When Shohei Ohtani hit his 50th home run of the 2024 season, the baseball itself instantly became one of the most valuable pieces of sports memorabilia in the world.
Soon afterward, the ball sold for $4.4 million to a venture group based in Taiwan. The buyer was not a traditional memorabilia collector, but a group of investors treating the artifact as a cultural asset.
The moment illustrated something important about the modern sports collectibles market.
The buyers competing for iconic sports artifacts are no longer limited to longtime hobby collectors. Celebrities, professional athletes, venture investors, and international ownership groups have entered the market, bringing new capital and new visibility to an industry that for decades operated largely outside the financial mainstream.
At the same time, much of the infrastructure that moves these assets still remains in the hands of longtime hobby insiders.
The result is a market where cultural influence, financial capital, and hobby expertise now intersect.
Here are some of the biggest names who are making things happen in the hobby today.
Celebrity Capital
Few figures have generated more public attention around trading cards than Logan Paul.
Paul’s purchase of the PSA-10 Pikachu Illustrator card remains one of the most famous moments in modern collectibles. The card later became part of a transaction valued at roughly $16.5 million, the highest valuation ever associated with a trading card.
But Paul’s role in the hobby has increasingly moved beyond collecting. His newest venture, RipIt, is built around the rapidly growing market for live card breaking, where influencers open packs on livestream platforms and sell individual cards to viewers in real time.
The format blends trading cards with entertainment media, turning pack openings into a form of live commerce.
Other celebrities have entered the hobby through similar cultural channels. Drake has appeared in high-profile card openings and hobby content shared across social media platforms, exposing millions of fans to trading cards through the same digital channels that drive modern music and entertainment culture.
Actress Emma Roberts has taken a more direct role. Roberts has appeared in live card breaks with MojoBreak and has attended events such as Fanatics Fest, where celebrities, athletes, and collectors gather around the emerging entertainment culture surrounding the hobby.
DJ and producer Steve Aoki represents another type of crossover participant. Known for collecting rare art, sneakers, and pop culture memorabilia, Aoki has expanded his presence in trading cards through Aoki’s Card House, a collectibles venture built around his personal collecting interests and partnerships with PSA.
Aoki also regularly hosts live card events with Lucky 7 Card Shop in Austin. At one event he even visited a shop alongside Kim Kardashian and her children, introducing a completely new audience to the hobby.
What once existed primarily inside hobby shops now appears across livestream platforms, celebrity social feeds, and entertainment events.
Celebrity attention has helped move trading cards from a niche pastime into a visible part of mainstream culture.
When Athletes Become Collectors
Professional athletes have always appeared on trading cards. Increasingly, they are participating in the market that surrounds them.
Giannis Antetokounmpo has become one of the most visible athlete participants in the hobby. Stories of Giannis collecting cards and opening packs circulate widely among collectors, and he has also appeared at major hobby events such as Fanatics Fest. Through partnerships with companies like Goldin Auctions, Giannis has helped bring the hobby closer to the athletes whose careers originally fueled the market.
Another athlete making a name for himself in the hobby is the Hornet’s Grant Williams. He’s been a consistent presence ever since pulling a Luka RPA 2 year ago at Fanatics Fest in his first ever pack.
Other athletes have taken an even more direct role by investing in the infrastructure that supports the hobby.
Tom Brady, widely regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, became an investor in CardVault, a company that operates trading card shops and hobby spaces inside major sports venues including Boston’s TD Garden.
CardVault blends retail hobby shops, live card breaks, and marketplace activity into visible public spaces where fans can interact with the hobby in person.
Brady has also appeared at Fanatics Fest alongside figures such as Emma Roberts to discuss collecting and the growing cultural ecosystem surrounding sports memorabilia.
Athletes are no longer simply the subjects of trading cards. They are becoming participants in the market that produces them.
Wall Street Meets the Hobby
As visibility has grown, financial investors have begun treating sports cards as part of the broader alternative asset landscape.
Kevin O’Leary, widely known as “Mr. Wonderful” from Shark Tank, has built a notable sports card collection and frequently describes collectibles as part of a diversified portfolio alongside watches, art, and rare memorabilia.
O’Leary has become particularly associated with collecting rare Logoman patch cards, which incorporate pieces of game worn jerseys and represent some of the most valuable modern sports cards in existence. Some of these cards have even been mounted inside custom diamond cases designed to be worn as jewelry.
Many of O’Leary’s acquisitions are sourced through high-end collector and broker Shyne150, who helps connect investors with rare trophy cards.
Investor Anthony Scaramucci has taken an even broader view of the collectibles market. The founder of SkyBridge Capital has described the emerging collectibles economy as a “planetary treasure hunt,” a global search for culturally significant artifacts that exist in extremely limited supply.
Scaramucci is now launching a venture called Treasure Trove built around that concept. The platform focuses on acquiring historically significant collectibles across multiple categories.
Among the assets associated with the project is the Pikachu Illustrator card previously owned by Logan Paul and valued at roughly $16.5 million. Other acquisitions reportedly include a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil and historic American documents such as early printed versions of the Declaration of Independence. One such 1776 New Hampshire printing is currently featured in a recent Goldin auction.
Within this framework, sports cards increasingly sit alongside rare art, historical documents, and natural history artifacts as globally traded cultural assets.
The Market’s Power Brokers
Behind many of the hobby’s largest transactions stands a relatively small group of insiders who help connect rare assets with wealthy buyers.
Ken Goldin, founder of Goldin Auctions, has brokered many of the most significant sports memorabilia sales of the past decade. His auctions regularly attract global bidders competing for iconic collectibles.
Goldin’s company later became part of a broader consolidation of the hobby’s infrastructure. After operating under Collectors Holdings, the auction house was ultimately acquired by eBay, integrating high-end sports memorabilia sales into one of the world’s largest online marketplaces.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, owner of the New York Mets and founder of Point72 Asset Management, was part of the ownership group behind Collectors Holdings. That group brought together companies such as PSA and Goldin Auctions before the eBay acquisition.
Another central figure is Nat Turner, CEO of PSA and a longtime collector himself. PSA’s grading system sits at the foundation of the hobby’s trust and liquidity.
At the same time, the broader structure of the industry is beginning to change.
Fanatics, led by CEO Michael Rubin, has aggressively expanded across the collectibles ecosystem through vertical integration. The company acquired Topps, secured exclusive trading card licenses with major sports leagues, and launched its own marketplace platform.
The strategy attempts to connect card production, distribution, authentication, and resale within a single system.
In other words, the hobby’s infrastructure is becoming increasingly centralized at the same moment that new capital continues entering the market.
Beneath the Surface
The modern sports card market now sits at the intersection of culture, capital, and hobby expertise.
Celebrity attention has pulled trading cards into mainstream media. Athletes have begun investing in the businesses that support the hobby. Financial investors are increasingly treating rare cards as part of a broader category of alternative assets alongside art, watches, and historical memorabilia.
But the public activity visible on livestreams, social media, and auction broadcasts represents only part of the market.
Many of the most significant transactions occur quietly through private brokers, collectors, and investment groups who negotiate deals away from public marketplaces. Rare cards often change hands through private sales long before they ever appear in a public auction catalog.
The modern hobby may look louder and more visible than ever. Yet much of the real market still operates behind closed doors. And the capital entering the space continues to grow.
