[Troubless]

wow Jun.... great piece on Jordan and why he's the absolute GREATEST OF ALL TIME in both sports & the hobby!!!

I agree, great piece indeed, thanks Jun!! There is one argument that you left out, and that's the international appeal of basketball in general and Jordan in particular. This is the piece I wrote in another thread on this issue:

Here's my two cents from an international perspective. Football might be number one in the USA, but despite the NFL's efforts with regular games outside of the US, there is little, if any interest for football elsewhere. Baseball might be big in Japan, but there is very little interest anywhere else. Basketball on the other hand is a global game. You only need to look at the NBA today which is almost unrecognisable from 20 years ago, with so many international players, some of which have had a real impact too. That's why the interest in the NBA has been growing steadily. "Linsanity" for instance was fuelled mainly by interest from Asia.

Of course card collecting may not be as traditional in other countries as in the US, but I've seen interest in the hobby grow on a regular basis in Europe and in Asia. Some of the main collectors of basketball cards are in Asia today. And with the US dollar losing ground against most of the asian currencies over the last years, their purchasing power has been increasing too. That's why I believe basketball cards have the biggest upside potential of all sportscards.

I will try to get some pics up from the rarer pieces of my collection soon.