Jeter’s Card Trading Platform Faces Glut of Cards and Competitors

For baseball megastar Derek Jeter, will the digital platform for trading cards be boon or bust, home run or strikeout?

Much depends on the scarcity volume, and scarcity value, of the cards themselves. Supply and demand, after all, govern pretty much everything in business.

As reported this week, Jeter will be launching the platform, known as Arena Club, in order to capitalize on what’s currently a rising tide of demand for sports collectibles and memorabilia.

Read more: Yankee Great Derek Jeter Launching Online Trading-Card Marketplace

And as is the case with so many online platforms, the establishment of online showrooms in effect give sellers a chance and a place to attract buyers. The cards themselves will be kept at a vault maintained by Arena Club.

Though this is no solo effort — Jeter is launching the platform in joint effort with Brian Lee, the former CEO of Honest Co — it is certainly a high-profile platform that has star wattage. The wrinkle here is a bit tech driven, as Arena Club will grade those vault-housed cards with the aid of computers and machine learning.

We noted in this space that other newly debuted platform competitors are already on the scene, most recently Fanatics, and eBay has bought TCGplayer. Elsewhere, trading card marketplace PWCC Marketplace, LLC — which offers loans with the cards used as collateral — has established a $175 million asset-based credit facility led by WhiteHawk Capital Partners.

And as reported earlier this year, the NBA has debuted a non-fungible token (NFT) collection of player cards that will adapt to the results of the games as they are played.

See also: NBA’s Latest NFT Trading Cards Evolve With Players’ Playoff Stats

These are but a few examples, but you get the gist. There are several marketplaces coming to, well, market.

We’re reminded here of some other nascent marketplace models that flared up quickly and, in at least some cases, flamed out. NFTs come to mind (and they are still evolving, as evidenced by the NBA platform, above) and you may recall the ICO craze from a few years ago.

In this case, one wonders what happens with a preponderance of platforms, of different avenues by which sellers can hawk their wares — and all of it is going on right into the teeth of an inflationary environment not seen in decades? Disposable income is trending down, the paycheck-to-paycheck economy’s citizen count is inching up … claiming even the highest earning, six-figure income individuals.

None of this is to say Jeter’s venture will face anything like insurmountable odds — it’s simply to state that headwinds may challenge the sports card market in general, even as the connected economy transforms that same market.