[sbfinley]

The hobby isn't going anywhere. I was talking with an old dealer a couple weeks ago and he complaining about the falling sky and how the hobby would be dead in 50 years. The whole "90's Bubble/Remember When/We're all dying off" story.

Sorry, but the hobby isn't dying. It's changing. Just because show attendance and brick n' mortar sells are down doesn't mean the hobby is. Pre-War and vintage cards are at an all time high and something is always pumping value wise. In modern issues companies push and sell anything from $1 packs to $800 boxes and they are all popular in some respect. Heck, a card shop out in California buys up graded cards and memorabilia and repackages it as mystery product and charges up to $8,000 a box for the stuff and it sells out almost instantly. The hobby is as strong as it ever has been. It's just different.

Is baseball the most popular sport in America now? Nope, and it likely won't be a long while at the least, but attendance remains strong in most baseball cities and from a earnings standpoint the franchises are exceptionally well off. It has become a regional sport with loyal fan bases who will sustain it for the immediate future. Importantly to MLB, the popularity of college baseball continues to grow incrementally it seems each year, which will increase MLB popularity in the future as fans with college allegiances will follow alumni in the pros. The length of time spent in the minors will dampen this fascination somewhat, but more and more prospects are MLB ready faster then in the past. Plenty of kids in baseball cities, and outside baseball cities, collect and more and more often adults are driven to the hobby even if they didn't collect in their youth. Many of these collectors start with modern issues and work their way back to vintage issues.