A silent countdown begins each summer. Dates for training camps are revealed, depth charts are leaked, and someone asks the same question in a collector’s group chat or forum: who’s the buy right now?
The conversation used to be specialized. It sounds a lot like a trading floor now.
Although the NFL trading card market has been developing for a few years, this offseason’s momentum feels different. After a 15-year run, Topps acquired the league’s exclusive trading card license from Panini in April, sparking a wave of collector excitement that hasn’t really subsided. The timing is important. The pre-training camp window, which has historically been one of the most erratic times for card prices, coincides almost exactly with Topps’s return to NFL cards.
Although the market occasionally gives the impression that it is, the factors driving values in this window are not complex. A rookie suddenly looking ahead of schedule, a veteran finding a new role, training camp battles, or unexpected breakouts can all affect secondary market prices in a matter of hours. Collectors who follow rumblings about depth charts, pay attention to beat reporters, and watch practice footage when it is posted have a real advantage. Whether this makes this a “smart” market or just a quicker one is still up for debate, but it is undeniable.
A level of energy that the hobby hadn’t seen in a long time has been added by the Topps relaunch. Fanatics and Topps made card-opening a live event by erecting a tent on the field at Acrisure Stadium during the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh in late April. Backstage, Roger Goodell took an Aaron Rodgers card out of a pack. Terry Bradshaw publicly and sincerely expressed his dissatisfaction over not being able to extract enough Steelers cards from eight packs. A Washington fan in the crowd ended up holding a rare autographed Jayden Daniels card. It sounds like a publicity stunt, and it was, but it also demonstrated what collectors already know: demand isn’t declining.
The monthly sales numbers indicate that this is a market rather than a moment. Early this year, reports indicated that monthly trading volume was in the hundreds of millions. Buyers who aren’t strictly hobbyists are drawn to that kind of money. Some take a commodities desk approach, monitoring offseason indicators in the same manner that analysts monitor earnings reports. Every day, training camp provides them with new information.
Observing all of this gives me the impression that the NFL card market is about to enter a phase where information speed is just as important as card scarcity. The value of a card may change by Thursday due to a depth chart update that is released on Wednesday morning. Decisions are being made more quickly by collectors who used this as a passive pastime.
Nevertheless, there are genuine uncertainties. In this window, rookie cards are especially challenging. Workouts in June can make a player appear transformed, but by August, they may vanish. When the fit isn’t immediately clear, veteran quarterbacks switching teams—always a dependable catalyst for the card market—carry their own risks. The market typically prices optimistically at first, correcting itself later.
Topps’s comeback appears to have attracted a fresh group of customers who had strayed during the Panini years, at least in the initial months. Brand familiarity is more important than collectors sometimes realize. Goodell’s remarks about going “full throttle” were not casual remarks; the league is obviously aware of the situation.
Late July marks the start of training camps. Money is moving on names that most casual fans haven’t yet given much thought to between now and then. Some of those wagers might turn out to be very profitable in October. Others will appear premature. Purchasing early has always been like that, whether it be with cards or something else.
