← Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice
Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice
Trading Cards: The Fan Engagement Goldmine with Jeremy Aisenberg
00:37:27
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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [00:18]
Jeremy Eisenberg
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- [00:28]
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- [01:20]
Jeremy Eisenberg
How we grow the hobby and bring more people into this as a way to make fans stickier to their teams and the leagues and the sports is collecting. When the licenses were being held by Upper Deck and Tops and Fleer and donruss in the 90s, it sparked a lot of innovation. You think about some of the great vintage insert sets of the late 90s and early 2000s are some of the most collectible cards on the planet.
- [01:49]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Billions of dollars, millions of collectors 1 booming industry trading cards aren't just back, they're taking over. Projected to hit 52 billion by 2027, the hobby has evolved into a full blown business with culture, cash and clout all at the center. From the vault to the backroom, we're talking to the heavy hitters writing the future of the hobby. We feature Brian Ludden from Ludx, the fastest and most accurate trading card scanning app Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and creator of Veefriends South Carolina Card King Matty Richard, one of South Carolina's largest retail store owners, and SI Collectibles contributor and sports executive Jeremy Eisenberg, plus some other surprise guests. This isn't just about collecting. It's about investing, scaling and ruling the hobby. Right about now, we're making the hobby make sense in massive dollars. Don't miss this incredible series. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right about now. We're always talking about how to learn more about business and get right. And, you know, we could talk about last week, we could talk about two years ago, but we want to make it topical for today. And, you know, I can admit when I'm doing guilty pleasure, but I'm doing guilty pleasures that you need to know about because this is part of our trading card series. We had Brian Ludden from Ludx on. We've got one of the biggest collectors in the Southeast that's coming on. We've got some other big names. And that's why I went to Jeremy. Jeremy Eisenberg. He is not only, you know, an OG trading card guy, Talent Brand Labs founder, and I think just a sports junkie. Is that what it is, Jeremy?
- [03:33]
Jeremy Eisenberg
That's fair. Sports has been. Sports has been a big part of my life since I as long as I can remember.
- [03:40]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, man. Octagon. Any of our agency crowd will know some name drops that'll get in here. We compared some more stories of agency life a little bit before we got started. Both kind of coming up through that. Jeremy, I, I do. I did go through, like, your background and Brian shared a little bit, but I was like, you know, and I got blessed to work on, you know, Verizon, some big names. We did some sports sponsorship stuff. But it wasn't to. To say that my background's in sports brand marketing. All that would not be painting the. I'd say more wireless and tech. But I read yours and I go, who wouldn't grow up and go, I want to be that. That's what I thought when I was reading through your kind of bylines and everything you've done.
- [04:28]
Jeremy Eisenberg
I've been lucky, man. That's all I can say. I didn't necessarily. It wasn't the plan. I was getting a PhD in genetics and took a leave of absence and ended up working for one of the most influential people in golf. And that was a quick PhD in business. And where that entrepreneurial first step has taken me in the last 20 years is someday I'll write a book. I pinch myself. It's been an amazing journey.
- [04:59]
Gary Vaynerchuk
You need to name that name, though. And our listeners that knows if you've been golf and maybe not golf, you'll recognize this name. We talked before might be one of the first influencers in golf.
- [05:11]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Wasn't he David Ledbetter? Yeah, I mean I, when I think about, I was lucky enough to, to go work for a guy who recognized that his opportunity to leverage his influence and the attention he was able to generate across his own channels and through businesses he owned and controlled. He built an instructor certification business, a brick and mortar academy business, product licensing business, a product development business, content distribution business and all before the introduction of social media. And so I took that experience working for David and learning from him and seeing how important it was to over deliver value. I took all these great lessons and got to work over 18 years for one of the largest agencies in the world and apply that personal branding to this explosion of digital and social content and democratization of distribution. And it's, it's, it's taking me in all sorts of exciting directions, some of which hopefully we'll get to chat about.
