Breakers pulling in the big bucks 💰

PLUS: Repackers at the Dallas Card Show 📦

March 18, 2024

Rise and shine, card enthusiasts! This is Penny Sleeve, the sports card newsletter that’s more thrilling than a last-second, game-winning shot.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

  • Breakers pulling in the big bucks 💰

  • Repackers at the Dallas Card Show 📦

  • People to follow in the hobby 👥

  • Meme of the day 🃏

BREAKERS PULLING IN THE BIG BUCKS 💰

With 2023-24 Donruss Elite Basketball releasing last week, I decided to sit down and crunch some numbers on the economics of box breaks. I pulled pricing for 8 different breakers and analyzed the data below.

Break prices are all over the place, with pricing anywhere from 3-35% above retail. It’s hard to say exactly how much the breakers are profiting, since there are expenses like selling fees, rent, labor, and more. Regardless, the end buyer pays reasonably more for the exact same product that they could buy themselves. On top of that, it’s worth nothing that some of the breakers (like Dave and Adam’s) probably receive product for wholesale distributor prices, while others purchase for retail or from the secondary market.

Most of the breaks were Pick Your Team, with a couple random team or random division breaks. One interesting observation was that the variance in pricing for a given team was pretty substantial. For example, you could buy a break spot for the Clippers for as low as $20 up to $90 — a 4.5x increase for the exact same product.

It’s unclear what the endgame is with breaking, but it’s clear that there’s greenfield opportunity for someone who’s willing to do it in a fair and transparent way.

REPACKERS AT THE DALLAS CARD SHOW 📦

With the Dallas Card Show in full swing this past weekend, I started to hear some growing murmurs around the second-order effects of repacking. The general sentiment was that selling cards at the show was a piece of cake with repackers swallowing up everything they could get their hands on but finding good deals to buy was challenging for the exact same reason. Understandably, as an individual buyer it’s hard to compete with another buyer who can turn around and quickly sell cards for above market comps.

Don’t get me wrong, repacking isn’t the bad guy. But when repackers are throwing cash left and right for cards, it makes you wonder if the end buyers are getting the short end of the stick. They sell the dream of it being a better gamble than ripping open new packs, promising a “defined“ floor and ceiling. But without mentioning the median or average value of the repack, it’s a bit of a guessing game.

As the repacking market grows, there’s questions about how it’ll evolve to be more transparent. Companies like Arena Club are innovating in the space - with Slab Packs they make it clear which cards can be in the pack and what the hit rates are. Kudos to them - that’s a great first step in bringing some clarity to an otherwise murky market.

Know anyone else who’s doing repacks well? Reply to this email and I’ll feature them in a future issue!

PEOPLE TO FOLLOW IN THE HOBBY

MEME OF THE DAY

Source: @LememeJames on Twitter