Y
YankeeBob63
Guest
Our local newspaper, The Scranton Times, has an article in today's paper about the current sportscard industry and it's rapid decline in recent times.
Here's a link to the article:
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15072830&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415891&rfi=6
To me, it seems more like an evolution, rather than a industry decline.
I guess it depends on what angle you look at.
Interesting article. I've been to the three card shops mentioned in the story many times.
In case the article is removed from the newspaper's server, here's a copy of it:
Here's a link to the article:
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15072830&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415891&rfi=6
To me, it seems more like an evolution, rather than a industry decline.
I guess it depends on what angle you look at.
Interesting article. I've been to the three card shops mentioned in the story many times.
In case the article is removed from the newspaper's server, here's a copy of it:
IS CARD INDUSTRY FOLDING?
BY DAN STRUMPF Staff writer
There was a time when seven or eight people walked through the doors of Steve Yarem’s store every day looking for one thing: baseball cards.
That was about 15 years ago.
“Now, you’re lucky if you get one or two,” said Mr. Yarem, owner of Yarem & Son Enterprises, a baseball cards and collectibles store in Scranton.
Once traded by kids in sandlots, hocked by grocers at corner stores for a quarter a pack and wedged into bike spokes by neighborhood boys, baseball cards are not the pastime they used to be. An overcrowded market has combined with a loss of interest among kids and a growing threat from online trading, pushing the baseball card industry into a slump. And sports cards as a whole are at their lowest point in 17 years.
In May, Fleer Corp., one of the country’s oldest card baseball card companies, closed its doors after falling $33 million into debt. Last month, card giant Upper Deck bought the company for $6.1 million. And last month, card company Donruss, once a heavy hitter in the baseball card business, was forced out after the Major League Baseball Players Association refused to allow its players to appear on the company’s 2006 cards.
The organization, which licenses the production of Major League cards, said it made the move in the hopes of pruning the cluttered marketplace.
The departure of Fleer and Donruss leaves only two companies in the baseball card business: New York-based Topps and California-based Upper Deck. Both companies said they are hoping to rekindle interest in the hobby and retarget some of their cards toward younger audiences.
But it will may prove difficult breathing life back into this once-ubiquitous American pastime. Estimated sales of new sports cards, which are topped by baseball, will reach $260 million this year, according to Card Trade, a publication that follows the sports card industry. That figure is 42 percent less than 1998 and 76 percent less than the industry‘s $1.1 billion peak in 1992.
Toward the slump
Like players and teams themselves, baseball cards’ fall from popularity has been gradual but striking.
In the 1970s, a standard pack of 10 baseball cards cost between a dime and a quarter. With only two companies, Topps and Donruss, producing cards, and only a handful of sets on the market, it was easy to buy, trade and collect teams and sets.
But rising card prices in the 1980s sent speculators and card enthusiasts into a frenzy. As card collecting evolved from a pastime into an investment, new card companies, such as Fleer in 1981 and Upper Deck in 1988, emerged and flooded the market with sleek, colorful cards. They began slapping autographs and pieces of memorabilia such as bats and jerseys onto cards to increase their value to collectors.
The variety, quality and prices of baseball cards soared and collectors hoarded unopened boxes of cards in attics and garages, hoping to landing a small number of valuable cards.
“In the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, there was this whole idea that cards had a secondary value,” said Clay Luraschi, a spokesmen for New York City-based Topps Co. “You buy cards, you put them away.”
Eventually, the frenzy led to an overcrowded marketplace with too many companies, cards and sets competing for too few collectors.
“What you’ve got is a market that went from about six baseball card sets a year in 1980 and 90, to 80 sets in 2004,” said Scott Kelnhoff, editor of Card Trade. “You could be as passionate about collecting as anyone, but you don’t need or have a chance to finish 80 baseball card sets in a year.”
The bubble began to burst as in the early 1990s as sales started slipping, and the full-blown crash came with the Major League Baseball strike in 1994. The strike, which dragged on for nearly eight months and led to the cancellation of that year’s World Series, disillusioned fans and deflated sales in sports products. Between 1992 and 1996, sales of new sports cards were cut almost in half, and baseball card production fell to its lowest point in 30 years.
“People just lost interest,” said Carl Barbini Sr., owner of Mace Coin & Card Mart, a baseball card and collectibles store in Scranton. “They couldn’t see these millionaires not playing this game.”
Hitting where it hurts
The slump hit close to home in 1995 when the Topps Co., reeling from declining sales, laid off 200 employees at its factory in Duryea. The following year, the company closed the doors for good on the 31-year-old card, gum and candy plant.
The closure left an additional 500 employees without work and triggered a drawn-out standoff between workers and Topps executives over severance pay and whether the company unfairly treated its employees. Eventually the employees’ union dropped its unfair labor practices claim in 1997 after accepting $7 million settlement from the company.
