Cards
A card show at the ballpark is baseball heaven for collectors
Daniel Helotie enjoys the best of both worlds working for the Kannapolis (N.C.) Cannon Ballers, the Low-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. Helotie is in his fourth season as the Cannon Ballers' broadcaster and media relations representative. He's also a collector and seller of sports cards, focusing on Kannapolis baseball alumni and pro hockey.
As a result, Helotie, who describes himself as an avid reader of Sports Collectors Digest, serves as the team's point person for coordinating card shows at Atrium Health Ballpark, the Cannon Ballers' stadium that opened in 2020 in the bedroom community of Charlotte. He also sets up shop at those shows, selling his cards, including those of recent top White Sox draftees George Wolkow and Caleb Bonemer.
Kannapolis has played host to three card shows over the past three years in early March leading up to the regular season, producing the events in tandem with Sports Wax Productions, a local promoter.
“It's a great opportunity for us to stay relevant in the community, reach a new generation of baseball fans and grow our brand,” Helotie said. “Not everybody that is a sports card collector is a baseball fan and attends Cannon Ballers games. Our events might not be the poshest, but the ties that fans have to their ballparks, whether it's Fenway or Atrium Health Ballpark, gives them another reason to come back out here and say, ‘why don't we go to game.’”
Ballparks booking card shows is nothing new in the industry, but as the hobby enjoys a resurgence post-pandemic, the list of professional baseball facilities putting on those events continues to grow, both at the major league and minor league levels.
Last year, the Boston Red Sox garnered lots of publicity for staging a card show at historic Fenway Park. In addition, the Seattle Mariners sold out of tickets for admission to a baseball card show at T-Mobile Park tied to a ticket promotion for a late August day game in 2024 that extended to a Julio Rodriguez special edition bobblehead.
In North Carolina, a state without a major league team, multiple minor league clubs have jumped on the bandwagon, drawing up to a few thousand attendees for card shows set up on concourses and in batting tunnels and club and suite levels.
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CARDS + BALLPARK = $$$
What's driving the trend? In general, card shows add to the special event mix as teams strive to make their venues more multipurpose and fill a need in the community. The events also provide opportunities for teams to generate incremental revenue from selling food and merchandise, and maybe sell some game tickets for the coming season as part of their effort to market season tickets, group sales and sponsorships.
Another plus is the relative ease for producing card shows at ballparks for minor league teams that operate with a fraction of front office staff compared with their big league counterparts, according to Tim Vangel, who for 23 years has served as general manager of the Greensboro Grasshoppers, the Pittsburgh Pirates' High-A affiliate.
Teams typically charge a flat rental fee for promoters to rent space for card shows. In turn, the promoter sells tables to dealers to sell their cards. Setup and teardown doesn't take much effort with tables and chairs. For the most part, admission is kept low at $5 a person.
“We can make decent revenue without jeopardizing the field or killing our staff,” Vangel said. “Last year, we generated about $12,000, with some of that money coming from the admission fee, which we split with the promoter. We did $7,000 to $8,000 in food and beverage. It's a decent number for us that makes sense to do the event and it's a logical fit. Who doesn't like to shop for sports memorabilia at a ballpark when your backdrop is the field?”
Most recently, the Grasshoppers held a card show May 10, a non-game day at First National Bank Field, a ballpark in downtown Greensboro. The event drew about 1,100 attendees, said Chris Davis, co-owner of promoter Pow Productions, formed in 2023. Davis, 23, says he’s been collecting and selling cards since he was 6 years old, helped out by his father, a sports card collector.
For Davis, together with his business partner, Aaron Wright, 31, the card show was their second event at the Grasshoppers' facility. Their business extends to support from Cards in the Cages, a Greensboro card shop, which promoted the first two events at First National Bank Field.
Apart from Greensboro, Pow Productions has promoted a half-dozen card shows at Truist Stadium, home of the Winston-Salem Dash, the White Sox' High-A affiliate. Davis said the card shows in Winston-Salem, near his hometown of Kernersville, have grown exponentially, from 600 to 700 attendees to more than 1,500 for the most recent show in late April, while expanding the number of vendors to 180.