- [06:16]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah man, I'm glad you brought up the democratization of, of content and distribution. And that's what's so damn impressive about what David did, you know, but is before, you know, even that time, you know, like talking about mad respect like he didn't even have the benefits that like there's no excuse for anyone now. Like if you've got, if you've got the goods, you got the goods, you got to have the goods, you do have to have that. But if you have that, nothing's in your way with the way social media and if you throw YouTube in there, it's social but whatever content distribution and, and you know, we can talk about wall gardens and all that stuff. Don't let that get in your way. Like you have an ability to reach millions, you know, like I, I, people throw that around, I'll throw it around sometimes. And look, I build a podcast network. I don't always love the walled garden thing, however, I don't, I'm not going to smack the hand that feeds me. And it's got a built in user base of billions. So it is what it is. But I think it's been fascinating for me, but I think especially for you, I'm sure Jeremy, that whole journey, watching what's happened in this explosion of all these channels, you know, TV, online, social media, YouTube now, tick tock, Instagram, all these things with the people and brands that you've worked with. I, I'd love to div dove down that a little bit, you know, while telling kind of your story because you kind of came up through it all.
- [07:47]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah, that's, that's, I appreciate that perspective. When I always felt like I was representing Challenger Brands So to speak. Because, you know, I, I wasn't represent the agency that I work for, octa, we had Michael Phelps, we had Steph Curry, but I was representing coaches and broadcasters in golf. Now where golf had this great advantage was the people who distribute content related to playing better golf have an outsized amount of influence over their audience. If someone is promising better scores, lower handicap, more fun playing golf, they're basically promising them a dopamine high. So I was able to, what I've said to a lot of big technologists, golf is this incredible test kitchen for new innovative technology. When Microsoft was looking at how the augmented reality world might come into play in business, they used golf courses as the way to visualize and bring that to the business community through a PGA Tour partnership. But you were able to use HoloLens and see how this holographic type interface works. And it was a great example of where golf's influence and the pyramid of that influence is so, so powerful. And why I've been able to be as someone like King Kaney was written up in Wall street journal in 2011 as the most authentic user of Twitter in the world. Not just the golf guy, but in the world. Because we were out there trying to find ways to showcase our content in as many channels as we could. And whether that's through augmented reality or whether that's through podcasts or through OTT subscriptions, Hank had a very significant, excuse me, eight figure business, 10 million plus business a month doing online content subscriptions. Because again, that insatiable appetite for game improvement is undying. So the premise has held true. And guys like Gary Vee have been both friends and sort of influen as well is the bottom line is you got to put your message in as many places as the potential audience might be. And the gatekeeping makes sense in certain spots, but really ubiquitous omnichannel content distribution authentically and organically is the answer. And then if you've got the goods, you can achieve a lot.
- [10:29]
Gary Vaynerchuk
How did this, the trading card thing come, I mean, where did that enter? Obviously you'll talk about, you know, as a kid and stuff, you know, like we, a lot of us have the kid stories, but where did that intersection happen in the career?
- [10:43]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah, so I, I collected like everybody, I, I stopped collecting. Yeah, I was born in the late 70s, collected in the, you know, mid late 80s, sort of put them all away in the early 90s and got into Nirvana and Pearl Jam and went to college and got married and had kids and started.
- [10:59]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sounds familiar.
- [11:00]
Jeremy Eisenberg
And then you know, I woke up and I was 30 something, and. And maybe my folks made me take more of the cards home. But probably right about the time I got to Octagon 2006, 2007, I sort of saw cards lying around the office. And we started representing big stars. And I'm thinking, I wouldn't mind getting a basketball sign by David Robinson. And I started kind of. I'm in the sports marketing business at this point, and I've been, you know, on private jets with hall of Fame athletes and, you know, managed not to ask for autographs. So it's sort of. It's this, you know, hey, you might.
- [11:39]
Gary Vaynerchuk
As well get the benefit, like, right, you're there, right?
