Hobby Musings: Paul Zickler, Upper Deck – Interview
Hobby Musings: Paul Zickler, Upper Deck – Interview Transcript
Editor’s note: Some text has been changed from original audio for grammar and clarity.
KS: Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of Hobby Musings. I’m Kelsey Schroyer, joined today by a very special guest, Upper Deck Director of Sports Brands Paul Zickler. Paul, thank you for joining us.
PZ: Hey, thanks for having me.
KS: So, you just had your big Certified Diamond Dealer Conference recently. What were some of the highlights that came out of the conference?
PZ: Yeah, I know it’s always a busy time of year for the Upper Deck team. And I know it comes right after the holidays, so there’s quite a bit of heavy lifting during the holidays. But, you know, it really sets the stage for the whole year. It’s good to connect with our biggest hobby shop customers as well as some of our distributors and licensing partners. And I think overall the sentiment was everyone was really excited about where Upper Deck is going and our products. Everyone enjoyed getting together and discussing ways that we can improve upon our product plan and products moving forward.
KS: Overall, what do you think as the biggest feedback, like the biggest things that dealers were coming up, or your partners were coming up and saying, hey, this is kind of what we’d like to see a little more. Maybe we’d like to see a little improvement here?
PZ: Yeah. You know, I think, there’s always, feedback depending on which customer you talk to, they have strong feelings either way. I think one thing that was our goal last year is that we really wanted to make a commitment to getting our products, specifically on the sports side, up to date. And I was happy to share during our presentation that we have made significant progress. And this time next year, I think it will even be that, that much further along. So, I think obviously, getting back to a regular release cadence, was an objective and, and we made a lot of progress, which we were happy to share. So, we just started 2025. A lot of changes in the sports card sports memorabilia world in the last couple years, a lot of competition out there, a lot of interest in this.
KS: What do you think is the state of Upper Deck as we sit here, you know, in the early part of 2025?
PZ: I think we’re in a great spot. And, you know, I think I, kicked off our presentation really showcasing the growth of one of our key partners, which is the NHL and the NHLPA. The quality of the game on the ice has never been faster. The skill has never been better. And there is a big youth movement where there’s a lot of key rookies that are having immediate impacts on their team.
One of the few the key stats from last season is last season was an all-time record in attendance and TV viewership or in attendance, Sorry. And then TV viewership was the highest since the McDavid years. So, people are tuning in. You know, we’ve had great, expansion markets in Vegas, Seattle and now a new market in Utah. There’re new collectors in new key markets. And I’m Canadian, so, I even got to give credit where credit’s due. But the game is growing in the US. And obviously coming off of the US team winning the World Juniors for back-to-back and Lane Hutson’s brother Cole leading the scoring for that tournament. The first time a defenseman has ever done that.
You know the US game is growing and that is great for everybody. And what better way to kick off the Four Nations Face Off and then the Olympics next year. So, the state of hockey has never been better. And the collector base for hockey cards is a similar sentiment. It’s kind of unique how they rise the tides together. And we’re just really excited where our hockey card business is going.
KS: What do you think is the biggest challenge Upper Deck is facing right now in terms of, you know, production or even just in the space in general?
PZ: Yeah, no, I think production is obviously one. I think another is just, educating all of these new collectors on our products. That was one thing that kind of led through the “Bedard mania” is we had a lot of new collectors come into the hockey vertical, and, it’s on our job to really educate them on our products. The core rookie cards within each of the products and connect with those new customers.
KS: You were touching on hockey there. Who do you think is the most collectible player on hockey cards right now?
PZ: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think last year was really, the Bedard mania took over and it was really focused on one player. You know, we’re more back to a balanced rookie class this year. Obviously, Macklin Celebrini is making waves in San Jose. I haven’t checked it. The current ticker, but he was within a few points of the point lead. He was leading when I was giving my presentation, the rookie class in goals.
But the unique thing about him is he plays a full 200ft game. He is not only responsible in the offensive zone, but also in the defensive zone. And he has the most ice time of any rookie, per game, on the forward side. So, he is a workhorse. And obviously I’m going to make a homer comment here, but similar to Conner he’s coming out of Vancouver, BC, my hometown. So, there must be something in the water there.
