The National attendance runs about 35,000 a year. It has been as high as over 100,000 (the infamous 1991 Anaheim show). That represents the hardest core collectors who want to and can afford to make the trip. There's another chunk of attendees every year who are not paid admissions: those who cadge badges from friends with booths. I think that probably offsets the repeat ticket buyers in terms of counting.
I'd say maybe 1 in 10 hardcore collectors I know in SoCal actually make it to the National. Then there are all the collectors who aren't as obsessed as we are but who are there nonetheless.
I really don't think that the massive product creation every season in every sport is absorbed by five figures or even six figures worth of collectors. If you drill down all the way to kids who collect this year's cards and work up from there to the whackos like me who go to every show where cards might be available and spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the net for cards, I'd guess the numbers are a lot larger than the 'census' of hardcore collectors who are active on boards and who attend the National.
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