Card Collecting TV...Sounds Good To Me!

Imagine flipping through the channels and stumbling upon a channel that was talking only about sports cards. Wow...what a dream....

Yesterday, I threw out my dream into social media first starting on my Twitter and than onto my Facebook page about a TV channel solely dedicated to sports cards. The feedback about my idea was simply amazing! With that kind of reaction, I knew I would have to blog about it for those who may have missed this conversation and to continue the discussion about it since it's so hard to cram anything into a Tweet or a Facebook post.

Here were the Tweets (ignore the top one) and the Facebook post I sent out yesterday:

It seems many collectors agreed with my idea. Many said this would be a great marketing move for the hobby. I agree with that. I think it could also be a decent money maker for whoever was willing to invest into it. First, you could charge breakers to have a time slots for their breaks live on TV. Secondly, you could make money from manufacturers charging them to put up ads promoting their products. Third, big online companies like Dave&Adams and Blowout cards could put up ads for their sales and Beckett Media could use this as an outlet as well for the many services they offer. Lastly, you could get places like COMC, eBay or Collector Revolution to pay for paid programming slots to try and promote why you should sell your cards on their sites. Sounds like money to me.

However, when coming up with this idea, money making wasn't at all on my mind til I wrote this post. It was more about the fun and entertainment a channel like this could provide. I came up with this idea while waiting for a break video I had wanted to watch slowly buffer on YouTube. To be honest, most of the time when people post break videos, I don't watch them. My internet is always iffy and waiting for it to buffer is a pain. That's when I thought, this would be so much better if I could just sit down and watch it live. So why not on TV? Could you imagine seeing this kind of thing on a 50 inch (if i had one)?

So I sat down and thought if there was such a channel what kind of things would I like to watch. Here are some things I would find interesting:

1. Box Breaks. Who wouldn't want to watch breaks non-stop and see the mojo!
2. Go behind the scenes at major manufacturers and see what goes into making the cardboard we treasure so dearly. Let's see every angle of it from product design to printout. This could be the reality show side of the programming.
3. Let's see fun things that companies do at the Drafts and Rookie Premiers.
4. Let's see pro athletes do some signings and discuss not only their trading cards but their signatures.
5. Let's get some personal collections on there. If you have a collection, show it off! Let's not have any specifics. You could probably get three or four people per half-hour episode. Maybe it could be called, "Show and Tell"
6. I think a show on grading and how to tell fakes would draw attention
7. VINTAGE! Let's see some sweet vintage cards and memorabilia
8. An "LCS Road Trip" show taking us around the best shops in America
9. Do a show on card shows taking us to some of the bigger ones around. This would be great for those of us who don't have shows and may have forgotten what it was like.
10. "Collecting Basics" or "Card Collecting For Dummies" type of show helping out the rooks in the hobby explaining everything to them from toploaders to Sp's to 1/1 3-color patch cards. Some of us could use a refresher course as well.

These were just a few ideas. I am sure there are many more angles of the hobby you could do.

Overall, if this kind of marketing was to ever happen I think it would be big. Not to mention, this may help intrigue people who know nothing about the hobby to come and check it out. With it being easy to access since its on TV and we all know what curiosity does. I say more exposure on the hobby, the better. You never know where this idea could lead the hobby...

Note: This is my original material and original idea. It MAY NOT be used without my permission.