The booming trading card world fascinated NBA veteran Mo Bamba from the jump when simply serving as a special guest at an Austin card shop a few years ago. The experience hooked the former Texas standout immediately, and the wonderment only grew from there.
“People from age 13 to 45 were all in there, and they all commonly shared a joy for the hobby,” Bamba said. “I’ve always seen how kids like to experience their sports heroes, but I didn’t know how directly correlated it was to the sports card industry world. I used to hear about people having a sports card collection or having this vintage Babe Ruth card or having these signed Kobe (Bryant) cards.
“Since then, the wheels kind of started spinning about how much I could get involved in it.”
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Bamba has now gone from interested spectator to collector to card shop owner. Mo Bamba Sports Cards & Collectibles will open Friday in north Austin, near the University of Texas, where Bamba played for one year before becoming the No. 6 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.
After years of professional athletes’ involvement in the sports card space being limited to posing for the pictures on the cards, signing autographs and making convention appearances after retirement, many are now taking a far greater interest in it. For a growing number, that interest is leading to investment in brick-and-mortar operations.
As Bamba will open his own trading card shop Friday, hobby darling Cooper Flagg, last season’s NBA Rookie of the Year, will crack the doors to a trading card shop called Flagg Trading Co. in his hometown of Bangor, Maine, on Saturday.
Tom Brady has become the most notable athlete to branch out into the trading card space. CardVault by Tom Brady, of which he is a co-owner, has 17 locations across the country — and aims to reach 100-plus — and has become a hit within the sports and entertainment world. Brady has corralled new investors such as New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid, musician and entrepreneur Jay-Z, Fenway Sports Group owner John Henry, The Kraft Group, Boston Celtics CEO Wyc Grousbeck and UFC president and CEO Dana White.
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“You know, at the end of the day, it’s the industry, but we love sports,” Brady said. “And we love sports that bring people together, communities together. We’ve been sitting in stadiums for a long time watching fans of every economic background, race, religion, come to the stadiums to cheer us on. And I think sports in our communities, it brings people together in ways nothing else can. I want everybody to be a collector.”
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Formula 1 megastar Lewis Hamilton is following Brady’s lead for the growing international collectibles scene, combining with American retailer Dave & Adam’s Card World to launch Card Culture by Lewis Hamilton. The first shop opened in Germany in July, with the partnership targeting expansion into Australia, the United Kingdom, and cities in the Middle East and Asia over the next five years.
“Ultimately, I’ve seen there’s a huge gap. There’s over a thousand (card) stores across the U.S.; I think there’s a fraction of that in the rest of the world,” Hamilton said. “I really wanted to look into how I could build a home for collectors, players and kids who want that feeling of opening packs and being part of a community and not just a place that sells products. … My goal is to build a modern card store that mixes community, culture and competition in a market that has demand for thousands of stores but barely any real homes for collectors outside of the U.S.”
Other athletes with online card-selling businesses include former Yankees legend Derek Jeter (Arena Club), Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell (Zilla Breaks), New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns (Big Bodega Breaks) and Tottenham Hotspur defender Tosin Adarabioyo (Huddle FC).
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Community also played a role in the location of Mo Bamba Sports Cards & Collectibles. Bamba, who signed a two-year contract with the Utah Jazz in July, spent only one season playing basketball at Texas, but he still lives in Austin during the offseason. Other locations were initially considered, but putting a shop in the city Bamba loves most and right near campus in north Austin became a “clear-cut choice.”
Bamba said he’s incorporating elements from his life into the shop, like a mural of his 7-foot-10 wingspan on the wall, as well as images celebrating his Ivorian-American roots and Austin (specifically an “I love you so much” mural, like on South Congress Avenue).
Of course, Bamba’s presence around the shop will be limited during the NBA season. So he’ll lean on a staff with nearly 90 years of combined hobby experience to run day-to-day operations. Bamba said the store will also feature “Cole’s Corner,” a TCG-themed area as a shoutout to former NBA veteran Cole Anthony, a monster Pokémon fan and Bamba’s good friend.
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Bamba believes pro athletes getting more involved in the trading card space will have a positive impact.
“It helps the industry tremendously because it’s the face on the card — literally,” Bamba said. “It’s the people on the card. It makes you a bit more human knowing that this person on this card is a real person. Say if you weren’t blessed enough to make a game as a fan, and you would just watch on TV. But you just have these cards, knowing that one of your favorite athletes shares a similar card as you. I think it only helps draw more of a connection to it.
“But I think the biggest thing it does for the industry is it just makes it cool. We’re sitting here joking about Pokémon being nerdy, but everyone at some point of their lives, at least in my generation, has been a Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh! fan, or they’re somewhat knowledgeable about it. So just seeing that your favorite athlete or maybe your favorite artist is well into the space, it just adds a coolness element to it.”
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