“We do things differently in terms of advertisements,” Davis said. “We have a younger spin on it with social media. We make funny videos that make us look [goofy], but people love them and appreciate that aspect of our show. We've been able to connect with card shops, vendors and customers. It's all about being genuine with people, which you don't get a lot of these days. Being there in person is important to make sure everyone is successful.”
The Grasshoppers have booked card shows at their ballpark for four years now, and due to the growth of those events, they plan to hold another one this fall at First National Bank Field, expanding the setup to the suite level.
The team has held card shows on both non-event days and game days, where $10 admission to the show includes a ticket voucher to attend a future Grasshoppers game, Vangel said.
“We have a big concourse, 30 feet wide, so for game days, we move some portable [concession carts] out of the way,” he said. “We set up the tables under cover and in the shade. We don't have to worry about weather. It's a rain-or-shine event. Last year, we had about 115 tables, which was too many, because if we put 500 to 600 people in there, there's not enough room to move. This year, we limited it to 100 tables to make traffic flow easier.”
In Kannapolis, the Cannon Ballers are sticking to the offseason for card shows. This year, on the first Saturday in March, more than 2,500 people attended the show, despite competition from a two-day card show at the Park Expo conference center in Charlotte, about a 45-minute drive south. At Atrium Health Ballpark, the numbers were down a bit, Helotie said, but business remained strong with fans attending high school baseball games scheduled that day at the stadium.
The Charlotte Knights, the White Sox Triple-A affiliate, have held a pair of card shows over the past three years at Truist Field, a downtown facility in North Carolina's biggest city. This year, the Knights couldn't find a date that worked for them and Replay Sports, the promoter they partner with for the events, said Dan Rajkowski, the Knights general manager since they opened the ballpark in 2014.
They're open to booking a third card show next offseason, Rajkowski said. During baseball season, Replay Sports sets up a table selling cards at a few Knights games. The team also has a vending machine selling cards in front of the ballpark’s retail store in a deal with AAA Collectibles, a local card shop.
“The reality is there's not a lot of overhead [costs] to it,” he said. “Expenses are limited. We rent out the space. It brings in baseball fans and collectors to the ballpark. You're in the midst of that demographic.”
Looking ahead, Pow Productions is looking to expand its list of sports venues to potentially holding card shows at college baseball stadiums in North Carolina, where the sport is a hotbed in the Southeast, Davis said.
A NEW TWIST
Tommy Viola, the Knights' former PR guy for 13 years, is one step ahead of the game in that respect.
Viola took a new job in February as chief communications officer for the Knothole Foundation, a Charlotte nonprofit dedicated to providing opportunities for underserved youth through baseball instruction with free camps and clinics. The group, formed in 2018 by former MLB players Jeff Schaefer and Morris Madden, have scheduled four baseball card shows this year at Richard “Stick” Williams Dream Fields, home of Queens University baseball, a program that stepped up to the NCAA Division I level in 2022. The nonprofit owns the property.
The shows are part of Viola's effort to increase the overall number of events to help raise money to support the foundation's effort to get more kids involved in baseball across the city. Viola has teamed with local promoter Burke McKinney to produce the card shows in west Charlotte. McKinney put on the past two card shows at the Knights' ballpark before Viola reached out to him in his new role.
The first show is May 24, with all four events taking place at the indoor batting cages facility that's part of the Stick Williams complex. The other dates are July 12, Sept. 6 and Nov. 1. All told, McKinney will book about 50 vendors and 100 tables across those events, Viola said.
“One of the first things I thought about was doing a card show,” he said. “I've collected cards ever since I was a kid and my son is a collector. I've been to a lot of card shows and I've seen how many kids they always bring. I feel like it's so positive for them to collect baseball cards. It's a great hobby to have and there's something special about having a card show at the ballpark.”
Don Muret
