Hobby Musings: Exploring the Origins of Germany’s Pushdich TCG – The hobby’s explosion over the past few years has been more and more on an international scale. One such place this has happened is in Germany. Three years ago, there were only two LCS stores in the country. Now there are four. One of the shops is Pushdich TCG, which was founded by Christian Brueckner and Franco Galli in 2021. Since then, they’ve hired two full-time employees and Benjamin Albrecht in a part-time capacity. I had the chance to catch up with Christian and Bejamin to find out more about the company’s origin and the evolution of the hobby in Germany.
Hobby Musings: Exploring the Origins of Germany’s Pushdich TCG – Interview
Hobby Musings: Exploring the Origins of Germany’s Pushdich TCG – Interview Transcript
Editor’s Note: Some text has been altered from original audio for grammar and clarity.
KS: Hi, everyone. Welcome to another international edition of Hobby Musings. I’m Kelsey Schroyer, here today with Pushdich TCG’s Benjamin and Chris. Guys, thank you for joining us. I guess guten nacht based where you’re at right now.
BA: Thanks for welcoming us. Thank you. Thank you.
CB: Thank you. Appreciate it.
KS: So, we’ll just get started here. How did your company get started out in Germany?
CB: Back in the day, we were starting with FIFA streaming on Twitch. Soccer is one of the, I think, the biggest sports in Germany. That was our starting point into livestreaming and content creation. We were online two to three times each week. Once we did a box break ourselves instead of playing FIFA, the community loved it. Then we made the decision three years ago, we want to grow in this business. It started with the Pokemon hype. All of a sudden, the sports stuff was getting bigger in Germany as well. That was one of the first steps when we decided, okay, let’s try to go with box breaking in Germany and make it popular. We included more sports than soccer like WWE and NFL, NBA, and stuff like that. That’s one of the first steps where we met Benjamin too. He’s the all-American sports expert on our channel. That’s one of the things that we’re growing, and we want to grow the hobby even more this year.
BA: I will just add something. So actually, everything started three years ago, and Chris and Franco, who are the founders from Pushdich TCG, were basically like, let’s say they were scammed themselves in the hobby. So, there was some resellers where they got scammed on, and that’s why they decided to just go ahead and start their own business to get the scammer out of the business basically. And that’s why they said, okay, we can do it better. That’s why they started their business three years ago.
Since then, it’s a fast -growing business in Germany, especially soccer, whereas like our main audience, let’s say. So, we do a lot of soccer stuff, but like the NFL started with the Germany games, with London games and stuff like that, is going on for years and years. That’s why the NFL and stuff is getting bigger in Germany. So that’s why we are growing with the American stuff as well. And I joined the company, I think like two years ago, something like this, and basically my main part is to be, let’s say part -time with the company, doing some breaks, NFL, NBA, and stuff. So, our main channel is Twitch. We’re doing Twitch live streams with Chris and Franco two or three times a week. I’m streaming on something like the Whatnot platform, which is called VOGGT in Germany. And we got one more guy who is doing one stream a week. So, we are at least online five days a week.
CB: For example, today we have a streaming event with an influencer too. They make the show in the other room. We try to have each day an online event or a stream or something else.
KS: Got you, so let me ask you this, you’ve talked about everything you’ve built so far. What do you think has been the biggest challenge to get to this point?
CB: I think you handle a lot of things. We opened our physical brick & mortar store in December. We have our online shop. We’re on Instagram. We have a part in the streaming area on Twitch with FIFA. We also have a good connection to influencers that we can make for example, commercials and getting more influence in the sports things. And we have good partnership with the company Topps for example and I think you have to. I think it’s a big part of a lot of things that you can grow as a business and getting bigger.
BA: So actually, I think the biggest challenge from our standpoint is growing the community in Germany, because collecting itself is not a big thing in Germany. It all started with the pandemic because the prices went high. A lot of guys came back to collect to do stuff during the pandemic and it was the same in Germany as well. The biggest challenge was actually to get everything rolling to get connections into the hobby and the market and the business itself, and of course to build the community and grow the hobby. As I said, in Germany, the hobby is not that big. There are some guys, and now, since last year, there are some shows going on. We never had shows before in Germany, and this is basically the main challenge from the business side, and also from the hobby and the collecting side.
