football set builders don't exist, why?

[crankbait09]

I have been collecting since 1986, and my whole card trading experience has been strictly baseball. in 2023, I started to collect football.
I have always noticed that people that are baseball set builders, were easy to come by. I guess up until late, it has seemed to tail off a tad. Nothing crazy though.
As for the football world, it's totally opposite. Since 2023, I have seen a couple of set builders but it's very rare. Set building is very hard to do, at least by means of trading.

What is so different about football set building vs baseball? It seems like football collectors buy the players/teams they want, but don't spend so much effort in set building. there's gotta be a good reason

 

[horfin]

Not to get political but I was the BIGGEST NFL fan that existed and I collected Football cards. Collin Kapernick came along and people supported him and the NFL supported him and I immediately stopped collecting football and immediately stopped collecting football cardsand the NFL was a bunch of wusses. I was a HUGE football set collector. I haven't watched an NFL game since.

Bill

 

[7timecy]

If you would have seen this this place 2007-2008 there were 100's of baseball set collectors. Tailed off is an understatement. You could buy 2 boxes of a certain set and trade everything within a few weeks.

As for football cost of the product is a big issue but football as never been real big as for online trading, that and basketball. All of the sports lack of set collectors makes you want to rethink how much you bust if you can't get rid of it.

 

[crankbait09]

Wow. Ya, I've definitely never traded online during the days of foot traffic as you mentioned. That's crazy to think about

And that's sorta where I'm at with football. I only buy mega boxes. Definitely NOT hobby boxes. Thise are way too expensive for me. I have quite a few cards for trade, but no set builders to trade with.

I save the hobby boxes for baseball. Although that may be slow at times, I can still trade them

 

[7timecy]

I mostly buy blasters at Walmart and such but I bought a six box case of Chrome Update, I'm barely moving any of it because there are like no set builders. In 2020 I bought the same thing and made tons of trade with that stuff and I would say this years rookie class is better. Honestly I returned this year from a 2-3 hiatus and I just can't believe how the board has shrunk. So I'm already slowing my buying of boxes and will buy what I want from Ebay and other sites.

 

[SymphonicMetal]

This is one of the great philosophical questions I have mulled over for decades along with the meaning of life and why the Middle East is always in turmoil.

I'm a huge football set collector but not for the new issues. The most recent set I am working on is 2006 which I just realized was almost 2 decades ago!!

I think baseball is more traditional and the collectors in this hobby tend to skew older. I noticed the customers at our LCS were younger and only wanted the hot, new players in football (Allen, Burrow, Mahomes, Herbert) and basketball (Zion, Ja Morant and one of the Ball brothers not named Lonzo). They had zero interest in baseball and threw away any cards that were not one of the latest, greatet sensations. And these guys spent an incredible amount of money on unopened to get cards of these players. So your observation is correct on the player collecting aspect of football.

Football has always been the poor sister to baseball when it comes to cards. Odd because only one or two people I know are ardent baseball fans where it seems to be the whole world is a football fan (unfortunately). I've always prefered football since it was more exciting to watch as well as the better buy . One person said football cards lag because the only players worth collecting are QBs and the rest of the postitions are not popular among collectors. And there is sa lot of truth to that.

My brother in Michigan sets up at a lot of mall shows and is strictly vintage. He told me football is about 10% of his sales and baseball rules the roost. Vintage football just never caught on as I thought it would.

Good topic yu started. I'll be curious to read the replies.

 

[chieftazmisty]

I AM A SET COLLECTOR IN BASEBALL FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL ANY TIME ANYONE WANTS TO TRADE SEND ME A PM AND WILL TRY AND HELP YOU OUT MY FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL GOES UP TO 2006 NOTHEING HIGHER