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Friends,

When I originally heard about the NIL rules, my first thought was, what does this mean for cards (of course, LOL)

At first I was hesitant because I really didn't know how the card companies were going to handle it - like, would all the cards just be Leaf special order stuff, players' personal websites, no packs/boxes, etc.

But now after I've seen some of the early products - 2021 Pro Set College Football and 2021 Bowman U come to mind - I gotta say ...

I like it.

One of the most frustrating things about having a college collection - case in point for me, USC - was that obviously you always had to wait until a player was headed to the pros to add him to the PC.

Now that these NIL cards are showing up in regular retail products, it's fun knowing you might have some cards of guys playing in schools in real time.

And if you keep these NIL cards in a separate box like you would Bowman baseball or whatever, it might be fun to look through them every so often to see if one of these guys broke out.

(05-23-2022, 04:41 PM)rjcj2017 Wrote: [ -> ]And if you keep these NIL cards in a separate box like you would Bowman baseball or whatever, it might be fun to look through them every so often to see if one of these guys broke out.

100% this. I started a two-row box labeled "NIL" that I'll keep all that stuff in there. Finally football card collectors can do what baseball fans have long been able to do.... prospect! I suspect interest will surge once Fanatics/Topps can fully license these cards. Though truth be told, any actual high school athlete, I wouldn't care about the logo. College it's nice but HS..... meh. Unless the athlete in question went to MY high school, I would not care. I really don't care about college logos to be honest but it's nice not having photoshopped out logos from the uniforms.

I think from the athlete's perspective this is fantastic. There are obviously guys who will never make the NFL and this is their time for cardboard greatness. I fully support kids getting official trading cards and it's part of the reason why I do customs. I remember submitting pictures to Upper Deck back when they did custom football cards (waaay back in 2002) and I still have a small stack of them. It's the coolest thing as a card collector and former player to see yourself on 2.5" x 3.5" cardboard.

(05-24-2022, 10:13 AM)jplarson Wrote: [ -> ]100% this.  I started a two-row box labeled "NIL" that I'll keep all that stuff in there.  Finally football card collectors can do what baseball fans have long been able to do.... prospect!  I suspect interest will surge once Fanatics/Topps can fully license these cards.  Though truth be told, any actual high school athlete, I wouldn't care about the logo.  College it's nice but HS..... meh.  Unless the athlete in question went to MY high school, I would not care.  I really don't care about college logos to be honest but it's nice not having photoshopped out logos from the uniforms.

I think from the athlete's perspective this is fantastic.  There are obviously guys who will never make the NFL and this is their time for cardboard greatness.  I fully support kids getting official trading cards and it's part of the reason why I do customs.  I remember submitting pictures to Upper Deck back when they did custom football cards (waaay back in 2002) and I still have a small stack of them.  It's the coolest thing as a card collector and former player to see yourself on 2.5" x 3.5" cardboard.

Agreed ... and there are some great college players and/or hometown guys that never got a card before, even if they made it to the pros.

Case in point - back in the day when I was the sports editor for our local newspaper, our County Player of the Year for high school football got a scholarship to UCLA and was eventually signed by the Jets.

He retired pretty quickly due to injury, but that's exactly the type of guy that may have had an NIL auto or at least a card that I would have loved to add to my PC.

I think that obviously the biggest benefit is for the players - and it is more than past time it occurred.

It might well increase collectors paying attention to college football - but overall, this is a mixed bag for collectors

the Good: NIL will lead to many players having cheaper autographs available - that serves the interest of collectors due to getting the player licensed cards to the market quickly - and before their college break out.

This can also lead to cheaper products with more autographs - Sage Low Series was loaded with NIL guys - even the retail yielded many NIL guys

Should cut down on flippers/Retail Sharks R Us/DBN types - when the big hits include high school players, you don't have the quick flip

the Bad: might increase speculation

Moves the flipping to college - ugh.

More difficult to follow college players to keep track of how they are doing.