- [11:41]
Jeremy Eisenberg
I have a great story, and it just shows you what an amazing human this guy is. And everybody's probably got a good one of these with, with Charles Barkley. But I was so talk about like a Forrest Gump kind of life. But I was very fortunate to get to become very good friends with Charles. When Hank Haney filmed the Haney Project, I was. I eat for most of the, you know, production days over six months and ended up being Charles's dinner date for, you know, quiet, you know, nights after a long day of filming. And, you know, Charles used to say when somebody would be coming up to the table, he'd be like, yeah. I finally, I said, you're so. You're so kind to these guys. You never say no. You're always, you know, chipper. How do you do it? And he goes, man, it's going to take me the same 15 seconds either way. And this guy's gonna go around for the rest of his life and say I was either a jerk or I was a great guy. And for me, it's the same amount of time to blow him off or to be nice. And, you know, that it just gives you a lot of respect for how hard it is for them to find peace and quiet. And the bigger the star, the harder that is. And I got to see that up close and personal. But at the same time, collecting is such a fun, fun aspect of being a fan. And so I. I got that. It just got scratched again. You know, I might have mentioned this when we were chatting. I mean, Michael Rubin deserves all the credit in the world for, for his identifying, you know, collectors as the best fans. And in order to, you know, I really believe that this hobby is in its infancy from a growth perspective. And I. Yeah, well, at Octagon, we did some really cool research into the hobby to illustrate that part of how we grow the hobby and bring more people into this as a way to not, not just grow the hobby, but to make fans stickier to their teams and the leagues and the sports Is collecting and it's, you know, it's clearly acknowledged now by, you know, I was talking to the NHL about, you know, the opportunity to engage young fans through collecting. It's sort of identified now as one of the pillars and the, you know, the growth trajectory for, for collecting in general is, is pretty exciting. And you know, one of the things we'll talk about is what we've, we've built in partnership with, with Sports Illustrated and Authentic Brands Group and Minute Media, who are our partners in the Sports Illustrated collectibles business.
- [14:10]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, everybody's got their hands, they know, like the collectibles, you know, realm and the trading cards. They see the smart people are connecting the dots and building units, you know, around how you connect all these things together and how you leverage it to, you know, keep fans being fans. And you know, I think the smart. The winners are gonna, you know, not that they'll necessarily be losers. I don't know if there's any losers. I won't go that far. But there's definitely going to be some big winners. And it's hard. Not. I. It's had some rocky moments. I think the Fanatics and Tops, there's been some stuff, but you can't deny that it feels directionally right is what is my observation.
- [14:59]
Jeremy Eisenberg
It's, you know, they're opening the tent wider, right? The Fanatics Fest. We went to the first Fanatics Fest. It was awesome. Couldn't have been, couldn't have been a more fun, entertaining experience for casual sports fans. They, there were plenty of, of areas that they were the first to recognize they can, they can make improvements on. I'm, I'm excited for, for what they'll do in the event space and you know, and I think healthy competition is good and Panini's not going anywhere and Upper Deck's not going anywhere.
- [15:31]
Gary Vaynerchuk
And did that deal need to happen though?
- [15:33]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Pardon?
- [15:34]
Gary Vaynerchuk
The Panini Tops. Did that deal need to happen though? Would that have been better for the industry?
- [15:39]
Jeremy Eisenberg
You know, it's a great question. I, I think it, it would be better for the industry to have more than, than one license. I think competition is great. I think when the licenses were, were being held by, by, you know, Upper Deck and Tops and, and Flir and Donruss in the, you know, 90s, it sparked a lot of innovation. You think about some of the great old Vintage in old, you know, insert sets of the late 90s and early 2000s are some of the most collectible cards on the planet. You know, that's the, that's the, you know, pinnacle of upper decks. You know, early work in memorabilia, cards and autographs. And, you know, still to this day, when I show some of the trading card innovation to people who've been out of trading cards for a while, they're blown away by what's happened and the collectibility and the tentacles into art and into serious game use memorabilia to museum quality pieces and investment funds. Looking at this stuff through the lens of alternative asset classes. You know, the 30. 30, not related to my background as a geneticist, but 35 of us are genetically predisposed to want to collect stuff, sort of remnants of, yeah, the human.
- [17:05]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Condition a little bit, you know, like that fine line between collecting and hoarding.
