The Olympics are an event that can fuel growth in interest and popularity, not just for a given sport or individual athlete, but for an array of collectibles, as well. The global nature of the Olympics, the way they cross-pollinate fans of different sports and draw in very casual or even non-sports fans — it’s something that can supercharge demand.
Take basketball for example — the men’s gold-medal game between the U.S. and France averaged 19.5 million viewers in the U.S. alone, whereas the most recent NBA Finals averaged 11.3 million viewers. The women’s gold-medal game drew 7.8 million viewers in the U.S. (at 9:30 a.m. ET), and last year’s WNBA Finals averaged 728,000. While that sudden influx of new eyeballs can produce a brief and immediate surge of interest that just as quickly evaporates, it can also be the foundation for longer-term growth in some cases. It can be an introduction that creates new fans and collectors.
With that in mind, let’s look back on the 2024 Olympics using insights from eBay:
Athletes (and rappers) who saw a surge of collector interest
The most searched Team USA men’s basketball players within eBay during the Olympics were LeBron James, Anthony Edwards and Steph Curry. James and Curry’s places there shouldn’t be surprising, given their status as legends of the game and how they came through in big moments for Team USA, but Edwards being searched at that level within a marketplace (rather than just on a more general interest platform like Google) is noteworthy.
The day Team USA beat Serbia in the semifinals, Edwards’ ungraded 202o Panini Prizm silver card (a popular parallel in the most popular NBA set that has a bit more favorable supply/demand balance than his plentiful Prizm base rookie card) returned to the price level it reached at the start of the NBA Western Conference finals in May (around $320), when he was one of the postseason’s top performers to that point, up from the sub-$200 level it dropped to in late June/early July. Edwards didn’t produce a standout performance in the semifinal or final of the Olympic tournament, so there has been another decline, but the card remains higher than the lows it hit after his NBA playoff elimination. He’ll need to take another leap forward this season and have better showings in key moments in order to further grow the level of collector interest in him, though.
Steph Curry (left) and Anthony Edwards after receiving their gold medals. (Photo: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images)
On the women’s side, the most searched Team USA players on eBay were Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, and Kelsey Plum. Taurasi didn’t play in the gold-medal game and averaged just 1 ppg for the tournament, but she won her sixth gold medal — a new record for the sport. Noticeably absent from that group is A’ja Wilson, who was named MVP of the tournament and is also the clear favorite to claim a third WNBA MVP trophy this season. There have always been players who far outperform the level of collector interest in them, but this looks like a generational talent/all-time great being seriously undervalued.
The Olympics provided a boost to women’s sports collectibles though. Katie Ledecky sales grew throughout the Olympics, peaking with a new all-time high of $4,037 for her 2024 Topps Chrome Ledecky Legacy autographed superfractor (a one-of-a-kind parallel, pictured below). Two Simone Biles cards sold for more than $2,000 each. But perhaps most impressive was that two superfractors, one autograph and one patch, from the 2024 Topps Chrome Olympic set of Ilona Maher, star of the USA rugby bronze-winning team, sold for $1,743 and $1,500, respectively — not too far off from those sales for Biles, a more established star in a sport that’s more popular in the U.S.
Assessing long-term value of Olympic athletes in sports that don’t hold annual mainstream interest in the U.S. is always difficult. Ledecky and Biles could hold strong since the former is tied for the most career Olympic gold medals among female athletes (nine) and the latter isn’t far behind (seven) and both have more of a cultural presence. Their legacies are set. But unless rugby undergoes a dramatic rise in popularity, it seems difficult for Maher to have the same staying power. (That said, monetary value often isn’t the primary concern for collectors — particularly if they never intend to sell a given item — and waiting for more buyer-friendly conditions when one-of-a-kind items become available often isn’t possible.)
The USA women’s soccer team won gold thanks in part to the trio of Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson (or “Triple Espresso,” as they’ve nicknamed themselves), who all scored big goals and all saw big eBay search spikes when they did. Searches for Swanson jumped 580 percent on eBay (compared to the previous week) after she scored the gold medal clinching goal against Brazil. Cards from the 2024 Topps Chrome Olympic set that bear autographs from both Smith and Swanson (pictured below) have drawn particular interest, with peak sales prices of $628 and $700 on August 18, a week after the tournament closed.
A couple of non-USA athletes who also had big search spikes were the men’s tennis finalists. After he won the gold medal, searches for Novak Djokovic rose 450 percent compared to the week prior and searches for silver-medalist Carlos Alcaraz rose 80 percent. These are two of the biggest names in an already popular sport, so the fact that Olympic success could provide a surge in marketplace searches is a testament to the new wider audience the event brings. With the U.S. Open now underway and a newly released Topps Chrome tennis set, there will be an opportunity to retain some of that interest.
The Olympics can also blur the already sometimes fuzzy lines between sports and non-sports collectibles. Snoop Dogg’s custom Olympic pins went viral, resulting in global eBay users to search “Snoop Dogg pin” almost 140 times per hour on July 30 and 31. And since the 2028 Olympics will be in his hometown of Los Angeles, this may not be the last we hear of Snoop Dogg Olympic pins.
Coco Gauff’s got the @SnoopDogg #Olympics pin 🤩#Paris2024 | #tennis pic.twitter.com/W6zRDFoeae
— ITF (@ITFTennis) July 29, 2024
Industry views
As The Athletic continue to grow its collectibles coverage, we’ll include perspectives and observations from around the hobby. Since this is our first time diving into eBay insights, we begin with the executive who oversees their collectibles operation.
Interest in the Snoop pin and Olympic pins in general points to the variety of collectibles that have gained in popularity in recent years.
“Obviously trading cards is a huge, huge piece of it, but the thing that’s fun is you see new categories that emerge and sometimes those things disappear again and sometimes they stick around,” eBay vice president and general manager of global collectibles Adam Ireland told The Athletic during the National Sports Collectors Convention last month. He cited sealed vintage electronics and Type 1 photographs as examples.
“Someone once told me that it’s sort of that 25-year window when you start hitting nostalgia and that’s the point where people have got the money now and are spending on things that tie them back to those happy childhood days,” he added, saying that they’re seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles merchandise take off as it now fits that window for older generations, while the franchise’s new movies and shows draw in a younger audience as well.
Chad Ochocinco draws a crowd to an eBay Live broadcast at The National. (Photo courtesy of eBay)
Trading card games, which can hit on that nostalgia appeal, are also driving a lot of interest. Ireland says he is “super bullish” on them. “Obviously (Disney) Lorcana has been another big boost to that area, but you’ve still got Pokemon going strong, some of the recent Magic: The Gathering releases have been really, really successful. … (Lorcana) and Disney collectible pins, a lot of historical artifacts, toys, vinyl – there’s just so many categories (in the collectibles space), but you do find that sports as a single thing becomes the largest piece.”
“King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch,” the Netflix series about Goldin Auctions, which eBay recently acquired, is something Ireland sees as helping to broaden interest in collectibles.
“It’s easy to think about collectibles as a niche area, but they hit number four on the Netflix charts and that’s just going to bring more and more people into the hobby,” he said. “It’s amazing how many people I’ve spoke to about and they’ve been like, ‘Oh my wife watched the show and now she understands why I get excited about this stuff.’ And so from that point of view I think it’s just going to open it up, it’s going to democratize it more.”
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(Top photo: Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)