Unless you are a fan of a huge college, you probably are not seeing very many NIL players - USC will get several NIL players, as will Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson and other bigtime programs - however, you are not going to see as much NIL from the small time schools - this actually could cut back the appeal to collectors a lot. I avoided Bowman U (I've since ordered some blasters) because I wasn't going to pay $180 for a product that lacked players from the colleges I collected.

The money gap in college sports is going to increase - that probably will ultimately result in the splitting off of a "super league" with the biggest money schools - that will be terrible - you'll lose long standing rivalries, the smaller guys don't have a chance of ever winning or scoring the big upset, college football will be much less fun, smaller schools will see top players depart for bigger programs - but it will also be good - the essentially professional teams can compete with each other - the smaller lower budgeted schools can have a more student athlete model - they will get small money deals and still can make the professional ranks - it also can provide a place for players who turn out to flame out at the big schools to go have a chance to try to play - and it can still provide educations to players.

Collecting is probably the most minor thing, but one thing is certain - college football is going to be vastly different in a few years once the full effect of NIL is present.

And we also will likely see a more fun budget friendly collectors market - a product like Sage or Leaf is likely to be more fun with the NIL guys - while your odds of hitting things big will be lower, you will likely be able to get the pre-draft things cheaper - and you also have another cheaper option to get players once they reach the NFL. Especially useful for cases where you have a player who started with a different team who went to your team.

(05-24-2022, 01:50 PM)ZSDOne Wrote: [ -> ]I think that obviously the biggest benefit is for the players - and it is more than past time it occurred.

It might well increase collectors paying attention to college football - but overall, this is a mixed bag for collectors

the Good: NIL will lead to many players having cheaper autographs available - that serves the interest of collectors due to getting the player licensed cards to the market quickly - and before their college break out.

This can also lead to cheaper products with more autographs - Sage Low Series was loaded with NIL guys - even the retail yielded many NIL guys

Should cut down on flippers/Retail Sharks R Us/DBN types - when the big hits include high school players, you don't have the quick flip

the Bad: might increase  speculation

Moves the flipping to college - ugh.

More difficult to follow college players to keep track of how they are doing.

Unless you are a fan of a huge college, you probably are not seeing very many NIL players - USC will get several NIL players, as will Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson and other bigtime programs - however, you are not going to see as much NIL from the small time schools - this actually could cut back the appeal to collectors a lot.  I avoided Bowman U (I've since ordered some blasters) because I wasn't going to pay $180 for a product that lacked players from the colleges I collected.

The money gap in college sports is going to increase - that probably will ultimately result in the splitting off of a "super league" with the biggest money schools - that will be terrible - you'll lose long standing rivalries, the smaller guys don't have a chance of ever winning or scoring the big upset, college football will be much less fun, smaller schools will see top players depart for bigger programs  - but it will also be good - the essentially professional teams can compete with each other - the smaller lower budgeted schools can have  a more student athlete model - they will get small money deals and still can make the professional ranks - it also can provide a place for players who turn out to flame out at the big schools to go have a chance to try to play - and it can still provide educations to players.

Collecting is probably the most minor thing, but one thing is certain - college football is going to be vastly different in a few years once the full effect of NIL is present.

And we also will likely see a more fun budget friendly collectors market - a product like Sage or Leaf is likely to be more fun with the NIL guys - while your odds of hitting things big will be lower, you will likely be able to get the pre-draft things cheaper - and you also have another cheaper option to get players once they reach the NFL.  Especially useful for cases where you have a player who started with a different team who went to your team.

Yep, agreed ... I also wonder how much it will affect a player's actual "rookie cards" or "rookie autos" ... maybe not the NFL stuff because of the pro uniforms, but take Bryce Young for example ... are his "second year" Alabama autos going to be that desirable in the draft stuff next year if he decides to come out?

(05-24-2022, 02:18 PM)rjcj2017 Wrote: [ -> ]Yep, agreed ... I also wonder how much it will affect a player's actual "rookie cards" or "rookie autos" ... maybe not the NFL stuff because of the pro uniforms, but take Bryce Young for example ... are his "second year" Alabama autos going to be that desirable in the draft stuff next year if he decides to come out?

