The Hobby Cannot Become One Giant Funnel

This is where the growth of companies such as Fanatics deserves serious attention.

Fanatics now has an extraordinarily broad presence across sports commerce and collectibles, including major trading-card licensing relationships, Topps, retail, events and an expanding global collectibles footprint. In 2026 it also announced a long-term exclusive FIFA collectibles relationship beginning fully in 2031.

Source note: the FIFA collectibles arrangement and its 2031 start date come from Fanatics' own public announcement and subsequent trade coverage. I'm citing it as reported, not as insider information.

Again, success isn't the problem.

Innovation isn't the problem.

The concern is concentration.

Because when manufacturing, licensing, distribution, retail, events and marketplaces increasingly exist within the same corporate ecosystems, small businesses need room to survive alongside them.

That's the balance I want to see.

“Big business can grow the pie. But it shouldn't eat the whole pie.”

Here's What I Don't Want the Hobby to Become

Imagine sports collecting ten years from now.

• ·Four enormous shows.
• ·A few gigantic online marketplaces.
• ·A handful of national dealers.
• ·Corporate stores. Corporate breaking platforms. Corporate grading.
• ·Corporate auctions. Corporate conventions.

Everything polished. Everything efficient. Everything scalable.

And nowhere to drive Saturday morning and spend $30 going through boxes with another collector.

Would that industry be bigger? Possibly.

Would it still feel like a hobby? I'm not so sure.

We Need the National AND the Neighborhood Show

This isn't an either/or argument.

The National should flourish. Dallas should flourish. West Coast should flourish. Fanatics Fest can bring tens of thousands of new people into collecting. Good.

Now some of those people need somewhere to go next Saturday.

That's where the local card show comes in. That's where the local shop comes in.

“The major events should be gateways into the local hobby — not replacements for it.”

Imagine what ecosystem thinking would actually look like:

• ·Every major show aggressively promoting nearby independent shops and local shows.
• ·Manufacturers guaranteeing meaningful product access to qualified small hobby stores.
• ·Big events creating reduced-cost sections specifically for first-time and small dealers.
• ·Promoters working together rather than competing to consume every available collector dollar.
• ·Local-show calendars promoted inside every major hobby event.

Collectors Have Responsibility Too

We can't blame corporations for everything while buying everything online because we can save three dollars.

If we want local shops, we occasionally have to shop locally. If we want local shows, we have to attend them. If we want small dealers, we need to buy from them.

That doesn't mean paying unreasonable prices. It doesn't mean ignoring bad businesses. And supporting local should never mean accepting poor service.

But sometimes that extra five or ten dollars is buying something you don't see on the receipt:

• ·A place to gather.
• ·A knowledgeable owner.
• ·A local event sponsor.
• ·A place for your grandchildren to discover cards.

Community has value.

Promoters Need Our Support

Local shows don't magically happen.

Somebody signs the contract. Somebody risks the deposit. Somebody sells tables. Somebody advertises. Somebody arrives at 5:30 in the morning to set up.

And sometimes they have no idea whether 600 people or 60 people are going to walk through the door.

Those promoters need us. The giant shows will be fine.

A local promoter can lose one bad weekend and decide: never again.

That's how a show disappears. Quietly.

Then six months later we say: "What happened to that card show?"

We happened. We stopped attending.

California Should Be a Card-Collecting Paradise

This is part of why the changes I've witnessed bother me so much.

California has everything a collecting market could want. Millions of sports fans. Dodgers. Padres. Giants. Lakers. Clippers. Warriors. Kings. 49ers. Rams. Chargers. Major college programs. Generations of collectors. A huge population.

In the 1990s, it felt like card shops were everywhere. You could name three within a fifteen-minute drive and argue about which one had the better vintage box. Today I can drive that same fifteen minutes and not pass a single one. The strip-mall shop I walked into as a teenager is a phone-repair store now, and the monthly show that used to fill a hotel ballroom near me stopped running years ago and never came back.

That's not a statistic. That's my experience as somebody who has been walking into these places for decades.

And I don't want the next generation to only know collecting through a screen.

Take Your Kid to a Card Show

This may ultimately be the most important thing in this article.

Find a small show. Take your son. Your daughter. Your grandchild. Your niece. Your nephew.

“Give them $20. And let them walk.”

Don't tell them what card has the best investment upside. Don't lecture them about PSA populations. Let them discover something.

Maybe they'll buy the wrong card. Good. We all did. Maybe they'll overpay two dollars. They'll survive. Maybe they buy a card because they like the uniform.

That's how collectors are born.

Protect the Places Where Collectors Are Made

The big companies may manufacture the cards. The leagues may license them. Grading companies may encapsulate them. Auction houses may sell the expensive ones. And gigantic conventions may showcase them.

But none of those things alone create a collector.

• ·Collectors create collectors.
• ·Parents create collectors.
• ·Dealers create collectors.
• ·Shop owners create collectors.
• ·Local promoters create collectors.
• ·Card shows create collectors.

That's why this matters.

“The little shows aren't competing with the hobby. They are feeding it.”

The local card shop isn't an outdated version of collecting. It is part of the infrastructure of collecting.

And if we allow those places to disappear because everything has to become bigger, faster, national and corporate, we may one day discover that we successfully built a massive sports-card industry — but damaged the hobby underneath it.

I don't want that.

I want the mega-show. I want the National. I want Dallas. I want West Coast. I want Fanatics Fest.

But I also want that 40-table show twenty minutes from my house.

I want the little shop where the owner knows what I collect.

I want the dealer who has been carrying the same beat-up boxes to shows for thirty years.

I want the kid standing at a table trying to decide whether to spend his last five dollars on Kobe, Caitlin Clark or Shohei Ohtani.

Because long after the corporate strategies change, those people will still be the reason cards matter.

Support your local card shop. Attend your local card show. Buy something from the little guy.

Still Standing in My Old Neighborhood

My favorite card shop was The Hot Corner Sports Cards and Collectibles in Oceanside, California. It was the kind of place where you walked in and felt like the hobby knew you back.

Every week I looked forward to the card show at The Vista Entertainment Center in Vista, California. It wasn't a convention. It was a habit. A room full of tables, familiar dealers, and the quiet thrill of not knowing what you might find.

Greg and Pauley's shop in Vista is gone. Bray's shop is gone. Several shops in San Marcos are gone too. Some of that is simply the natural attrition of an aging generation of dealers — people who were already pretty old in the business when I was walking into their stores. Time does what it does.

Maybe there are new shops now. I hope there are. If you know of one still operating in North San Diego County, I would love to hear about it. This list is a reflection, not a directory, and it will keep growing as I learn more.

This section is based on personal memory and will be updated as I confirm current shops, shows, and locations. If you have a correction or addition, please reach out.

Because if we don't protect the places that built this hobby, someday we're going to miss them when they're gone.

— Coach Winn · Winn Collectibles | Stories Over Speculation