In the Treasure Valley, the wait outside a Jacksons convenience store wasn’t for coffee or gas. For a set of trading cards, that is. Thirteen dollars, cardboard, and foil, showcasing athletes that the majority of the nation’s sports media has never reported on and most likely couldn’t identify, but that the people in that Boise parking lot could. When done with some creativity, a successful NIL effort truly looks like that scene, which was duplicated at ExtraMile stations throughout the region in the weeks after the drop.
College trading cards were not created by Boise State. They accomplished something that no football program had done before: they took the format seriously. Every member on the roster—more than a hundred sportsmen, including walk-ons, special teams players, and individuals who had never been the focus of a collectible product before—was included in the collection.
It’s simple to undervalue that choice. When creating marketing items based on their roster, the majority of programs fall back on the stars. The quarterback, the leading rusher, maybe a defensive star. Boise State’s approach was different: everyone gets a card. Starters and walk-ons received the same treatment. The result was a product that every family with a connection to the team — players’ parents, siblings, buddies from high school — had a personal incentive to buy.
The gamification layer was well-calibrated for the market. One in ten packs featured a limited-edition autographed card from a team standout – Ashton Jeanty or Latrell Caples, athletes whose NIL profiles in the Mountain West have significant value. That ratio is both rare enough to keep the hunt going and generous enough to feel achievable. Collectors comprehend this math intuitively: if the chase card shows too rarely, the product feels rigged; if it occurs too often, the draw is gone. Ten thousand packs moved in a few weeks after Boise State located the ideal medium.
The key component that made everything else function was the distribution plan via Jacksons and ExtraMile outlets. These are regional convenience chains with sites throughout the Treasure Valley, which means the cards were available in the areas where the fans actually reside — not at a campus store or an internet shop that requires shipment. Picking up a pack became something you could do on a Tuesday afternoon while getting gas. That accessibility reduced the barrier between the athletic program and the individuals who follow it in a way that bigger programs with national footprints sometimes fail to achieve.
The student-athletes whose names and pictures were on the cards received the money immediately because the operation was run in accordance with NIL regulations. Fans knew that when they bought a pack, they were funding players directly. The purchase’s psychology was altered by this transparency. It was more than merely gathering. It involved taking part in something that the athletes themselves were interested in. In a landscape where NIL partnerships are sometimes abstract — a player endorsing a company that has nothing to do with their sport or their school — Boise State’s trading card model was something more local, more readable, and more genuinely connected to the program.
Due to the football set’s success, the athletics department decided to extend the program to all of the university’s sports. Perhaps the most important development is that expansion. A trading card tradition that covers every team creates a kind of fan infrastructure that a single football drop couldn’t — a reason to follow the gymnastics team, the track program, the women’s soccer roster, in a format that creates physical, collectible connections between fans and athletes across disciplines. Whether that scales or stays local is yet being figured out. But the starting point was a parking lot in Boise and a line of customers who wanted a thirteen-dollar deck of cards.