Generally, base Contenders Draft Pick autos end up going for about the same price as base Sage and Leaf - so I am not convinced that having college uniforms will make a big difference.

Is Panini keeping the college license?  If so, that might make the "draft picks" cards more popular since it will be the only way to get football cards in products like Contenders, Prizm, and National Treasures.

(05-25-2022, 01:17 PM)ZSDOne Wrote: [ -> ]Generally, base Contenders Draft Pick autos end up going for about the same price as base Sage and Leaf - so I am not convinced that having college uniforms will make a big difference.

Is Panini keeping the college license?  If so, that might make the "draft picks" cards more popular since it will be the only way to get football cards in products like Contenders, Prizm, and National Treasures.

What I am saying is let's pretend Bryce is drafted by the Seahawks ... then Seattle collectors are going to be all over his first Seahawks autos.

But if he has Alabama cards for 2 or 3 years, will collectors be kind of tired of his college stuff by then?

(05-25-2022, 05:06 PM)rjcj2017 Wrote: [ -> ]What I am saying is let's pretend Bryce is drafted by the Seahawks ... then Seattle collectors are going to be all over his first Seahawks autos.

But if he has Alabama cards for 2 or 3 years, will collectors be kind of tired of his college stuff by then?

I think the best answer to that is:

Look at the veteran cards from Panini Contenders Draft Picks and Prizm Draft Picks - does anyone actually care about those?

Unless a player wins a Heisman Trophy or a National Title, their college autos are always going to have limited appeal - the number of college teams is so much higher than the number of pro teams meaning that the fan base will be smaller.  Even the most popular college teams have relatively small fan bases - and even the people who simply want to collect good players tend to prefer the pro uniforms to the college uniforms.

Outside of Alabama fans, most collectors looking for Bryce Young would move on to the NFL teams because hte NFL has a bigger market and the NFL teams have more fans than even the most popular college team.

Even with top players, their college uniform cards go for less than their NFL uniform cards

The college uniform cards however do lead to good values.

(05-26-2022, 09:49 AM)ZSDOne Wrote: [ -> ]I think the best answer to that is:

Look at the veteran cards from Panini Contenders Draft Picks and Prizm Draft Picks - does anyone actually care about those?

Unless a player wins a Heisman Trophy or a National Title, their college autos are always going to have limited appeal - the number of college teams is so much higher than the number of pro teams meaning that the fan base will be smaller.  Even the most popular college teams have relatively small fan bases - and even the people who simply want to collect good players tend to prefer the pro uniforms to the college uniforms.

Outside of Alabama fans, most collectors looking for Bryce Young would move on to the NFL teams because hte NFL has a bigger market and the NFL teams have more fans than even the most popular college team.

Even with top players, their college uniform cards go for less than their NFL uniform cards

The college uniform cards however do lead to good values.

Agreed ... part of the reason the college cards have limited appeal (even before the NIL Era) is because collectors always want what's "next," not "old news" unless they're a hardcore college collector.

Meaning, they're only popular because they're the first releases before the NFL/NBA rookie photo shoots, so that's your only choice until the pro stuff comes out.

But now, going forward with the NIL Era stuff, you might have 2-3 years worth of college cards before a player's pro stuff comes out.

Case in point - JJ McCarthy and Blake Corum from Michigan, good freshmen last year, first NIL cards this year.

So is there going to be any market whatsoever two years from now when they have their third seasons' worth of Michigan cards coming out, or will there be a collective yawn because it's been there, done that with some of these guys?

Like, I'm into the NIL products right now because it's new and different, but I think there's potential for fatigue if the college stuff becomes repetitive.

"If it becomes repetitive"

Really, it's more a matter of "when it becomes repetitive" - outside of Sage, there really isn't any other company who changes up their products majorly each year - Leaf products are especially repetitive.

And there is little doubt that it will be the Five Star Quarterbacks, Wide Outs, Running Backs, etc. that will be in all of the products - look at Leaf, Bowman, and Sage - there is a ton of overlap between the NIL players they got.