'm rooting for tops chrome football i hope it does well i hope people get excited about it i just think we as collectors shouldn't just stop what we're doing because a decision is made take some time take a step back and reflect i think it'll be good for everyone appreciate you supporting stacking slabs your hobby content alternative we are continuing to move forward so much new content coming your way every day football card podcast will be released on the other side of this we'll dig in a little deeper from a different angle looking at the cards looking at what we're seeing thank you so much for supporting what we're doing over here appreciate it you all take care we'll talk to you soon