Collector Nation - How Dugout Mugs Built a $55 Million Collectibles Brand (Kris Dehnert Interview)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

SUMMARY In this episode of the Trading Cards and Collectibles Podcast, host Ryan Alford sits down with Kris Dehnert, CEO of Dugout Mugs, to share the incredible story behind turning baseball bats into collectible mugs and building a multi-million-dollar memorabilia brand. Kris dives into the origin of Dugout Mugs, how collaborations with MLB legends like Pete Rose and The Sandlot cast fueled growth, and the role of innovation, customization, and relationships in shaping a successful collectibles business. The conversation also covers the current state of the sports card hobby, challenges of overproduction, and why authenticity and emotional connection drive lasting value. Kris also opens up about his personal collecting journey, the rise of corporate gifting, and his philosophy of designing a business aligned with purpose, community, and lifestyle. Whether you’re a sports fan, memorabilia collector, or entrepreneur, this episode is packed with insights into building a collectibles brand that resonates with fans and culture. Key Takeaways The origin story of Dugout Mugs and its growth into a $55M+ brand. Unique product lines: baseball bat mugs, coasters, openers, and memorabilia. Collaborations with MLB legends and limited-edition releases. The manufacturing process and commitment to North American production. Why relationships and networking are crucial in collectibles. The emotional and nostalgic value of collecting. Insights into the sports card hobby, overproduction risks, and market trends. Dugout Mugs’ future: corporate gifting, retail partnerships, and expansion. Kris’s personal collecting stories and memorabilia favorites. Building a business around values, lifestyle design, and authenticity.

We got a whole thing going on, but, you know, we're over $55 million in sales. That was something that I think kind of caught me off guard as the collectability of these. Welcome to the Trading Cards and Collectibles podcast on the Radcast Network. From Chasing Grails to Colin Bluffs and going inside the hobby. Are you ready to collect? Let's get at it. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. What's up, guys?

Welcome to Trading Cards. and collectibles here on the Radcast Network. You know, I don't always get like shock and awe anymore. I don't always go surprise or go. I haven't seen that before. And this next guest has been around, his company's been around. They're doing pretty well.

You're going to hear that in a second and be ready to fall on the floor like I did a minute ago when Chris and I were talking. But I got sent a little gift. And this means why you've got to watch the show. If you're listening, you need to watch. If you're watching, you need to listen. But I got a beautiful baseball bat that's been carved. into a mug. It's got our logo on it and my name,

handcrafted for Ryan Offord. Who doesn't like that? Swig for the fences. We've got Chris Dennard. He is the CEO and just bad MFer of dugout mugs. What's up, brother? What's happening? What's happening? Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. This is fun. I love these. Dude, they're sick. You had me at the mug. It's cool. I mean, what the hell, man? It's like, I'm all, so simple. but so fun and who the hell wouldn't want, you know, your favorite team player, whatever, on a damn baseball bat.

Just people with bad taste, I guess. That's who wouldn't want to be talking about it. When you grab our wood, man, you're going to find love. So get ready. I do I liked you. Yes. A lot of ways we can go with that. But Chris, man, I mean, where did this idea come from and what kind of batts are we talking about here?

So the one you got right there is Birch. And where the idea came from, I will always show love to Randall, my ex-partner. We took the, he took a bearable baseball bat, and he hollowed it out and turned it into probably one of the coolest mugs on the planet. And he had the idea, right? And he started jamming with it. And I have a long background in business. And at the time, I was looking for something just fun. I needed fun.

I needed, you know, I said some prayers up about it. I said, send me somebody who needs my skill set to just run. with something. And I've had some successes and failures. You know, learn more about yourself and the failures. But this guy came out of nowhere. And I was like, dude, this was it. And this was the guy and this was the thing. And, you know, I was like, you handle logistics. I'll handle the promotion. And I just started digging into my, I have a pretty cool network of people and business and otherwise. And yeah, man, we hit the ground run in 2017. But he's the one that came up with the idea and that was kind of like the rocket fuel and uh you know we ran it for

you know a handful of years together and then he ended up retiring um he's significantly younger than i am and he was having a family and all this i was like dude rock and roll i'm having too much fun i'm not going nowhere so yeah we've been we've been jamming ever since man i don't know how are you comfortable sharing shells numbers on the show i don't care i'm an open break man how many what What are we selling in bats? We're doing how many mill on this thing? Well, to date. And it's not just the mug, right?

So we make, you know, we have, we turn bat slices into key chains and ornaments. And we have, this is one of my favorites, a baseball cut in half turned into a bottle opener and home plate shape coasters. And we got a whole, we got a whole thing going on. But, you know, we're over $55 million in sales, which tells us. And you know what? So that, you know, you know what? what metric or what number is more impressive to me 60,000 reviews online. That's what's more impressive to me because what it means is that we did something to spoke to people. Yeah, right,

right. We feed each other, right. But if you don't put a good quality product out there and you don't back it up with a good experience. So like we, you know, our whole motto is to celebrate and serve the heroes of the baseball community by creating like next level stuff, right? And that's what we've done. and the reviews and the people that we work with, you know, it speaks for itself. Collectibles. Show is where you'll find all of the channels and learn more about what we're doing. And ultimately, hey, we want to hear from you.