Ellen Gibbs, who worked at the plant for 12 years, recalls “a lot of sleepless nights” during the ordeal.
“It was very, very scary,” said Ms. Gibbs, 52, of Hughestown. “To this day I run into people at different places and they’re making minimum wage, where there at Topps we didn’t.”
Mary Lou Gula, a material handler at the plant who worked there for 25 years, said she showed up on her last day of work dressed as Santa Claus. She did so to make light of Topps’ decision to close the plant less than two weeks before Christmas.
“I tell you, it was the best job I ever had,” said Ms. Gula, 53, of Duryea.
Today, Topps still owns offices in Duryea and a candy factory in Scranton that employs about 40 people — a far cry from the bustling plant that closed in 1996.
Ebay revolution
With baseball card sales declining through the 1990s, card traders discovered another alternative to the mom and pop card store down the street: eBay.
The free-market nature of the auction Web site has made it a haven for card traders and buyers since its beginnings in 1995. Vanishing are the days of afternoon trips to the local card stores to check out the latest arrivals, said Mr. Kelnhoff. With eBay, all it takes is a computer to scope out the entire card market.
In 2002, eBay reported to Card Trade that its sales in sports memorabilia had totaled $400 million for that year, Mr. Kelnhoff said. A recent search for baseball cards on eBay returned nearly 200,000 entries — cards of every stripe and year, costing as little as a nickel and as much as hundreds of dollars.
EBay has done the most damage to small card stores, which have lost tremendous business to online sellers, according to store owners. Card prices — traditionally set by official price guides using complicated formulas — often hit rock bottom on eBay, which sells a card for the price the buyer and seller agree upon. As a consequence, eBay often underprices conventional card stores and also offers variety that no brick-and-mortar store can keep up with.
“The retailer competing with eBay has been nearly impossible,” Mr. Kelnhoff said. And that’s why we’ve seen so many card stores go out of business.”
Mr. Kelnhoff estimated that when Card Trade launched in 1995, there were 4,500 card stores in the country. Now, he pegged that number at about 1,200. Gary Ceccoli, owner of Gary’s Sports Cards in Scranton, said he recalls the halcyon days before the baseball strike when at least 12 stores sold baseball cards between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
Now there are about half that many, he said, and eBay is in so small part responsible.
“The Internet has hurt a lot of people,” Mr. Ceccoli said.
Most local card stores that remain have adapted by embracing, rather than competing with, eBay. Mr. Ceccoli said he sells about 15 percent of his merchandise on eBay while Mr. Yarem, of Yarem & Son Enterprises, said more than half of his sales take place on eBay.
“Out there you have a bigger audience,” Mr. Yarem said.
New paths
Mr. Mazaleski of Mazz Sports said the future may still hold hope for baseball cards.
“I don’t think baseball cards will die,” he said. “Absolutely not. I think it will be another plateau, and that’s the way it will be for awhile. Who knows — maybe there will be another spike like before?”
But among kids, the business seems to be going elsewhere.
On a Friday evening about 20 boys ages 7 to 17 crowd into Mr. Mazaleski’s narrow shop. Gathered around tables and counter tops, they play fast-paced card games with names like Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon and Duel Masters. Onlookers gather while others run off to start their own games.
Upstairs, five televisions line the wall and Xbox games are in full gear.
They are having the time of their lives. And they will be there all night.
“Whenever (Mr. Mazaleski) has a lock-in, I make it up here,” said John Bomersheim, 17, of North Pocono.
The lock-in is Mr. Mazaleski’s answer to the baseball card slump. The deal is simple enough: Once a month, local kids descend on the store; they bring the cards and video games, Mr. Mazaleski, 70, and his son, Ed Mazaleski Jr., 36, supervise.
It’s no easy feat staying up all night with a crowd of frenetic adolescents shouting over tournaments of Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering, Mr. Mazaleski said.
But it’s good for his game card sales, and it keeps kids coming back to the store.
“That’s the area that the kids are into, so we kind of converted over to the gaming card area,” Mr. Mazaleski said.
It’s yet another reason behind the baseball card slump.
Young kids, once the bulk of the baseball card business, aren’t into card collecting like the used to be. Most of Mr. Mazaleski’s baseball card customers are adults, and nearly all other card stores reported that their business among young kids has dropped precipitously in the past 15 years.
The reason is that as the prices of cards climbed in the late 1980s and 1990s, card collecting as a hobby has become priced out of most kids’ reach. Today, a pack of five to seven cards often costs as much as $6, with some high-end packs costing hundreds. Moreover, as card companies churned out ever more sets of cards, the variety on the market became too overwhelming for young kids to keep up.
Nick Guffey, 14, said he collected baseball cards when he was 9, but he stopped because he couldn’t seem to get “good cards.”
For kids with disposable income, video games and game cards have become a more appealing alternative.
Contact the writer: [email protected]