But then also, notable is obviously Matvei Michkov in Philadelphia. He was the most NHL ready prospect playing a few seasons in the KHL and, obviously making waves in Philly and then sort of the, the unicorn, the diamond in the rough has been Lane Hutson in Montreal. Not only has he dealt with a huge market in Montreal, but he’s playing big minutes. I think he’s averaging the most minutes of all rookies and when I gave my presentation a week ago, he was leading the class in points. So, it’s a much more balanced class but each of them are playing pivotal roles on their respective teams.
KS: So, for 2025, what can collectors expect for hockey card products this year? Is there anything new they should be looking out for?
PZ: Yeah, we reconfigured a few products. Most notably SP Game Used a little bit different configuration in SPx is you’re going to see a ton of new designs, a new hologram rookie card that we’re really excited about. And we’re bringing back Stature. That was another product that we heard from customers last year when we said we were taking a year off, and we found a way to bring it back. So, we announced that at CDD and we’re going to have a dual rookie class in that product to sort of bridge the year that it took a year off. So, there’s a lot of excitement there.
We also announced, as part of Stature, we’ve renewed our deal with Bobby Orr and it’s also going to include game-used memorabilia rights. So, we haven’t seen game-used memorabilia from Bobby Orr. In, don’t quote me on the timeline, but I’ve heard as long as 20 years that obviously predates me. And so, we got to showcase an awesome auto memorabilia card in Stature. And we’re excited to make that announcement too, so people will be getting some cool Bobby Orr cards coming up.
KS: If you can share this for the memorabilia, are we looking at sticks, sweaters?
PZ: No, I think we’re still obviously scouring the auctions and talking to Bobby on what he’s got. I think the one we showed for solicitation image was a stick, but we’ll be scouring. We have a dedicated team of sourcing that stuff. And we’ll be working closely with Bobby to make sure, the authenticity of it, but can’t comment really on specifics at this time.
LS: Well, let me ask you on that. When you have a category like that, when you haven’t had it for a very long time, what do you think that does the player demand or collector interest? Because it’s it seems pretty rare now in the hobby that we have gaps for players, whether it’s for autographs or memorabilia. So, when you have a chance to bring this back in after such a long layoff, what does that do?
PZ: Oh, there’s a ton of excitement. People get excited. That’s when, you know, we showed that card image. There was a huge draw from the crowd. And something that’s unique to sort of our hockey card business is we have 30 plus years of partnership. And you can imagine all those years of collectors passing it on generations. So, there’s a lot of people that know that meaning. Anytime you can sort of bring back an autograph signer.
I know Pavel Bure signed for us this year, who is a long-standing redemption. You know, collectors get excited, but that’s what makes our job so special, right? We were looking for those, I know last year at the CDD we debuted, the Connor Bedard debut net cord cards and SP Game-Used. That was another one that was really popular. So, we try to uncover those gems. And we’re always working to improve our products. And we get excited when the collectors get excited. That was sort of the response to the Bobby Orr memorabilia announcement.
KS: Okay, I’ll get you out of here on this question. Aside from hockey, what other sports things, other sports Upper Deck products should collectors be on the lookout for this year?
PZ: Well, that’s why I’m glad you brought that up. We have a number of other impactful partners on the sports side. We obviously are announcing DC on the entertainment side and in the process of getting those first products out, but AEW was one for sure. You know, we’ve been building it for four years. A lot of hobby shops in Canada get less visibility to that sort of content. We’re really excited of what we’ve grown there. And one of the events we had, we had an hour of a live AEW match action in Florida, for the attendees. And it was really cool. We released their sort of release calendar coming up.
So we have Allure that’s coming up next week, and then followed by flagship Metal Universe. And then we newly announced SP Game-Used. Getting all of those in attendance to see the product live and just, the entertainment value, the intensity. I think there’s a lot of crossover with the fans of hockey, you know. But I also reiterated that it takes time to nurture these collectors. It’s not, it doesn’t have 30 years of lineage like hockey. We really need to lean on the hobby to educate those customers, seek them out, really show them a good experience because we got to build this business together. But it was awesome to see the product live. And I think that really resonated with our hobby shops.
KS: Yeah, that all sounds great Paul, thank you so much for sharing that with us today.
PZ: Yeah. No worries. Thank you.
Hobby Musings: Paul Zickler, Upper Deck
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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