KS: You talk about that market that’s kind of just relatively newly developing in Germany. Of the demand you’ve seen for products and players, are there any kind of products or players that have surprised you in terms of how much your customers are demanding them?
BA: The soccer market in Germany is like the baseball market in the US. So, everything in baseball which comes out is like sold out like in seconds, right? And Topps, especially Topps Europe or Topps Germany is feeding the market good with on-demand sets. We see some hobby sets from Panini as well. They are selling out pretty quickly as well if they are like more than the Premier League, let’s say, because we are in Germany, right? And that’s why we’re just looking at the stars like Erling Haaland and guys like that. The German audience, they are mainly collecting like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi. They are hunting some rookies as well of course, and that’s why they are basically demanding all these guys, but not like, let’s say, the MLS Chrome, for example, or the MLS players. So ,they are actually breaking the MLS chrome, just for Messi. They are more looking for international stars. And of course, fast available products. So, they won’t wait for like hobby products like EPL or anything like that.
CB: But it’s tough too to get the Panini products in Germany. You only can buy from retailers. That’s a big thing, too. It easier to get products from Topps as we are looking at a very good partnership with Topps from our standpoint. Topps seems more popular in Europe than Panini soccer wise.
KS: So, looking a little further at growth, what do you think needs to happen to kind of take that next step to grow it even further in Germany, the hobby, that is?
CB: I think it’s getting popular. The hobby is getting bigger. For example, the NFL matches, they are in Germany. The NFL thing is getting bigger in Germany. I think maybe they have an NBA match in the future too in Germany, because the NBA or the German basketball league is not as popular like soccer or anything else. But I think that’s the transition. The hobby is coming. We have more shows, we have more conventions, and we have more sports events like the NFL event. And I think that’s a good indicator for the future that we can grow in this market too with a lot of sports. Not only on soccer for example. It’s getting bigger with WWE, with NFL and NBA.
BA: So, I think there should be like two major points in terms of growth. The market needs to get bigger basically for all sports in Germany and TCG as well, and the soccer market itself needs a little more attention in the US, because the US is the main market. So, we don’t need to talk about that. And if soccer didn’t get any bigger in the US, Europe will stay as small as it is, because in Europe, there are not a lot of guys who spend their money on, let’s say big cards. So, there’s never sales for like thousands and thousands of Euros or dollars or whatever. And that’s why the market itself needs to get bigger, and soccer needs to get more attention in the US to get us more attention as well, and the other way around.
We’re getting an NBA game in Paris, and NBA is a big thing in Germany as well. They started even before the NFL. But I think that’s a big step. And of course, our customers and the whole community, they need to get their mindset to the next level, because they are still looking for the 50 bucks box. They want to break the 50 bucks box and want to hit an autograph for like 250 bucks to resell. And that won’t happen at all, right? So that’s the big thing. We need to get like the hobby in their mind, because everyone should collect whatever they want to. And if someone wants to collect base cards or whatever, they should do it. Let’s go for it. The majority of the people need to get their minds set right for the collecting hobby.
CB: But for the soccer thing in America, it’s good in 2026, when there is the world championship in soccer in the United States. I think that’s a big part in the future that we can grow the soccer market in America, and that’s one of the biggest things that it’s getting bigger in the future too, in my opinion.
KS: It’s been really cool to hear you describe the growth you’re seeing in Germany. I can’t wait to see how much more can happen even this year. We’re out of time for today though. Thank you so much for joining us.
BA: You’re welcome. Thank you for having us.
CB: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Hobby Musings: Exploring the Origins of Germany’s Pushdich TCG
Kelsey’s ability to bring hobby coverage to the mainstream sports fan has been a true asset. GTS is happy to feature his thoughts on collecting in Hobby Musings. The opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of GTS Distribution.
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