- [17:11]
Jeremy Eisenberg
I think the, the tide is rising on, on collecting because collecting is the ultimate, you know, expression of fandom and, and fandom is one of those last safe spaces where we can all come together and cheer on a team and, and not be angry at each other for something else.
- [17:29]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I know. Everything is so polarizing. It's black and white, you know, like, I mean, but in sports, you kind of. It feels like you can, I mean, you're always rooting for one team or the other, but it just feel. It's different than, you know, the. That's out there that is just maddening and polarizing. Yeah, I don't feel like fandom is polarizing. It's just fandom.
- [17:55]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Almost every Republican and Democrat in Boston can agree on the fact that they want the Red Sox to kick the crap out of the Yankees.
- [18:02]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [18:03]
Jeremy Eisenberg
They come together and, you know, where you can, you can start to bring people together, you can find opportunity. Right. So sports has been that. And like I said, I've been so fortunate to be able to be on the journey I've taken. And this platform we built with Sports Illustrated, I chased the SI leadership for years. They are an iconic brand, not just in sports, but also in collecting. And the thing that I observed through my years at Octagon, where I mentioned I did some consulting work for tops, we identified that lapsed collectors were this huge universe of people coming with kids and ready to rediscover the hobby. I was able to help broker the deal between Gary Vaynerchuk and Topps to create a insert set within 2019 top series two around the best entrepreneurs in baseball. And Gary was very adamant. He wanted tops. We proposed to tops developing a collaboration with Gary around a what they were doing branded sets direct to consumer custom branded sets. And they launched the first one with, with Bryce Harper was a big success and they were looking at subjects to do the next one with. And we said, well maybe you should, you should take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk. He's obsessed with cards and you know, now could be a perfect opportunity. And they took it and put a really fun set together that unlocked, you know, Gary's universe to the latest and greatest of modern sports cards. And you know, lots happened since then in the hobby as well. But you know, one of the things that was missing all through that journey long winded here was a major, major sports media platform that was paying attention to the hobby. And that's what we were able to convince SI to move forward with.
- [20:09]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Talk to me about, you know, what SI is doing. You know, like, I think when you think about the collectibles, it's so ironic. Old Sports Illustrated magazines like one of the most collected things like you know, for sports fans especially. Like I've got, I'm not even. I just. The last six months have gotten back into collecting cards, you know, but I wouldn't consider myself like a lifelong collector, but I am when I go, I've got like 10 or 20, you know, sports Illustrated that I've hung up over the years and some are autographs and I went to Clemson, so I got some Dabo Sweeney and Deshaun Watson, you know, like that. That meant more a few years ago, but we won't go down that road. But anyway, it is what it is, but it's, it just fits. So talk to me about what Sports Illustrated and you've been doing and what is that division exactly?
- [21:06]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Well, so you know, when Sports Illustrated said yeah, we're into the idea of building a hobby vertical, the first thing we did was built out a team and we hired a. So I have two partners in this collaboration with si guy named Chris Perrone who was the. Had previously been the general manager of SI at Arena Group and was my partner in helping us to launch the idea initially and then come full circle. Minute Media was interested in the opportunity to do the same thing and we were able to launch si.com collectibles and why that's significant is that the si.com domain is one of the oldest and most trafficked in on the Internet and most has the highest one of the highest domain authorities on the Internet. You know, and sort of how Google ranks sites and drives traffic so, yeah, what is it?
- [22:01]
Gary Vaynerchuk
99. Like, I don't know.
- [22:02]
Jeremy Eisenberg
It's really high.
- [22:03]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I'm sure it starts with a nine, you know, and so we just.
- [22:07]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Get traffic when we have interesting content. So our, our challenge was just making. Making content about the hobby that, that people would be interested in reading. And we've, we've built a staff of now over 15 really dedicated, talented writers, all hardcore hobbyists that have expertise in different verticals. And we're publishing on average 10 pieces a day. We're up to now over half a million unique readers a month and up to 750,000 to a million unique views a month, article views a month, which are good numbers. And we're only into our fourth or fifth month, but it gives us. It's the largest by a factor of 10among hobby content channels, just again, because of the nature of the domain authority. And so that's given us the opportunity to invest even further in original content. We're developing series featuring collectors and really celebrating people's collections. And we're gonna give.
