Blink and it was priced from a private collection.
In my experience WNBA For 28 years, the card collector has been doing things “no one cares about.” WNBA card“If you ask most dealers, then they will give you a hobby box. 2024 WNBA Selection The cards sold out on the Panini website in about three minutes at the discounted price of $874. This is a more than 500% increase over last year’s WNBA card box sales.
Now I think someone is interested.
Otherwise, for people like me and many others who have been involved in the launch of the WNBA, there was only one option. These new someones are definitely showing up in droves on live sales platforms like Whatnot, spending thousands of dollars on Select FOTL (first of its kind) breaks. Here, participants purchase the rights to all cards of a specific team or player taken from a pack. I opened it. But they seem especially disappointed when they fail to hit one of their chase points with a one-word title like “edge” or “angel.” WNBA MVP Breaker who can’t pronounce words Aja Wilsonsay your name correctly Nafisa Collier With so many veteran players, autographs aside, we’re looking for specific people.
Everyone is looking for someone specific. Maybe at the expense of us still foolishly bringing everyone together.
Caitlin Clark He is quite famous, a great basketball player and an even more prolific marketing icon. And while her joining the WNBA opened the door to greater visibility and fan interest, her impact on the niche sector of WNBA collecting has been significant in building an inclusive WNBA card community and creating product at a time when everyone was telling us no one cared. It feels like the door is closing on those who promote it. . Pricing your most loyal consumers while simultaneously skyrocketing prices above the means of new entrants to the market is not an effective strategy for long-term success.
As a sports marketing professor, I often discuss the two big “Rs”: reach and revenue. Reach is about growing your audience, while revenue is about making money. Check out any online card forum and it’s clear that the WNBA’s soaring popularity is attracting new collectors to the WNBA card market, as well as collectors from other sports. The Clark collector craze is a dream come true for sports card companies’ desire to expand the reach of women’s basketball collecting.
With so many new fans ready to become collectors, Panini and its distributors had to rush to offer affordable and accessible products to these new fans in an effort to transform them from casual fans into lifelong dedicated collectors. But companies chose the $875 WNBA Select box over long-term growth. dutch auctionAnd the price of a single box of FOTL Select Hobbies is higher than the cost of a full case. 2023 WNBA Prism. While Panini Instant offered single cards for $10 and draft sets for $75 plus shipping, the tunnel vision of the rookie class created a tight collecting space for new team collectors. Even though Panini kept its direct allocation costs the same as the previous year, secondary distributors took the opportunity to increase box prices sixfold to credit card retailers and online merchants. Years of loyalty from purchasing WNBA products when demand was low meant nothing to distributors focused only on quick profits. Consumer reach has been set aside for short-term gains. This was a dramatic change from one year to the next, rather than a gradual rise over a decade.
Panini did not provide a response to questions about the price change.
Across all consumer products, many companies carefully balance reach and revenue, especially when demand and interest in their products surge. It would be foolish to increase your bottom line without taking advantage, but the key is to find a middle ground that doesn’t alienate your most loyal consumers in the long run in the process. And that makes me feel pretty amazing about what’s happened in the WNBA card space.
Less than a year later, I purchased a 2023 case. WNBA Origins $599 card. The latest version of the same release, 2024 WNBA Origins, currently sells for $3,759. But no one cares, right?
I think people are paying attention now, right? Or is it? Does the current state of WNBA cards reflect the surge in fan enthusiasm for the league, or is it a master class in how to capitalize on FOMO and consumers with limited experience for a niche product that exists in an artificial economy built around gambling? Are you witnessing this? ? Future years will decide that.
With Panini holding the WNBA trading card license for at least one year and up to three years, it is disappointing that they appear to be limiting a tremendous opportunity to expand WNBA card collecting by pursuing short-term profits instead of focusing on expanding their reach. It’s like that. For example, paying $875 to get basic Shey Peddy and Katie Douglas autographs is disappointing.
Perhaps card companies and distributors are looking forward to future draft classes containing future “tracking points.” Names like “Paige” and “Juju” may entice gamblers looking for a quick turnaround, but what goes up inevitably comes down, and certainly more than quadrupling in price in 10 months is hardly sustainable.
Who will be left when the speculators move on and the most committed and dedicated longtime WNBA collectors are left out to maximize the most immediate profits? On the WNBA side, the question is: Who’s next?
This article originally appeared on: athletic.
WNBA, Sports Business, Memorabilia & Collectibles
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