Rationalization in Emerging Markets
Within the hierarchy of sports card collecting, it’s no secret that soccer card collecting occupies a niche much smaller than your traditional (football, basketball, baseball) sports. However, if you were to visualize collecting as a Russian Matryoshka Doll, women’s soccer card collecting is the baby at the end of the nest, a niche of a niche if you will, and is still in its infancy (no pun intended). Though pre-war era/vintage (St. Helens Ladies Football Team, Kerr’s Ladies Football Team), region-specific pre-modern (1999 Roox, 2000 Upper Deck MLS), and World Cup (2011 Women’s World Cup) cards and stickers exist in the world of women’s soccer collecting, it wasn’t until 2020 in which women — notably those playing for European teams — got their first Topps/Panini standalone traditional modern/ultra-modern card release with the introduction of Topps UCL Women’s Knockout. Many of those players in the Knockout checklist wouldn’t get their rookie badge until the following year with the introduction of the first ever Topps Chrome edition for the 2021-22 Women’s Champions League season. Highlighted by ‘rookies’ of multi-time Ballon d’Or winners Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí, as well as first Chromium cards for modern greats like Sam Kerr, the inaugural Chrome set (and, of course, individual accolades) had established a clear pecking order in both desirability to collect and price for the sets to follow. With the rise of rookie prospecting across all facets of collecting, however, that narrative has began to change.
Monster sales of rookies in the 2022-23 class and the 2023-24 class has slowly shifted the zeitgeist of the women’s market — from one where collectability and supporting players on ‘your’ team was of utmost concern to one more aligned to the men’s market and the race to be first to the next player to make it big. Players who have career resumes dwarfed by the all-time greats are beginning to outsell cards of ‘tier one’ (Alexia, Aitana, Sam Kerr) players in ‘tier one’ (Chrome, Sapphire) sets and have skewed the perception of what sales prices are rational vs. what sales are complete flukes. With the market cap of women’s soccer being small enough as it is, some of the jumps in money being spent seems nonsensical at face value relative to previous years. How can we rationalize some of these new sales in an emerging market?
The Problem Children
Left to Right: Salma Paralluelo, Lily Yohannes, Linda Caicedo
October 25, 2023 - 2022-23 TOPPS CHROME WOMENS UEFA SALMA PARALLUELO SUPERFRACTOR AUTO 1/1 ROOKIE - $3,500
November 14, 2024 - 2023-24 Topps Chrome UEFA Sapphire Women’s LILY YOHANNES RC Padpradascha 1/1 - $1,975
November 20, 2024 - 2023-24 Topps Chrome UEFA Women’s CL Linda Caicedo RC Superfractor 1/1 - $2,500
*Prices in USD
Listed above are the highest eBay sales prices for each of the three most touted prospects in Chrome sets following the inaugural release. Coincidentally, those prices also represent three of the five highest sales on eBay ever for ultramodern women’s soccer cards, with the two cards sandwiched between the sales being multiple iterations of the 2023-24 Topps Inception Dual Auto Patch Booklet /10 of Aitana and Alexia. While rookies (2021-22 Chrome) of the traditional ‘tier-one’ players have not transacted recently, the highest ever sales on public record (eBay) are $1,075 for a 2021-22 Chrome Red Refractor /5 for Alexia in 2022 and $775 for a 2021-22 Chrome Red Refractor Auto /5 PSA 9 for Sam Kerr in 2023.
It is worth noting that of the problem children listed above, sales data has not reflected well on the sold prices (though the verdict is still out for the latter two players due to proximity to product release). As of October 21, 2024, the second-highest public sales for each player are as follows:
Salma Paralluelo - August 17, 2023 - Salma Paralluelo 1/1 Barcelona Chrome World Cup Finalist - First Rookie Auto - $1,657.82
Lily Yohannes - November 20, 2024 - 2024 Topps Sapphire Women UEFA Lily Yohannes Queens of Football RC Black /10 - $129.20
Linda Caicedo - January 15, 2024 - 1 of 1 Linda Caicedo 2023 Donruss Womens World Cup Field Vision Black RC - $625.00
*Prices in USD
So why is there such a disparity in sales between the key rookies of the most recent sets versus the most proven players in the game?