- [23:12]
Gary Vaynerchuk
How about a dad and his four sons? Like that sounds like a story or video.
- [23:19]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Email you after, especially if your collection is featured in Linux. You know, we can showcase that.
- [23:27]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yes, it is.
- [23:28]
Jeremy Eisenberg
That's exactly what we're doing there. And yeah, you know, we're doing fun things with the, you know, the journey of collectibles from sort of discovery. So think about sports collectible version of Antique Roadshow. So we've got some fun ideas in the hopper for video and a lot of things up our sleeve that we're excited about.
- [23:50]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, super smart, Jeremy. Yeah, it's like, okay, this just fits. There's. Sometimes you hear something. You're like, okay, I don't know about that. This is just like it wasn't already happening.
- [24:05]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Surprising, man. Yeah. Yeah. The very first Sports Illustrated had a whole, you know, pull out of 1954 Topps Design in the issue, the famous issue of Eddie Matthews, 1954. So collecting is sort of in the, in the DNA of the brand. And, you know, we all have heard or collect the sports Illustrate for kids cards that, you know, are the first appearance of so many icons that, you know, don't. Don't necessarily get a card in the traditional releases. You know, the hobby's done a great job of making cards for all these alternative sports athletes coming in from different directions. And, you know, fortunately, they paid a lot of attention to women's sports. So a lot of the great legends of women's sports have cards. Some of their only Rookie cards or early appearances were in SI for kids, which is is unfortunate, but at least they had cards thanks to Sports Illustrated, which is part of si's legacy.
- [25:08]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I remember those. I don't have any of those.
- [25:13]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Still some good ones. As I understand it. Victor Webanyama's card from a year and a half ago or so is still, you know, pretty pricey for our audience.
- [25:22]
Gary Vaynerchuk
You know, that's either in, you know, maybe collectors or hearing more about this industry. It's hard and Brian and I talked about this, but just how big this industry is and just how popular and at the same time it'll make your head spin. Trying to get your head around every parallel like everything else, like, good grief. It's like I don't even know where to start with the actual cards themselves, but it's fun.
- [25:54]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah, that's part of what SI is going to be doing here with content is celebrating collectors and celebrating their individual collections and showcasing all the different ways that collectors collect. And that's a pretty broad spectrum of embodiments of collections. I personally collect vintage Red Sox guys, so I collect Ted Williams and Carl Yastremsky. And if you ask what are the cards I would never part with, it's about 100, give or take vintage Red Sox cards. And the rest is, is sort of fun stuff that I, I like to own.
- [26:34]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I think I've got some Roger Clemens rookies. I mean that was in my like come up time like that. We're also when they got overprinted a little bit. So I don't know, I mean, pretty.
- [26:42]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Good condition now, right? Yeah, you took good care of them. And that's another whole element that's, you know, was there was a lot of resistance to grading. When I remember first coming into the scene in the early 90s, you know, when I was still an avid collector without a driver's license. But you know, it was sort of like what is this, you know, third party grading. But it's really, it's, it's done. It serves such an important role in the growth of collecting because of the trust factor that it's injected into what was previously a pretty challenging environment when.
- [27:22]
Gary Vaynerchuk
It comes to trust in cards and subjective condition grading.
- [27:27]
Jeremy Eisenberg
It was really a big roadblock to the growth that's happened. You know, I started my ebay account in 1998, so I guess I was still dabbling, you know, in college with buying and selling collectibles. But you know, the cards you would purchase in lots, I thought I had.
- [27:44]
Gary Vaynerchuk
It be I have mine's 2,100% feedback in 2001. My kids saw that when we got back into it and we were selling a, and buying a few things on ebay. They're like, you know, doing, I mean these, my kids are, you know, four boys under the age of 15 and it's like, see in 2001, so my eBay account was hilarious. Yeah, it's a great date stamp.
