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Originally Posted by rats60
LeBron James is far more popular than Tom Brady, especially when it comes to the card market. You also just proved my point #2. A huge part of Mantle's popularity was meeting fans at card shows and staying in the hobby spot light. When Michael Jordan retired, his cards took a significant drop. I expect the same thing to happen with Brady. If he disappears from the hobby spotlight, there won't be new collectors after his cards. The only thing that brought collectors back to Jordan was being the spokesperson for Upper Deck. They won't be doing that with Tom Brady.
I would buy the Brady over Namath, but Brady is never going to approach the popularity of Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth in the hobby. Most people don't care for football cards. They are a distant 3rd behind baseball and basketball in the hobby food chain.
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You keep saying this but won't provide any data. The only data I can find is from PSA which of course is biased info but there have been nearly twice as many football cards as basketball cards graded in their history. In the past couple of years it is true that more basketball cards have been graded than football cards for new releases but that isn't true historically. Does that mean football is somehow a "distant third"? Don't think so. There have been other years when basketball cards have been graded at a higher rate than football cards but these periods of time have always been followed by football overtaking basketball again (at least looking at the only info I have which is PSA). Basketball is certainly popular but has never show to be sustainable in the hobby. Perhaps this is now changing but I wouldn't base that on the last few years only. The fact that you cite that football isn't strong in the hobby because there isn't much of a discussion in the Net54 BASEBALL forum about it, tells me you aren't connect at all with what is going on in the football portion of the hobby.
It is very true that basketball is an international sport much more than american football and that should help basketball continue to do well. But if you take modern cards out of the equation, vintage football cards continue to be graded at a far faster rate than vintage basketball cards do. I'm looking at the entire hobby, not just the rate at which newer collectors choose to get sparkly new cards graded.
Finally, if you think football is going anywhere in terms of popularity, you are delusional. Even with the CTE issues and off-field challenges, the sport remains the most popular one in the US and draws well when the NFL plays outside the country. In general I find those that talk about the demise of football are people who just don't like the sport and are looking for reasons to tear it apart. Football isn't going anywhere in terms of a decrease in popularity and international sales of HOFer cards has been increasing as well.
jeff