Hobby Musings: Bringing college to cardboard – Another college football season is underway. Although you may not have noticed with all the excitement surrounding Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather’s fight last weekend, a handful of games were played. The big action gets underway this weekend, highlighted by Florida State’s matchup against Alabama. College football is a funny thing in the hobby though.
Unlike its professional counterpart, there is no particular hobby hoopla over it. Without any licensed collegiate trading cards featuring the school’s current athletes, there isn’t the same feeling of anticipation for a new group of players or returning stars. Sure, fans can attempt to get the athlete’s autographs at games or other fan fests, but you can’t typically go to your local card shop to try and pull a USC card of Sam Darnold or an Oklahoma card of Baker Mayfield.
Not to say that companies haven’t released cards of top college stars in some form or another before they made their professional and collegiate-licensed debuts. Leaf released a much-publicized cut autograph card of Johnny Manziel while the former Heisman winner was still at Texas A&M. They’ve also done various All-American sets of players before they’ve gone into college. Upper Deck has also released cards of players like Jameis Winston and Todd Gurley in USA Football products. However, those cards also carried a larger degree of value risk given the unpredictability and longer gap before a player’s collegiate and/or professional career.
I asked Beckett Football editor David Lee about the performance of earlier cards now that they’ve been on the market several years. His response was, “I think collectors naturally gravitate toward the CLC and NFL-licensed products once they release. That can mostly be attributed to the fact that there are eventually so many options. You can watch that unfold on the Beckett Football Hot List every year. Those early release cards start off being very popular, but then as more options come to the market, they tend to cool off.”
The NCAA’s rules for amateur athletes preclude companies like Panini from making cards and licenses autographs for the athletes while they’re still in school. While it may not matter as much for basketball stars who tend to leave school after one year, it can provide a bit of a wait for a superstar freshman football player. Given the NFL’s entry requirements, collectors have to wait a few years before the players get a licensed card. As such, you have to either hope the player has a high school card or else try and get a piece of non-licensed signed memorabilia.
Any way you look at it, there’s a certain gap in the card world when it comes to collegiate athletes. That gap 
begs the question of how a collegiate-based product with current college players perform in the hobby market.
For a retailer’s perspective on the matter, I spoke with Dave and Adam’s Card World CEO Adam Martin. He revealed that while NFL-licensed products still tend to perform better, he has seen an uptick in the demand for collegiate releases over the past two years. Elaborating, he said “Panini has done a good job creating content with their collegiate licenses. We’ve seen more interest in them from direct buyers and group breakers alike.” He also noted that the huge and rabid fan bases at prominent Division I schools has helped improve the demand for the collegiate products.”
Speaking about current collegiate players receiving trading cards, Martin thought it was an interesting idea with promise in the marketplace. When asked why, he said, “It could create an atmosphere similar to what Bowman does for baseball with prospect cards. Look at Aaron Judge. While his 2017 rookie cards have been sought after, more people are chasing after his 2013 prospect cards and giving them more value.”
Lee also shared the positive sentiment for how a current collegiate-based product would do, saying he thought, “It would be huge.” Speaking further, he explained, “In a lot of ways, college football fans and collectors can be more passionate and more loyal than NFL fans. Plus, college players can come out of nowhere and get hot at any time. They are only in school for three or four years, so there is a bigger sense of scarcity and newness. I could even see collectors reacting to big-name high school recruits, treating them like they do NFL rookies. It would be interesting.”
Lee did offer a flipside view on this type of product, saying, “It might lessen the anticipation and reaction collectors have for NFL rookies. Collectors would already be able to get their hands on cards while these players are in college.”
Martin also spoke of the shorter shelf life currently associated with collegiate-licensed products. Collectors know they only have to wait a few months from the release of collegiate products until the player’s NFL-licensed cards come out. As such, many tend to hold off in favor of getting the professional releases. With that in mind, he did say that if companies were able to create collegiate-licensed cards of players like LaMar Jackson as early as their freshmen season, it would change the dynamic and add a longer shelf life of interest.
College football has had its fair share of superstars in the past few seasons, and this year is no different. Beyond players like Jackson and Darnold, there are top names like Penn State’s Saquon Barkley and Wyoming’s Josh Allen. Given the current amounts of attention paid to these players through recruiting and social media, it helps build an audience with fans for a number of years before the players even reach the NFL.
Asked which current college players would have the biggest hobby demand, Lee looked to the stars. “It would start by looking at the big names from last year who are still in college. Guys like Lamar Jackson at Louisville, Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma, Mason Rudolph and James Washington at Oklahoma State, Darius Giese at LSU. Those come to mind pretty quickly.”
Going further, he added, “From a national perspective, it would be the top skill position stars and standouts from the College Football Playoff the year before. No surprise there. However, college fans have a lot of “hometown hero” players that could also generate a lot of demand among fans and collectors of those particular schools.”
Martin does think there would have to be certified autographs of the players in order for collectors to fully take notice.
Elaborating, he said, “If Panini was able to create a National Treasures type of product centered around the college football prospects, that would be killer. Being able to get these players on cards and autographs, especially if you can get them as incoming freshmen, I think you could have interest from a variety of collectors. Whether it’s people who like football on a collegiate, professional or even fantasy sports level, there’s a potential market there.”
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