- [28:09]
Jeremy Eisenberg
It's, it's one of those fun like, you know, what's your Uber rating? Yeah. When you start.
- [28:13]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it just ages us or if it, it's definitely some, some cred in the buying circles.
- [28:22]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah. Gary VanCheck and I talk about the AOL rooms. You know, I used to buy and sell them there in 1992 and 93, you know. 90, 90. Yeah. 2, 3. I grew up in Northern Virginia where AOL was, it was headquartered and they put, they put a DVD in your mailbox every night back then.
- [28:44]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I remember that my parents got it. I was loading it on their computer. I remember it, you know, and that, that noise.
- [28:50]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Oh, that dial up, man. Yeah. Little did we know what was on the other end of that dial up line. Yeah.
- [28:57]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Where do you see the industry going and what's your thoughts on the NFTs and the digital space? Like, I, you can't fight it. It's coming. I like to think it's an or, you know, like, and not like, I don't know, make your choice. I mean, but unless you hit on it.
- [29:16]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah. It's a complicated one and there's so many different directions to pull it into. You know, I think that these, these digital worlds, digital communities, the success of platforms like Roblox and where that's going to be headed and the worlds that can be built within these platforms. I'm reluctant to cast judgment on a lot of this tech that is just really being understood how it can be used effectively. I, you know, I hate to. Don't hate. I, you know, Gary's, Gary is definitely an influence on me. But you know, he, he made a big point with, with his NFT launch to bring, you know, real world tangible value to his buyers because he, he was certain of one thing is, and that was that, you know, the journey of these things was going to be, was going to be long and bumpy and he wanted to make sure that there was value extended no matter what. So look, I, I think that blockchains, I know enough about cyber security to understand the, the value proposition of blockchain and why? That's a new security protocol that people like and can rely on and can provide things that security experts like, like chain of custody kind of insight. But yeah, I'm hardly an expert on predicting what the commercial markets will look like. I think I come back to what is the evolution of the fan experience and how is it actually impacting fans now and how will that change? And there's a lot of real things, there's ticketing uses, there's definitely collectibility. That's the legacy of what happened during the explosion. And it's starting to come back through some types of utility. I think it's, it's early, early days. You know, I'm, I'm sure that, you know, people will start putting back puzzles that they were working on with the interconnectivity of these worlds as, as they start getting traction. There was a really interesting group in golf that was selling a, one of these distributed network, own owned membership organizations and, and you were going to have access to a golf course and I think they went out and bought a golf course. But your ownership was embodied through the nft. You know, I think that'll, I'm excited to see where that goes and excited to see how I might be able to, to test it in some of the work that I do.
- [31:52]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I mean, I see the value that my kids put in digital things. I mean, you know, we've got the physical cards and I don't think it's replacing, like I said, I don't think they're choosing one of the over the other. But I, I have been surprised because I, I kind of panned when the whole metaverse and all that stuff was happening during COVID I panned all of it. And I don't want to say I was right, but I, it, I was right it, in that moment that, that was a flash in the pan. It's not that I didn't think it's coming one day. Like you can't fight, you know, technology in progress, but I think a lot of that stuff's crashed and burned because it didn't really have a core, solid core. It was just kind of very glitzy in the moment. But I do see the value even in like Fortnite, what their character has on and how much they'll spend for that and that, that cachet means something. And it's. So there's value even in digital assets that the younger generation have. Right.
- [32:58]
Jeremy Eisenberg
It's part of, it's part of youth culture now for sure, is some, some digital expression you know, what they're sharing on their social channels, on their tick tocks and, and who they're interacting with and, you know, that community of influence that they've, you know, embraced, you know, in their content consumption patterns, you know, where they're going for content and who they're going for, to, for expertise and yeah, I think that continues to evolve and I think there's a big place for digital stuff in the future of our population. I think smart companies and smart creators are going to find ways.
