2020 Card Market Review

January 13, 2021 11:00am EST

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2020 Card Market Review

FPTS Staff
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January 13, 2021 11:00am EST

It goes without saying, but 2020 was a wild year. Not just for everyday life but for sports and sports cards as well. Players sitting out the whole year, or being quarantined just a day or 2 before a game. Add all that to the normal injuries of an NFL season and this year was a bit of a nightmare for fantasy football, at least for me. But what wasn't as much of a nightmare this year was the card market.

At the beginning of the year the card market was starting to slowly see an uptick. New collectors were starting to come in and the market was slowly starting to rise. Then COVID-19 came to the US and just about everybody in the hobby started to panic. The market, which looked like it was on the verge of becoming more popular than it was in the last decade, hit a huge roadblock. The market dipped, for all of about a week. And then to almost everybody's surprise, it exploded. More people entered the hobby than anybody could have expected. Whether it was for the first time or for the first time since they were kids.

Basketball specifically skyrocketed, and it helped that it was the first sport to start back up. And when it started back up, all the new people coming in changed the market. It used to be that a player needed a few good games to see cards rise, but now all it took was one good practice, and the market reacted. Seriously, Bol Bol cards went up 10x+ after just a practice. Cue the interview clip of Allen Iverson "Practice? We're talking about practice". Next came the baseball season, and the same thing happened. A player would hit a home run and his prices would rise. So going into football you could see the change coming.

Up until this NFL season, the saying was "only invest in QBs" and up until this season that's exactly what the market was. QBs could see big increases, but proven positional studs had little to no value. But if every other market was reacting in-game, why couldn't the NFL card market react when a running back, wide receiver, or even TE scored 2 or more TDs in a game? That was my thinking at least. I mean, a large majority of card collectors play fantasy football, and all signs pointed to the NFL market changing.

So one day I sat down and wrote about just that and shared it to my, maybe 50 Twitter followers at the time. Crickets.

Now about a month prior to writing that article I was convinced by a few collectors on Facebook to start creating content for sports cards. I was always offering advice to new collectors, why not do something with it? Problem was, I wasn't a writer. Even when I had to write in high school, I rarely did. I've worked a production job basically my entire adult life. Then, my job had closed to quarantine, and I would have plenty of free time on my hands so I figured why not give it a shot? So I bought a website, and started writing. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be going into it. I guess when you write about something you are passionate about, it's not like you're really writing at all.

Now I needed a platform to share my content. Facebook had always been my social media platform of choice, but I didn't think it would be a good place to get my voice heard. I could post in certain card groups, but they wouldn't get many views. I needed my own platform and Twitter seemed like the best place for that. I was pretty unfamiliar how to use it and growing a following was extremely slow.

The beginning of June is when I wrote the article "The Correlation Between Fantasy Sports and Sports Cards" and then shared it to Twitter. It probably got a like and comment and that was about it. I forgot about it and moved on to the next article. A few weeks later I got a message out of the blue from a guy named Ben Kukainis, saying he randomly stumbled on my article on Twitter and wanted to talk about some business. Now, up until this point I've had people reach out about putting an article on their website, or one guy made a YouTube video out of one of my articles, but they weren't big opportunities. So while I was always willing to share my content to get "the brand" out there, I wasn't expecting much from this random message.

I've been playing fantasy football for years, and I listen to tons of fantasy football podcasts, so when Ben told me who the team at Fantasy Points was, I couldn't say I was in fast enough. To be part of the team was an honor, and to be getting paid to talk about sports cards is absolutely surreal. I can't thank the team enough for taking a chance on me and giving me the opportunity. Okay… enough about my journey, let's get back to talking about cards.

Once training camp started in 2020 a large part of the modern football market was up, notably star position players. It looked like the theory was going to be right. Week One went exactly as I thought. Nyheim Hines scored 2 TDs and his prices spiked; in years past that never would have happened. It would have taken a few weeks for a player to see his card prices rise, but now it was in real-time. Then came Week Two and the absolute worst thing that could have happened for the NFL card market happened. The top position players got hurt. Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, Michael Thomas, and Davante Adams all got hurt. This was the reason why people were hesitant to buy position players in the past: fear of injury. I think that capped the NFL card market this year. While cards still saw spikes throughout the year, I think those injuries in Week Two, prevented those spikes from getting too high.

If the hobby continues to grow like it has, I think the market for NFL cards will be just as hot if not hotter going into the 2021 season. Buying some of your favorite players, to flip right at the beginning of the start of next season might not be a terrible idea. At least in my opinion. Markets always come back with the start of a new season in the hobby, that's a tale as old as time.

Now let's have a look at which players saw the biggest increases and the biggest drops in value in 2020. We're also going to take a look at players who might be good buys this offseason, and even hear from a few Fantasy Points subscribers on what they thought about the hobby their first year back.

Pay attention to all the articles this offseason on Fantasy Points, you can use that information to help build your card portfolio.

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Biggest Risers

We're going to take a look at which players’ cards went up the most this year from the start of the season until now. We're going to count down the biggest gainers from a percentage standpoint, from the start of the season until the end of the regular season.

Baker Mayfield

2018 Prizm

+50%

The Browns are going to the playoffs. That doesn't even feel right typing that out.

Baker Mayfield wasn't elite, finishing the year as QB17 in fantasy, but he was good enough to get them there. Mayfield already helped orchestrate a W against Pittsburgh in the Wild Card Round, and they’re now playing with house money against the Chiefs. I don’t see his value decreasing if they lose.

Derrick Henry

2016 Optic

+200%

It's not even fair how good Derrick Henry is, finishing the 2020 regular season with 2,027 yards and 17 TDs. The injury-plagued Week Two scared a lot of buyer's off of him, but he's been on a pretty steady climb since then. We might see his prices plateau a bit, though, now that Tennessee is out of the playoffs.

Jalen Hurts

2020 Donruss

+225%

I don't know if a team was a bigger disappointment than the Eagles this year. An argument can be made that their offensive weapons were hurt most of the year, and that's why they played so poorly. Another argument can be made that Carson Wentz is not great, to put it as nicely as possible. Either way, Jalen Hurts was somewhat of a bright spot for the Eagles season. Although his prices are down a bit from their peak, he still saw a big rise overall on the year. His cards may see a little dip as we approach the offseason, so if you believe in the player the time to buy is coming.

Justin Herbert

2020 Donruss

+250%

All it took to see Justin Herbert this year was a doctor shoving a needle into Tyrod Taylor's lung. No big deal. But, honestly, Herbert surprised me. I thought he'd be just another QB that's irrelevant after 3 years, but he looked really, really good at some points, and he is here to stay as an NFL QB. I think he has a chance of rising this offseason, as people speculate on him becoming the next big QB, similar to what happened to Kyler Murray cards around last April.

DK Metcalf

2019 Prizm

+300%

In my opinion, DK Metcalf was the breakout player of the year. He jumped to a whole new level in 2020 and his cards saw a very steady climb. His Prizm cards were selling for $5 in June, and have since gone up over 1400%. That's one hell of an ROI in 6 months.

Josh Allen

2018 Donruss

+600%

Allen saw his prices rise consistently to start the year, then he had a few sub-par games, and his cards dipped. They are up over 400% since the start of December. He's a legitimate MVP contender and he lead his team to their first AFC East Title in 25 years. Bills mafia is partying, like a lot of them have ever partied before. You can not find a folding table within 100 miles of Buffalo right now.