Digital Collectibles, Emerging Markets & NIL

PART 1 – DIGITAL COLLECTIBLES

This chapter looks at where sports collectibles are headed as technology reshapes the hobby. We’ll cover the digital side of the space, from how the industry is changing to which emerging markets are starting to matter.

By the end, you’ll understand the basics of digital collectibles and how blockchain actually works under the hood. You’ll know what NFTs are, who the major players in this space are, and why they matter. And you’ll be able to look at digital collectibles with a critical eye: what’s real potential, what’s hype, and where this market might be headed next.

A. Virtual Collecting

Virtual collecting has opened the hobby up in ways that weren’t possible a decade ago. eBay changed the marketplace first, letting collectors buy and sell across borders and connect with people they’d never have met otherwise. Since then, platforms like Upper Deck e-Pack and Topps Collect have taken it further, letting you open packs and build a collection entirely online. Sites like COMC handle the cataloging and trading side, so you can move cards around without ever touching a shipping label.

Storage has caught up too. Services like Fanatics Collect Vault and PSA Vault let collectors keep valuable pieces in climate-controlled facilities while still checking on them, and trading them, from a phone. Grading has folded into this as well: you can submit remotely and get your results stored digitally without the card ever coming back to your mailbox.

Then there’s the NFT side of things. Platforms like SoRare and NBA Top Shot built entirely new categories of digital-only collectibles, and for a lot of collectors, owning something purely digital carries the same thrill, and the same upside, as owning something you can hold.

B. Upper Deck e-Pack

Upper Deck launched e-Pack back in 2016, built as what they call a “digital to physical platform.” Collectors buy packs through the e-Pack website or app, open them right there on screen, then decide whether to have the cards shipped out or just keep them stored. Here is a tutorial on Upper Deck’s e-Pack program for NHL hockey cards, and we also created a deep dive into the full ins and outs of e-Pack. COMC (Check Out My Cards) manages the storage and shipping of physical cards for e-Pack.

C. NFTs, Blockchain and Digital Cards

First off, let’s review exactly, what is an NFT? This video gives a compact overview: “NFTs Explained in 4 minutes.” Next, let’s look at a few examples of sports-licensed NFTs and digital collectibles:

NBA Top Shot

To date, NBA Top Shot from Dapper Labs stands as one of the most successful NFT sports products and marketplaces. Top Shot enables collectors to purchase NBA digital video highlights, known as “Moments.” Watch this video for more information.

NFL All Day

NFL All Day is an NFT digital collectibles platform developed through a partnership between the NFL, NFLPA, and Dapper Labs. It enables football fans to collect “Moments,” which are NFTs that capture highlights of significant plays, such as spectacular passes and touchdowns. These Moments are securely stored on a blockchain and can be bought, sold, or traded on a peer-to-peer marketplace. The platform celebrates the game’s epic highlights, offering fans a unique and interactive way to engage with their favorite sport. Watch this promotional video for NFL All Day.

NHL Breakaway

NHL Breakaway is an official NFT digital collectibles marketplace for the NHL, NHLPA, and NHLAA, powered by the Sweet platform. Similar to NBA Top Shot, Breakaway enables fans to buy, trade, and collect video highlights and memorabilia from both current and historical NHL moments. The platform also features interactive elements such as on-platform challenges, where collectors can earn real-life rewards and additional digital goods. Watch this video for more information.

SoRare

SoRare is a licensed soccer NFT product that combines elements of competition and fantasy sports. Below, you’ll hear from fantasy sports experts at RotoWire, who will provide an excellent breakdown of this rapidly growing platform. Many of these cards are fetching significant sums at auction. Watch this video for more information.

Panini and Topps NFT cards

Panini America launched its NFT trading card platform in January 2020, becoming the first company to introduce blockchain-based sports trading cards. Built on its own private blockchain, the platform allows collectors to buy, sell, auction, and trade digital cards. As of 2025, Panini offers NFT products for the NFL, NBA, NIL, college sports, FIFA World Cup, the Premier League, NASCAR, and more. Recent reports show strong trading activity, confirming that these digital sports card brands remain actively exchanged on the platform.

In 2021, Topps introduced its first NFT collection featuring the flagship 2021 MLB Topps cards, followed by several additional sets in 2021 and 2022. However, the company has since ended its NFT venture, announcing the shutdown of ToppsNFTs.com effective March 2025.

Topps Collect!

Topps Collect! transforms traditional trading cards into a dynamic digital experience, featuring beloved athletes, characters, and franchises including MLB, Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney. This innovative app enables collectors to build their digital card collections, engage in trades with fellow enthusiasts, and display their prized cards in personalized showcases. Beyond simple collecting, users can compete in real-time contests, advance through competitive leaderboards, and unlock exclusive rewards, creating an engaging, social platform where fandom comes alive through interactive gameplay and community connection.

PART 2 – EMERGING MARKETS & NIL

Collectors are always on the lookout for the next big thing. Over the past six to eight years, the sports collectibles market has experienced tremendous growth in several new and exciting categories, attracting many new hobbyists.

At the end of the chapter, you will be able to:

• Identify and examine several growing markets in sports and entertainment collectibles.
• Analyze the potential and implications of these emerging markets.
• Review the growth trends of these markets.
• Describe the core concepts of NIL.

Video Game Grading

Video game grading works pretty much the way card grading does. Experts check a game’s authenticity and condition, especially for sealed or complete-in-box copies, then assign it a grade. That grade tells collectors what they’re actually buying and roughly what it’s worth.

PSA, CGC, and Video Game Authority (VGA) are the names that matter most here. PSA actually bought Wata Games and rebranded under its own name, and all three have built solid reputations for how they grade.

If a game is sealed, the seal itself gets graded too, on a scale from A++ (basically flawless) down to C (visible damage). Graders look at everything: the box, the cartridge or disc, the manual, any inserts that came with it. Each piece gets checked on its own.

The upside here is real. In August 2021, a rare, unopened, high-grade copy of the original Mario Bros. sold through Rally, the fractional investing platform, for $2 million as a full buyout. Sports video games are still a tiny corner of this market, but the category as a whole is just getting started.

Watch this video from the TV show ‘Pawn Stars’ featuring a high-grade copy of the Nintendo game “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!”

Discover the fundamentals of video game collecting with insights from Jon Waldman of WorthPoint. Jon has contributed to Beckett Media and numerous other collectibles publications. He is also the author of two books.

Ticket Grading

Ticket grading works a lot like card grading: authenticating, preserving, and certifying tickets from real events so collectors know exactly what condition they’re in. PSA leads the space here, and the market has grown fast over the past few years with plenty of room left to run.

Population reports are still low compared to cards or other graded collectibles, and high grades are genuinely hard to find. The tickets that tend to draw the most attention are tied to moments that mattered: player debuts, record-breaking games, championships, historic matchups, farewell games. The kind of thing you’d want proof you were there for.

Have a listen to this PSA podcast episode discussing grading sports tickets with Principal Ticket Authenticator Matt Fuller.

Magazine Grading

Magazines capture moments in a way cards can’t quite match. That big cover shot, the timing, the emotional pull of seeing a player right at their peak. Like cards, magazines get graded too, looking at things like cover gloss, spine condition, and page quality, though the process gets more complicated with all those extra components. CGC has led this market for a while, and PSA officially jumped in back in July 2025.

Collectors chase magazines with star athletes on the cover, ones tied to historic moments, or true “first appearance” issues, like Sports Illustrated #1 from August 16, 1954. SI remains the most sought-after title, with Sports Illustrated for Kids, Baseball Digest, and ESPN The Magazine not far behind. One thing worth knowing: newsstand copies, meaning no subscription label stamped on the cover, almost always sell for more than the subscriber versions.

For a lot more on magazine collecting and grading, see this article.

We also have a full feature on which video games, tickets and magazines are worth grading.

Trading Cards of Female Athletes

The market for female athlete cards is on a real tear right now, and Caitlin Clark is the biggest reason why. Her 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Gold Vinyl 1/1 autograph rookie card sold for $366,000, the most anyone’s ever paid for a female athlete’s card. That broke the record previously held by Serena Williams’ 2003 NetPro autograph patch card, which sold for $266,400.

Clark’s rise has pulled the whole WNBA card segment up with her. Serena Williams still holds serious weight in this market too; her cards keep pulling strong prices and plenty of respect from collectors. Mia Hamm’s early soccer cards, especially her 1999 SI for Kids release, are gaining ground as well, as interest in women’s sports keeps growing worldwide.

What’s happening with female athlete card values isn’t just a pricing story. It says something about how collectors are starting to value women in sports, and it looks like it’s here to stay.

Non-Sport / Entertainment Cards

Some of the biggest names in non-sport cards are exactly what you’d expect: Star Wars, Marvel, DC. These franchises have held onto passionate fanbases for decades. And here’s something a lot of people don’t realize: the very first trading cards ever made were non-sport cards, long before sports cards became the default people picture today.

Non-sport cards have one real edge over sports cards: stability. A fictional character can’t get hurt, can’t get caught up in a scandal, can’t hit a slump. As collectors like to say, Superman can’t blow out his elbow. That staying power is a big part of the appeal.

In this corner of the hobby, what sports collectors call a “rookie card” gets called a “first appearance” instead, a term pulled straight from comic book collecting. It’s a good reminder of how much overlap there is between comics and cards.

Demand for certain vintage, key pieces has spiked in a big way lately. Think the 1940 Gum Inc. Superman #1, the 1966 Topps Batman #1, the 1966 Donruss Marvel Super Heroes #34 Spider-Man, and the 1977 Topps Star Wars #1 Luke Skywalker. Cards like these have become the benchmarks collectors measure everything else against.

On the modern side, almost nothing touches the reputation of Precious Metal Gems and Jambalaya from Upper Deck, or Topps Refractors. These sets have become the standard collectors chase, and prices reflect it.

Non-sport collecting keeps growing, and there’s genuinely something in it for every kind of fan, no matter what you’re into.

For a deeper dive into the recent growth of non-sport pop-culture cards, check out our feature story.

NIL in College Sports

NIL stands for Name, Image, and Likeness, and it changed college sports in a big way. Since these rules took effect on July 1, 2021, student-athletes have been able to sign endorsement deals and get paid for their own name and image without losing their eligibility. That one change reshaped college sports and, along with it, the trading card industry. Once athletes could actually profit off their own likeness while still in school, the college card market took off, fueled by new licensing deals and a handful of breakout stars.

Panini moved fast here, partnering with the Collegiate Licensing Company, which handles university logos and marks, and OneTeam Partners, which represents a large group of athletes for licensing purposes. That partnership covers physical cards and digital collectibles like NFTs. Topps, now part of Fanatics Collectibles, went even bigger. In 2022, they struck a deal with over 100 NCAA schools to produce cards featuring current and former athletes. That includes exclusive rights at more than 35 schools, among them Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Penn State, and Texas A&M, giving Topps use of official university trademarks and NIL rights. On top of that, Topps has non-exclusive rights to make cards for athletes at over 100 other schools, including Duke, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Iowa, released under the BowmanU brand.

A handful of athletes have driven a lot of this. Caitlin Clark, Iowa’s star guard and the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, has become one of the hobby’s biggest names. Her autographs and rare inserts are some of the most chased cards out there, and grading companies have seen submissions spike because of her. Cooper Flagg, the Duke standout and No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists a game in college, and his Duke cards already sell at a premium. Then there’s Arch Manning, Texas quarterback and the latest in a long football lineage, whose cards have stayed hot as collectors bet on him becoming a Heisman winner, a national champion, or the top pick in a future NFL Draft.

The reach of NIL opportunities has extended beyond traditional revenue sports. In July 2025, hockey saw a landmark moment when Gavin McKenna, projected as the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, left the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers to commit to Penn State University under a record-setting NIL deal. This move underscores the growing influence of NIL across all major collegiate sports and its potential to reshape athlete compensation and market dynamics. Here are more details on the McKenna deal.

According to dealers, collectors, and industry insiders, athletes like Clark, Flagg, and Manning have redefined the value of college cards. Pre-professional releases now carry significant market weight, and the NIL era has unlocked new opportunities for athletes to monetize their brand, and for collectors to invest in rising stars before they reach the professional stage.

Check out our feature story on collecting college cards.

Conclusion

New categories keep pushing the sports collectibles market forward. Video game grading, ticket authentication, magazine certification, non-sport and entertainment cards, and the surge in female athlete cards are all giving collectors fresh ways to build out what they collect.

NIL rules, introduced in July 2021, changed college sports and the card market right along with it. Student-athletes can now cash in on their own name and image, and that’s created huge demand for college cards featuring players like Caitlin Clark, Cooper Flagg, and Arch Manning.

Put it all together, and it’s clear this hobby isn’t standing still. Between the physical side and the digital side, there’s more room than ever to chase historic moments and rising talent across sports and entertainment.