Klein’s Korner: We Need More Positive Promotion In The Hobby – This past few days have been unusually active for important NFL personnel news. Two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks from important franchises no longer hold starting jobs and have been replaced by newer and untried professional quarterbacks. While we don’t know and may not know for a couple of years the final decision on the new players there is no doubt there is and will be much increased interest in Mason Rudolph and Daniel Jones.
The amazing part of this, is believe it or not, there are some collectors out there who believe these type of changes and the positive effect it has on their prices are bad for the hobby. Their motto is, “If you didn’t want their cards yesterday why would you want their cards today?“. One of the most important reasons you want these cards is in sports things change and we have new heroes in all sports every season. Sometimes you can predict when a player will take off based on previous performance and sometimes their interest comes out of nowhere.
As I pen this, Kyle Lewis of the Seattle Mariners is getting ready to take the field for his 8th major league game. In his first seven games, he belted four homers and he is only 23 years old. Now in looking at his minor league stats, this could be a fluke and I would personally be careful of purchasing his cards. Yet, if you live in the Seattle area you might decide you want to go to your local sports card outlet and buy some of his 2016 first year cards. If I had a store or a show in the Seattle area, I’d probably make sure I’d announce I have Kyle Lewis cards available. Doing so is not just hype but it’s also called positive promotion and that’s something which we need more in this hobby. Isn’t it nice to have good stories to tell your customers about the player’s potential and why you like a player either short or long term?
Let’s play “what if” for a second. What if someone who is a decent player for an obscure team without much hobby love gets so hot in the post-season they hit 15 homers and sweep the MVP awards? If said player is Matt Chapman of the Oakland A’s then all his prices would explode and rightly so. There would be a ton more interest in his cards. If that drew more people into the hobby then bully for him and let’s congratulate him on a great post-season. If you collected him, that might be the best time to sell off and take the chance you can buy those cards back cheaper later.
I realize this seems like common sense but these were adaptions of two tweets I sent out this week:
There are certain people in our hobby who are curmudgeons and do not understand a simple concept. Our hobby is not a vacuum and interest in players can fluctuate in both directions on a dime. Today’s lesson: Daniel Jones, now starting QB of the New York Giants!
— Rich Klein (@sabrgeek) September 17, 2019
Now he is starting QB, with increased interest/buying/selling of him. Prices then go up. A normal dynamic of this hobby to collect the new starting QB of your team. This is a LIVING hobby and not. Static hobbies you can go to: include COINS, STAMPS AND POSTCARDS.
— Rich Klein (@sabrgeek) September 17, 2019
Klein’s Korner: We Need More Positive Promotion In The Hobby
Our hobby is not in a vacuum and player’s price can and do change on a dime. The quarterback situation is a little different because the players who were replaced have both won Super Bowls and both can/may/will end up in Canton as a Hall of Famer. For both Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger this week’s events have little long-range effects on their prices. There might be a short term dip and if you believe, as I do, that both will be enshrined by 2030 then this may the last best chance to purchase their cards at a reasonable price. There is nothing wrong with that type of long-term investing and there is nothing wrong with taking a chance on players such as Jones and Rudolph. If makes you feel more involved with their future, then it’s our job to ensure you feel comfortable with their cards at a price you are fine with. One of our local store owners (Mason’s Cards in Frisco) posted on their Facebook page on Tuesday: “Going to be a lot of new faces next Sunday! Are one of these kids the next Eli or Tom Brady”. That’s called marketing and we all should be aware of this.
Now he is starting QB with increased interest/buying/selling of him. Prices then go up. A normal dynamic of this hobby to collect the new starting QB of your team. This is a LIVING hobby and not static. If you want a static hobby where nothing changes then there are such hobbies as Stamp Collecting, Coin Collecting and Postcard Collecting. Have you ever been to one of those shows? I have and I still fall in the younger group of attendees. In a baseball card show most of the attendees are younger than me, some by a significant margin, and that’s a good thing for the present and the future. As long as we have positive forces such as Gary Vee helping to drive interest, then we have good hope for the short and long-term future. And if you want to stay in sports collecting may I recommend going into Vintage cards if you don’t like how new card prices can go up. That is truly a market where if you don’t want it yesterday, you don’t need it today.
This is a random photo of a stamp show.
So if you own a business, make sure to do whatever you think is needed to bring more and new customers into the flock. If you want to be a curmudgeon, then understand the people who assist collectors in the brave new world are helping us to get the word out about how exciting this hobby can be and we need more of that!
For more from Rich Klein, follow him on Twitter @sabrgeek.
Klein’s Korner: We Need More Positive Promotion In The Hobby
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