Sports Card Dealers
Sports collectibles still ‘the heart of eBay’ with recent growth, expansion
Adam Ireland has been a high-level executive for eBay for almost 13 years, serving as a vice president and general manager both in Europe and the United States.
But he had never experienced the passion and excitement he encountered at the eBay booth at the National Sports Collectors Convention.
As Ireland talked about the current market for sports cards and collectibles, he was drowned out by the screaming and shouting of excited collectors watching cards being pulled on eBay Live.
Throughout the five-day National, legendary athletes like Dwight Gooden, Roger Clemens and Johnny Manziel participated in live breaks at the eBay booth. eBay Live, which launched in June of 2022, has had over one million buyers since September 2023.
“For us, that’s an entirely new mode of commerce and it’s really important for us that we are able to bring all of the selections and all the great sellers that we have [together] in the live mode,” Ireland said. “It continues to grow very rapidly, so we are very bullish on that.”
Ireland, eBay’s Vice President and General Manager for Global Collectibles, was attending his first National. He was blown away by what he witnessed and experienced.
“The scale is incredible,” he said. “I have been to a bunch of local card shows where I live in California and you cannot be prepared for the sheer scale of this thing. I had a break yesterday for like an hour and I was planning to walk the floor; I think I made it around about six tables before I ran out of time.”
eBay had one of the largest and busiest corporate booths at The National. According to Ireland, the hobby’s largest card show is a “perfect match” for eBay, the world’s largest community of online buyers and sellers.
BIG MOVES
Like other large companies in the hobby, eBay has made several big moves in the past two years to enhance and solidify its place in the sports collectibles market, from its authenticity guarantee to partnerships with PSA, the purchase of the Goldin Co. auction house, and the launch of its own auction platform.
“I’m so proud of what the team has done over the last two years,” Ireland said. “If I’m very blunt, looking back at eBay’s history … there was a little while where we were a little bit too horizontal, trying to solve everything for everyone at the same time and not recognizing that we need to get close to the communities, like you have in places like trading cards, and make sure we are understanding their specific needs.
“A few years back, we recognized that there was a bit of a gap and we have been trying to make sure we are bringing things to market that really do enable the hobby, so you go back through things like eBay standard envelope, which has really unlocked the ability to trade lower valued cards, and recognizing the trust gap with the higher end [cards] with our authenticity guarantee and what we have been doing with that to make sure that both as a buyer you know what you are getting is what you think you are getting, and it also protects the seller as well. … And now the innovation continues with eBay Live activation.”
The biggest move eBay made this year was purchasing Goldin, a deal that included the partnership with PSA and the sale of the eBay Vault to PSA parent company Collectors. The move positioned eBay to compete with companies like Collectors and Fanatics, which are creating one-stop-shop operations that include a marketplace, auction house, card-grading and other services.
Ireland said the Goldin purchase has expanded the reach of both companies. eBay now promotes Goldin auctions on its website, reaching more than 130 million potential buyers and leading to such sales as the Michael Jordan Logoman card that sold for a record $2.9 million in June.
“Obviously it is such a strong brand in that high-end inventory space,” Ireland said. “eBay, we fully recognize that we cannot offer that within the core platform … it’s such a unique market that Ken and the team can bring to that with the high-end inventory. …. And the mid-priced cards that he has access to probably would get a better price realization on the eBay platform.
“So, really it’s about us being able to offer the seller a full spectrum of services depending on the value you are looking to get for your cards and the type of service you need for your cards, and then bringing the power of the eBay buyer base against all the inventory.”
HEART OF THE HOBBY
As head of Global Collectibles for eBay, Ireland has been impressed with the growth of sports collectibles in the U.S. A native of England, he moved back to the U.S. just as the sports collectibles market was exploding.
It has come a long way, he said, from when he collected World Cup soccer stickers as a kid.
“It’s a little bit of a different thing over in England where I grew up. But very happy memories of Panini World Cup sticker albums and being in the schoolyard and trading my spare stickers,” he said. “Now I look back at [my] childhood when I was really into it, and those things are actually really expensive. There was a box of stickers on one of Ken’s auctions and I was bidding on it and it just went up and up and up and I’m like, ‘This is really fun but this is a little more than I’m willing to go to.’”
Now he loves opening packs of cards with his son, who has grown up playing baseball and enjoying other sports in the U.S.
“Whenever I am coming home with something, my wife is yelling at me about there being more cards in his bedroom,” Ireland said with a laugh. “That is just such a fun bonding experience. I took him to one of the local shows the other weekend and he’s searching through the bins for his favorite players, and that was pretty cool.”
Ireland is thrilled to be working in collectibles, which he calls “the heart of eBay.”
“eBay started with collectibles and I think there was a little while where maybe we lost sight of that a little bit,” he said. “But to see it now, this is the heart of the eBay business and therefore this is a place where eBay does need to be investing and we need to be bringing resources to that to make sure we are making it easier for buyers and sellers to transact. So, there is lots and lots of support across the company and we are continuing to innovate and bring new stuff to the market.”
He sees the sports collectibles hobby continuing to grow.
“When I was first involved back in 2020-2021, there was a lot of conversation about, is this a bubble?” he said. “And there were categories that exploded at that time, and then the bubble popped and they were gone. But while it definitely applies pressure, particularly on some of the high-end inventory, the reality is that all those buyers and sellers that either were new to the hobby then or got re-activated into the hobby, we still see them out there and active in the industry.
“Some of the prices might have come down, but despite that, the hobby is still so active and I genuinely believe it is taking a step up to a new level and I think with new innovations coming to the space, it is alive again and that is the way new generations get entertainment and shop. So I feel like we have got a really strong foundation for the hobby going forward.”
Jeff Owens is the editor of SCD.
