The first thing you notice when you enter the Atlantic City Convention Center during the week of the National Sports Collectors Convention is the sound. This is not the typical noise from the casino floor across the street. It’s the steady, low hum of thousands of cardboard-related conversations. Before the doors open, dealers unroll display cases. Collectors with printed want lists in their hands. Thirty people were in line before ten in the morning as a former All-Star signed autographs at a folding table. The National Sports Collectors Convention, or simply “The National,” was founded in 1980 in a hotel close to the airport in Los Angeles. It was a manageable room. The tables were simple. It was already more than anyone had anticipated—a few hundred collectors showed up. Perhaps no one in that room could have predicted that this event would eventually attract hundreds of corporate sponsors, tens of thousands of attendees, and over 250 athlete guests to a single annual event. And yet, here we are.
The National’s size isn’t the only thing that makes it truly fascinating. It’s that the event managed to survive the same collapse that almost brought down the sports card business as a whole. For cards, the 1990s were a slow-motion catastrophe. The main sin was overproduction; at its height, manufacturers produced about 80 billion cards annually, flooding the market until nothing felt unique or valuable. Basketball stoppages, hockey lockouts, and baseball strikes all reduced fan enthusiasm. Kids had other things to do when the internet came along. Over time, the number of hobby shops in the nation decreased from 10,000 to about 1,000, and yearly card sales dropped from $1 billion to about $200 million, where they remained for years as if they had been neglected.
It wasn’t a coincidence, and the recovery took time. The remaining manufacturers, such as Topps, Panini America, and Upper Deck, discovered what collectors truly desired, which turned out to be scarcity. Print runs are limited. inserts with an autograph. Relic cards that contain real swatches of jerseys worn during games. In hindsight, the basic economics of it are almost embarrassing: people will pay a lot of money to pursue something when they know there are only a few hundred of it. Previously inexpensive boxes can now fetch hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and some high-end items can cost up to $25,000 per case. That’s not a typo, somehow.
That arc has been closely monitored by The National. What started out as a small group of part-time dealers has expanded into something that creates and distributes millions of collectible items every year, including unique cards made especially for convention goers that are in high demand. Over 50% of regular vendors have competed in at least 16 Nationals. In a failing industry, that kind of loyalty is unheard of. Over the course of more than 40 years, it takes place in 13 different host cities in 10 states, where people feel like they’re part of something worth attending, year after year.
Observing the show floor during prime time gives the impression that this is a mix of nostalgia and actual business. The middle-aged man who collected cards as a child in 1991 is the one carefully sliding a graded 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. into a top-loader. He just so happens to have a legitimate job now. In order to keep the hobby affordable without devaluing the high end, the card companies eventually realized this as well and produced products for every price range, from dollar packs to cases that cost as much as a used car.
It’s difficult to ignore how drastically the narrative has changed. An industry that was dismissed as a passing trend and that children outgrew in favor of Pokémon and online forums has recovered to generate an estimated $1 billion in revenue annually. The National serves as a yearly reminder that the community is real, the market is real, and the cardboard still matters to more people than anyone could have predicted. It is both a reflection of that and, perhaps, one of the reasons it happened.
