CAN WE SOLVE THIS HOBBY (SPORTS CARD) CRISIS? Video and Discussion

[JustinD]

Bob, I think your last statement is really the crux of it…bigger fish to fry than something like this.

To be honest the breakers have moved on and the breaks discussed are starting to go the way of the Dodo unless it is buying positions on vintage or high end breaks.

While the team and player breaks are still heavily auctioned on eBay, it’s shrinking. The new maneuver is simply selling packs and boxes at an up charge and opening them live on TikTok. The breakers make money coming and going on that racket.

They make money selling the packs and boxes at an inflated rate to watchers, who do this because they either cannot find the product locally or often just want to show off having 400 dollars of cards ripped for a few hundred or thousand watchers for bragging rights. The breakers then make money from TikTok for the viewer counts as well…a double dip. Often these breakers charge extra for shipping any commons or just ship the hits and the rest get put somewhere.

It’s a complete gambling gambit for hits and plays into the excitement. However, no one will ever do anything about it. The breakers for sports cards and Pokémon bring 10s of thousands of viewers per hour.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by JustinD

Bob, I think your last statement is really the crux of it…bigger fish to fry than something like this.

To be honest the breakers have moved on and the breaks discussed are starting to go the way of the Dodo unless it is buying positions on vintage or high end breaks.

While the team and player breaks are still heavily auctioned on eBay, it’s shrinking. The new maneuver is simply selling packs and boxes at an up charge and opening them live on TikTok. The breakers make money coming and going on that racket.

They make money selling the packs and boxes at an inflated rate to watchers, who do this because they either cannot find the product locally or often just want to show off having 400 dollars of cards ripped for a few hundred or thousand watchers for bragging rights. The breakers then make money from TikTok for the viewer counts as well…a double dip. Often these breakers charge extra for shipping any commons or just ship the hits and the rest get put somewhere.

It’s a complete gambling gambit for hits and plays into the excitement. However, no one will ever do anything about it. The breakers for sports cards and Pokémon bring 10s of thousands of viewers per hour.

You may be right Justin, I don't take part and follow breaks, and don't know about such latest Breaker trends. But what it sounds like you're describing is even less of a possibility of being a gambling operation because if the Breakers are just selling packs or boxes to someone, and then opening them for the owner online before sending the cards to them, that is really no different than you or I buying a pack/box and opening it ourselves. What you're describing is really just another form of retail sales.

And that's another part of why I don't think Breakers need fear any prosecutors will come looking for them. Aside from their being the much more important issues and cases (bigger fish) for prosecutors to worry about, if they ever did go after Breakers because of the perceived extra value in special cards randomly inserted in packs and boxes, then as I mentioned before, technically the card manufacturers and their wholesale distributors are guilty of the same gambling operation then. I can just see prosecutors trying to then explain how one group selling cards is involved in gambling, but other groups basically doing the same thing and selling the same cards are not. That sounds like nothing prosecutors would want to willingly get in the middle of.

[Exhibitman]

One of the more amusing wastes of time is watching a vintage set break. Usually, the sellers will put 4-5 cards in each packet. The good ones will put at least one non-common in the package, but it might be a really minimal non-common, like Elston Howard. The way those guys have to summon enthusiasm when they open a packet at the request of a bidder who just got Ray Monzant, Cuno Barragan, Wayne Terwilliger, and an o/c checklist---priceless. But I guess they can't just say "sorry, bud, I guess you just wasted fifty bucks on that one."

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

One of the more amusing wastes of time is watching a vintage set break. Usually, the sellers will put 4-5 cards in each packet. The good ones will put at least one non-common in the package, but it might be a really minimal non-common, like Elston Howard. The way those guys have to summon enthusiasm when they open a packet at the request of a bidder who just got Ray Monzant, Cuno Barragan, Wayne Terwilliger, and an o/c checklist---priceless. But I guess they can't just say "sorry, bud, I guess you just wasted fifty bucks on that one."

In that case, I'm surprised they waste the time to go through and open faux packs like that. Watching breaks and someone just opening pack after pack online, while trying to make it sound like every 5th or 6th card they pull out is to die for, is a joke. The feigned excitement wears off, for me at least, pretty darn quick. If it were me running a vintage "break", I'd sell all the spots equal to the number of cards in the set, and then for the online "break" show, simply show everybody's spots being run through a randomizing program to see who gets what cards from the set. You can spend a little time calling out and naming some of the participants who won the big star/$ cards in the break. Then just post the list showing who won the balance, and then quickly move on to the next break. Time is money, right?

I've helped out some friends who actually are one of the fairly well-known Breakers, and it can get boring real fast! But all the Breakers are basically selling the exact thing as new product releases come out over the course of the year. So they try to differentiate themselves very often with feigned excitement, hype, and whatever other tricks or gimmicks they can come up with to entertain their followers, and keep them coming back for more.