Availability
No public sales records exist for any superfractor sales for the 2021-22 key players, but that fact may give insight as to why these sales are as high as they are in spite of career accolades: availability. For what my opinion is worth, if a base first-year Chrome superfractor for either Aitana Bonmatí, Alexia Putellas or Sam Kerr was made available on the open market, I would speculate that those sales would far eclipse those of the ‘problem children’ as they are proven players with numerous career accolades on teams that have dedicated fan bases. However, the fact of the matter is that those cards are not available and we can only make speculations and hypotheses based on historic sales data for those players. Thus, from the outside looking in, it looks strange that these rookies have gargantuan sales that trump all previous WoSo sales, simply because the best cards of the best players have not been made available yet.
Context / Timing
Had these substantial sales been for random players on the checklists, I would be in full agreement that there is some funny business or market manipulation happening with the women’s soccer market, but each of the problem children have important context that can be used to rationalize sales prices.
Salma Paralluelo
Age 21
Attack-minded player
Rookie for the best club team (FC Barcelona Femeni)
2023 Women’s World Cup Winner / plays for one of the best National teams (Spain)
1-time 3rd Place Ballon d’Or at the time of sale (current 2-time 3rd Place Ballon d’Or)
Lily Yohannes
Age 17
Rookie for one of the best / biggest market National teams (United States)
Declared for the USWNT three days before the sale of her 1/1 Padpradascha
Linda Caicedo
Age 19
Attack-minded, technical player
Rookie for one of the biggest clubs in the world (Real Madrid)
Scored and assisted in the UWCL game vs. FC Twente right before the sale of her 1/1 Superfractor
You are well within your right to disagree with the number value of the sales for each of the cards that have sold for these players, but there it’s important to contextualize the sales beyond just the ‘comps’. Rookie prospecting and high sales data also is not a problem endemic to the women’s segment of the soccer market. Sales for players on the other side of the proverbial fence (men’s) have been made that align very closely with the women’s market.
Ethan Nwaneri is one of, if not the chase rookie of this year’s English Premier League class and so happens to play for my club, Arsenal. Last month, his true black 1/1 rookie from Select sold for $10,600 and was paid for. Ethan Nwaneri has also only played 52 minutes in the Premier League, 8 minutes in the Champions League, and 170 minutes in Cup Games for the Arsenal Senior Team (scoring 3 goals). Based on numbers and accolades alone, it is very hard to rationalize a purchase this high in an established market, let alone an emerging market. You could pay for a 2016 Flawless on-card autograph of Messi and still have some change leftover for that price if we’re talking strictly sales data! It’s blasphemous to even make the comparison, but if Messi had a 1/1 true black Select rookie, of course it would sell for astronomically more than this card if it was available.
The bottom line is that Nwaneri is a highly touted academy rookie that plays for a team that by all personal accounts has one of the biggest and spendiest fan bases in the soccer collecting community, and one of his best ever rookie cards has been made available on the open market on auction. For an Arsenal collector who only collects Arsenal players, that in of itself is enough rationalization to spend big on a card, just like the context provided above is enough rationalization for a prospector to take a chance on a women’s player or for a women’s collector to pay strong for a rookie of their favorite team.
Closing Remarks
Reflecting on the biggest sales of the women’s market in recent memory and the attitude towards one of one pricing, I find it interesting that the long-standing hobby sentiment of “It’s a 1 of 1, you set the market!” is parroted to collectors yet so readily dismissed when a 1 of 1 actually sets the market. Inversely relative to the ‘high’ prices, what is the sentiment then if that 1 of 1 sold for pennies to the dollar? Are you willing to sell at those low prices because that’s how the market was set, or do you omit that sale when selling your /5 parallel because it was a ‘low’ sale and there is unrealized potential/pricing based on the context of the player and availability of the card?
It’s especially important to note that not all 1 of 1 sales are linear related to their parallel number — there’s no ‘multiplier’ that exists when pricing a 1 of 1 against an /5. Sure, you can use historical sales data of like 1 of 1s in the same set or of the same player, but at the end of the day it only takes two people to share the same philosophy on a card to make a sale when it comes to a card where only one copy exists.
Context matters! You can rationalize any purchase if you put your mind to it.