In 2020, the idea that a player's performance would affect his trading cards took on new life. Especially with modern NBA cards, betting on young players manifested itself by fans buying up their cards at increasingly astronomical prices.
Which brings us to this year's Super Bowl.
Do you invest in Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes now in hope of a Super Bowl bump?
The Action Network reached out to three of the hobby's biggest names and asked them for their thoughts.
First, we went to Rick Probstein, a New Jersey-based eBay PowerSeller, who sold more than $100 million in cards on the website in 2020.
"I don't think the hobby has the expectation that Brady is going to win here," Probstein said. "And, relative to him playing in 10 Super Bowls, I still think he's undervalued. So it's possible that if he wins, some of his cards will double or triple."
Last week, a collector paid $555,988 for a 2000 Brady Autographed Rookie Contenders card, the highest documented sale of a Brady card.
Probstein says that, with a Brady win, the 2000 Autograph Rookie Contenders Championship Ticket card, which is numbered to 100, could be worth at least $4 million.
Probstein sold one of those cards, in a BGS 9, the highest grade on the market, for $250,000 three years ago.
"I know there have been offers in excess of $2.5 million each to the guys who have the cards in the best condition and they've all turned them down."
Geoff Wilson, whose company Sports Card Investor, has some of the more in-depth tools on sales in the hobby, said it's not like people haven't been buying up Brady and Mahomes ahead of the Super Bowl.
"Over the last 60 days, Brady's cards, as a whole, are up 195 percent and Mahomes cards are up 82 percent," Wilson said. "That's compared to the average football card during that time period, which is up 19 percent."
Wilson said he saw a similar run up on Mahomes cards last year before the Super Bowl.
"Then, in the three weeks after the Super Bowl, despite Mahomes winning the game and MVP, his cards dropped 21 percent," Wilson said. "So clearly that indicates that the anticipating him winning the game was built into his prices before the game was played."
Patrick Ryan is a collector who is heavily followed in the industry on his Instagram page, ThePRyanCollection, where he gives his takes on the hobby.
"I think what happened with Mahomes last year is that everyone had the same idea to buy right before the game and the market got flooded, Ryan said. "I think the market we are in now reacts to the big sale prices more than they react to the big games. I think when a card hits $25,000, it truly becomes investment grade and I don't see the prices for the big cards of Mahomes or Brady coming down much."
Mahomes didn't need a second Super Bowl win to break the all-time record of the most expensive football card ever sold. That fell Saturday night when a Mahomes National Treasures Rookie Patch Autograph, numbered to five, sold for $861,000 at Goldin Auctions.