- [33:42]
Gary Vaynerchuk
But I'll tell you what, there's nothing like the thrill of opening that physical pack and holding the cards. I mean, call me old school, but, you know, and now how beautiful the cards are and the designs and all that. That's. That's a hard experience to replace. And I don't know that it has to replace it. I think it's, you know, again and not. Or, you know, in that regard. You still open packs.
- [34:12]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Are you following what they're doing with sort of this, these real world repacks that you open online? You know, I'm not sure if it's Arena Group or one of the Arena Club.
- [34:24]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Oh, yeah, like literally, I mean, the breaks and whatnot. All that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we have our own whatnot channel. Like, we've, we've sold 500 items already. Like, we, we're in it, man. We are in it. That's why Brian's sending me the Ludox crew here. We can't get our whatnot sponsored by Lil X or something. You know, that's what we get si involved. Like, you know, the Rad Collective. That's us, the Rad Rips. Rad Collective. And I own BreakingRad.com. are you kidding me? We need to talk.
- [34:56]
Jeremy Eisenberg
So we are working on a really cool breaking content initiative with one of the biggest companies in the world. And we should talk about what we can do.
- [35:07]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, man, that'd be fun. It's a fun industry. And look, it's brought my sons and I close. I mean, I'm an entrepreneur at all these companies and my kids know I do podcasting. No, I have some influence online and all that, but they don't. Haven't really cared. But once the sport we got, I'm teaching them business through the sports cards now. You know, like how we got to run Shopify site that I've built and showed them how to build and like ecom and social and then whatnot. All like, you know, it's like giving me an avenue to teach them things that I Would have liked to teach them through what I do every day, but it's meeting them on, you know, a grounds that they like.
- [35:48]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah, yeah. My buddies at Big Night Entertainment Group started card vaults a few years ago. You know, sort of it was a fun side project. During the pandemic, they had all these nightclubs and bars that were shut down, and they figured they could entertain people by doing breaks on these stages. And they built a business and lo and behold, they're now partners with Tom Brady and scaling, you know, Car Ball by Tom Brady all over the country. And that'll bring, you know, so many new collectors to. To the game who will, you know, see that. That name and the way that they're merchandising the hobby and, you know, next thing you know, we, we've got a. A new collector going on their own fun journey and embodying their passion for their sport. So it's a really exciting time. A lot of big companies, private equity, venture capital, are putting resources into, into the space. I think it will continue. It's one of the, you know, true ubiquitous passions, you know, that's enjoyed globally. It really, truly is a global. A global hobby. You know, the MBA is collected in just about every corner of the. Of the connected world. So.
- [37:08]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, man, exciting stuff. Jeremy, where can everybody keep up with what you're doing with Sports Illustrated and you in general?
- [37:15]
Jeremy Eisenberg
Yeah, on Instagram, I'm J A I S E N B E R G at Jazenberg. I'm at Talent Brand Labs, www.talentbrandlabs.com and, you know, just keep an eye on si.com collectibles for all sorts of fun new content.
- [37:35]
Gary Vaynerchuk
I love it, man. Made a lot of sense. They were smart to listen to you and, you know, the rest of your team that was kind of pushing this, so. Makes a lot of sense and can't wait to kind of keep up with the content that you guys are doing. And hey, maybe. Maybe the RAD Collective fits in there somewhere.
- [37:49]
Jeremy Eisenberg
I think we should talk about that. Have your people call my people.
- [37:52]
Gary Vaynerchuk
Yeah, I know. I think I know. Yeah, we'll exchange numbers. Yeah, we definitely should. Hey, guys, you know, to find us ryanisright.com we'll find the highlight clip, the links to all of Jeremy's social. His website, you know, brands, sponsorship, partnerships. Hey, you know, to call you call Jeremy and look, go check out Sports Illustrated's new collect backslash collectibles. Si.com backslash collectibles. Hey, it just fits, man. That's. That is where it is. It fits. And I love seeing what everything's happening in the industry as part of our trading card series, the business you need to know. Hey, find me at Ryan Alford on Instagram. Thank you for making us number one. See you next time. Right about now, this has been Right.
- [38:38]
Jeremy Eisenberg
About now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire.