The Weekly Rip 7.19.26 [Experience]
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The Weekly Rip
Your Stacking Slabs Sunday Update
July 19, 2026
I heard Cody Rhodes’ entrance music before I saw him.
That was not unusual at Fanatics Fest.
Kids had been walking through the WWE entrance all day. They would choose a wrestler, wait for the music, and step onto the stage. For a few seconds, they got to feel what it was like to be the person they watched on television.
Then I looked up.
This time, it was Cody Rhodes.
He was standing a few feet away from me.
I felt goosebumps. For a moment, I stopped being a media operator studying an event. I stopped thinking about meetings, content, schedules, and the work waiting for me back at the hotel.
I felt like a kid.
That moment helped me understand Fanatics Fest.
It was not built as a card show with celebrities added to it.
It was built as a celebration of fandom with cards placed at the center.
That distinction matters.
I went to New York hoping to study the intersection between sports fans and collectors. I wanted to see how Fanatics would bring those groups together. I also wanted to meet people, strengthen relationships, and have conversations that are hard to replicate through a screen.
I left with a better understanding of what this event is trying to build.
Fanatics Fest is showing people that cards belong beside the athletes, stories, teams, and moments that create fans in the first place.
There were athletes everywhere.
Tom Brady spoke about cards.
Karl-Anthony Towns spoke about cards.
Cooper Flagg signed his Rookie Debut Patch inside the building.
Lionel Messi held a press conference before one of the biggest matches of his life.
Wrestlers, basketball players, football players, creators, collectors, and dealers moved through the same space.
Cards were not hidden in a separate room.
They were part of the event.
This might not feel important to someone who has collected for decades. Many experienced collectors do not need an athlete appearance or an entrance stage to strengthen their relationship with cards.
We already understand the connection.
A card can remind us of a player, a season, a game, a family member, or a version of ourselves that we have not thought about in years.
A new collector does not understand that yet.
They need an entry point.
At Fanatics Fest, the entry point was fandom.
A kid might arrive because they love Cody Rhodes.
They might stop to watch a card break.
They might see a wrestler talk about a card.
They might hold a pack for the first time.
They might ask a parent to visit a dealer table.
That does not guarantee the kid becomes a lifelong collector.
It creates a chance.
The hobby needs more chances like that.
We spend a lot of time debating whether young people will collect cards. We question their attention spans. We complain about prices. We argue about products, print runs, breakers, manufacturers, and technology.
Those concerns have value.
But kids will not enter the hobby because adults won an argument about its problems.
They will enter because something made collecting feel connected to what they already love.
Fanatics Fest understood that.
I also spent time speaking with dealers.
They were selling cards.
That matters more than the size of an activation or the number of athletes in the building.
A large crowd means little if money does not move through the room.
Dealers invest in inventory, travel, lodging, staffing, and table space. They accept risk before the doors open. A successful event needs to create business for the people who help make it work.
The dealers I spoke with seemed pleased.
Cards were moving. Buyers were active. People were making deals.
That activity will not stop when Fanatics Fest ends.
Many of those dealers now have to prepare for the National. Some sold more inventory than expected. They will need to restock. They will need to make decisions about what to carry into the next event.
That creates another round of activity.
Collectors sell.
Dealers buy.
Inventory moves.
Money gets redeployed.
Large events create momentum because they give people a reason to act.
The hobby can feel isolated when you experience it through social media. You see posts, prices, opinions, and transactions. It becomes easy to think of collecting as a series of objects moving between accounts.
An event changes that perspective.
You see the people.
You hear the conversations.
You watch a collector stop at a case.
You see a dealer recognize a returning customer.
You watch a child point at a card.
You share dinner with people you have known through a podcast, a group chat, or a username.
The cards matter.
The people give the cards meaning.
I did not attend Fanatics Fest to buy cards.
Large card shows can overwhelm me. I collect within a narrow focus. Walking through rows of inventory does not help me make better decisions.
I went to connect.
That part worked.
I had planned meetings. I also had conversations that happened because two people crossed paths at the right time.
Those moments are hard to measure.
There is no sales receipt.
There is no public comp.
There is no dashboard showing the return.
But relationships move faster in person.
You hear tone.
You understand intent.
You learn what someone is working on, what they care about, and where they need help.
A relationship that has existed online for years can change during one meal.
That was the part of Fanatics Fest that offered the most value to me.
The event gave people a reason to gather.
The programming brought them into the building. The relationships gave the trip weight.
Fanatics Fest was not a calm experience.
There were moments when the crowd stopped moving because an athlete needed to cross the floor. Security would close an aisle. People would pack into the same area. Noise came from every direction.
There was always another activation, panel, signing, entrance, announcement, or crowd forming nearby.
By the end of the day, I felt it.
My feet hurt.
My mind felt full.
My routine was gone.
The work did not stop because I was at an event. It followed me back to the hotel room.
That is part of the trade.
Access creates security challenges.
Programming creates noise.
Attendance creates crowds.
Scale creates friction.
You can acknowledge those problems without missing what the event accomplished.
Fanatics Fest ran an event with athletes, collectors, dealers, brands, media members, families, and fans moving through one building. From where I stood, the operation held together.
That deserves recognition.
Fanatics Fest will receive criticism.
Some of it will come from people who attended and did not enjoy the experience. Their perspective has value.
The event is not designed for every collector.
Some people want a traditional card show.
Some want more buying space.
Some want fewer crowds.
Some want less focus on celebrity access.
Those are fair positions.
The criticism that carries less weight comes from people who were not there and decided what the event meant before it happened.
We do this often in the hobby.
We form an opinion from a post.
We repeat someone else’s reaction.
We decide whether something is good or bad without experiencing it.
That habit does not make us informed.
It makes us dependent on other people’s judgment.
Fanatics Fest reminded me to separate observation from assumption.
You do not have to support every event, company, product, or direction in the hobby.
But experience creates context.
Context creates better judgment.
Fanatics Fest did not feel like the card shows I grew up attending.
That is the point.
The hobby cannot grow by recreating the same room for the same people.
It needs places for experienced collectors.
It also needs places where a sports fan can become a collector without realizing that transition is happening.
Fanatics Fest is trying to build that bridge.
It uses athletes, access, entertainment, and fandom to bring people closer to cards.
There are risks in that approach.
Entertainment can overpower collecting.
Attention can become more important than education.
The event can become so large that the cards feel secondary.
Those tensions should be watched.
But rejecting the bridge because it does not resemble the hobby we entered would be a mistake.
Collectors often talk about protecting the future of the hobby.
The future will not look like the past.
It will enter through different doors.
For one kid, that door might have opened when Cody Rhodes’ music started playing.
For another, it might have been Cooper Flagg holding his first Rookie Debut Patch.
For someone else, it might have been the first time they watched their parent make a deal with a dealer.
We cannot predict which moment will stay with them.
We can create more moments.
That is what Fanatics Fest did well.
It took the feeling of being a fan and placed cards within reach.
For a few seconds, I felt that connection myself.
I heard the music.
I looked up.
Cody Rhodes was standing beside me.
And the whole event made sense.
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2021 Panini Eminence Super Bowl Royalty Gold Bar Peyton Manning Auto 2/2
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2000 Fleer E-X Essential Credentials Now Peyton Manning /50 PSA 9
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2016 Donruss Optic Gold Drew Brees /10 PSA 9
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Reissue: The Experience Is the Memory
John Amendola on Building Places Collectors Want to Come Back To
The best hobby experiences are rarely about the transaction alone.
They are about how you feel while you are there.
Who you meet.
What you discover.
The conversations you did not expect to have.
The moment that reminds you why you care about this stuff in the first place.
That’s what kept coming back to me after my conversation with John Amendola of Mintink.
Because John is not just building card shops.
He is building environments.
Places where collectors can hang around.
Ask questions.
Open product.
Talk cards.
Bring their kids.
Meet other people.
Feel like they belong.
And after being at Fanatics Fest, I keep thinking about how important that is.
Because the hobby does not grow from transactions alone.
It grows from experiences that make people want to come back.
The Hobby Needs Places to Gather
One of the things John talked about was the idea of creating a place where people could congregate.
That word matters.
Because collectors need more than access to product.
They need places.
They need rooms.
They need tables.
They need counters.
They need shows.
They need events.
They need reasons to get out from behind the screen and into the same space as other people who care about the same things.
That is what a great hobby experience does.
It turns collecting from a solo activity into a shared one.
And when that happens, the cards start carrying more weight.
Not because the cardboard changed.
Because the memory around it changed.
Experience Creates Attachment
Collectors remember where they were when they found the card.
They remember who was standing next to them.
They remember the dealer who took the time to explain something.
They remember the kid opening a pack at the next table.
They remember the conversation that started with a card and turned into a relationship.
That is what experience does.
It adds layers.
A card bought online can still matter.
Of course it can.
But a card found inside a real experience often carries something extra.
It becomes attached to the day.
The trip.
The show.
The person.
The room.
That is why events like Fanatics Fest matter when they are done well.
They are not just commerce.
They are memory-making machines.
The First Sale Is Not the Goal
One of the strongest points John made was that the first sale is the easiest.
The real win is getting someone to come back.
That applies to businesses.
But it also applies to the hobby as a whole.
Anyone can create a moment of attention.
Anyone can sell something once.
Anyone can make noise for a weekend.
The question is what happens after.
Does the collector feel more connected?
Do they understand the hobby better?
Do they want to bring someone else next time?
Do they feel like there is a place for them here?
That is the difference between a transaction and an experience.
A transaction ends when the payment goes through.
A great experience keeps working on you after you leave.
Education Is Part of the Experience
John talked about training his staff to answer questions, educate people, and treat every customer with respect, whether they were spending big money or no money at all.
That is not soft.
That is smart.
Because confusion kills momentum.
A new collector walks into the hobby and sees products, platforms, grading, pricing, parallels, case hits, breakers, trade nights, showcases, and language they do not understand.
If no one helps them, they leave.
If someone takes the time to guide them, they stay.
That is why education is not separate from experience.
It is part of the experience.
A great event, shop, or brand does not just show collectors what is available.
It helps them understand why it matters.
Belonging Is the Real Product
The part of John’s conversation that stuck with me most was the story about the mother who told him her son struggled to make friends, but found connection through Mintink trade nights.
That is the hobby at its best.
Not because a huge card changed hands.
Not because a record sale happened.
Not because someone hit a monster.
Because someone found a place where they could be themselves.
That is easy to overlook in a hobby that often gets measured by sales, comps, followers, and views.
But belonging is powerful.
Collectors may come for the cards.
They stay because of how the hobby makes them feel.
What Fanatics Fest Reminded Me
That is what I kept thinking about at Fanatics Fest.
The hobby is bigger than the cards in the cases.
It is the energy in the room.
The families walking the floor.
The collectors stopping each other to talk.
The brands trying to create something memorable.
The kids seeing this world up close.
The adults remembering why they got pulled back in.
Not every experience will be perfect.
No event is.
No business is.
No shop is.
But the intention matters.
When someone builds for the collector experience, you can feel it.
And when you feel it, you remember it.
The Lesson
The future of the hobby will not be built by access alone.
Collectors already have access.
They can buy almost anything from almost anywhere.
What they cannot always find is connection.
That is where the opportunity is.
Create the room.
Create the reason.
Create the moment.
Create the place where someone feels like this hobby has a spot for them.
That is what John is trying to build with Mintink.
And that is what the best parts of Fanatics Fest reminded me.
The hobby needs more great experiences.
Not just bigger events.
Not just more product.
Not just more ways to transact.
More places where collectors feel something.
Because the card may be what brings someone in.
But the experience is what brings them back.
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Take care,
Brett