You do case hits at collectibles. Show. I want you to send in your favorite pulls of the week. And here's the difference. This isn't about just value. Hey, we want to see some $10,000 hits. Had a couple of those myself a few months back. But it's not just about the,

values about what you're collecting. What means something to you? Share a story. Share a video of you holding up the card that you hit last week. That was your favorite player and you nailed it. So case hits at collectibles.com. Send in those videos. I want to know the stories. We're going to bring it to life here on the show. We're going to do a segment each week. Once we get rolling and get some videos in, where we share that on the show with us. We'll feature you on Collectibles show. Talk to me about, I mean, this process. Because, you know, like it seems like obvious once you see it. It's kind of like those things you're like,

well, I didn't think of that. Or would that really work? But yet I'm holding, I think, my own custom, this just holds 12 ounces. Is that right?

Yep. That one is a 12 ounce mug here, the end of the bat. And you literally, what, how's this etched on here? Like, we'll talk about the process of making these.

So that piece of wood was destined to be a baseball. ball bat. So what we do is we get to the billet before they laid it into a bat and we turn it into three barrels instead. So we're not wasting the wood. Originally, we were chopping craft bats in half, turning the handles into bottle openers, turning the tops in the mugs, like that's what was going on. Not scalable, by the way, and pretty wasteful. So we get to the billet before it becomes a bat and we turned it into three barrels. And then we have custom equipment that punch the hole all the way down, goes down about right there. And then there's a ceiling. process, a curing process, and then late, like this one right here, like, because we're collectibles.

I'm a big in the collectible space, and that's why we got this conversation started. So this is one that launches tomorrow that we did for Pete Rose. It's his commemorative mug going into the cornfield, right? So then all this is, oh, dude, it's sick. So I've been working with the family and we're releasing this tomorrow. That's why it's on my desk. Is it limited release? Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of, we do a lot of limited stuff, man. So you're only going to send me four. I mean, that's cool. Some. I know a guy. I know a guy. Pete actually was one of the coolest dudes I met. He and I commentated game three of a World Series together for like two hours. And man, like some of the stories, I'm happy to share any of the stories you want, but like, I want. Let's go there, brother. Let's talk stories. So Pete, so brilliant. Like, he's so smart. And he remembered things from

so far back. And the count when this happened and that happened and what the count was. And who was on second. Like, it's crazy. His recollection all the way there towards the end. That was incredible. You know, another one of the collabs I love was the sandlot. We all love the sandlot. So my buddy, David Mickey Evans, was the writer, narrator, and director of the sandlot. And I hit him up on Twitter. I said, hey, dude, I'm the guy running dugout mugs. He's like, oh, my God, I've seen these things. And we launched a collaboration. Or up here on my shelf, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, It's the Legends Never Die collection. And we have a Legends Never Die hat that underneath the bill,

it's the Sandlot boys on the backstop. I'll do it sick. And then we have one that's wrapped all the way around the mug, and it comes with an autograph photo inside. Because what we do in the collectible world, because I'm big in the hobby, right? So the collectible world and dugout mugs just overlap so well. I get to do it all and call it work, right?

and the thing I did with the sandlot. And, I mean, back here, it's Miggy and Big Poppy and Mariano and Johnny Damon and Pete Alonzo is a great dude that we work with a lot. And it's just so cool. The things that we've gotten to do, you know, Reggie Jackson's of the, you know, it's wild. You know, there's a story here. And, you know, what I'm trying to do with this show is have conversations like this. They're around the hobby. But also there's a, there's a great American theme here.

of dreaming big and, you know, turning your passion into profit and turning, you know, like doing what you want to do. And like collecting is like one of the great American pastimes, you know. And but it can become the full time when you dream big and you go big. And I mean, I think that's what your story is about. You know, you almost, you know, you had life changing experience. You go to work and you start doing what you love and you turn it into a multi-million dollar business. You take over the whole company.

And now you're making things that people cherish and that they collect and making a pretty damn good life for yourself. It sounds like. Well, two things come to mind very different things. Number one, I built a lifestyle by design, right? I built it around the things that I love to do. And that came after that experience I had. You know, my priorities changed. And I think my metrics changed because a lot of people chase the dollar. I was chasing the happy. Like what makes me happy and how often can I do that every day? And if it's baseball cards or if it's celebrity events

or if it's making people just incredibly happy with something we made for them. I'm going to share a story that happened two days ago. I'm in a big Astros fan page online. I work with those guys. We raise some money when the hurricanes go through there. I work with a lot of the players on the Astros. And there was a lady that posted something.

And it was a her father's jersey. a jersey with their father's name over one of the seats that they were supposed to go to. He passed recently. And they buried him in his Yankees jersey and all the Paul Bears carried a awarding Yankees. So I saw that and I said, you know what? I'm going to do something special for this lady. I reached out to her and I said, send me your favorite picture of your father. And I'm going to turn it into a custom mug with Yankees on the front side,

commemorating his life. And I sent it to her. Actually, I sent her four of them because she had a couple siblings. And she's like, why'd you do that? And I said, why not? It was the right thing to do. You know, I saw that. You were hurting.

And you needed to know that there's good things that are coming your way and that people, you know what I mean? You don't know what I'm saying? Like just putting good into the world. And I've created a business that I get to do that. And I impacted this lady so profoundly. And it's just the way the world works, right? You've got to go first.

I just did a post about it on LinkedIn today about just going first in relationships. And guess what? At the end of the conversation, she's like, hey, my father had a, about 100,000 baseball cards, Mickey Mantles and Babe Ruth's and all this stuff like that. And she's like, when it comes time, I'd like to give you one of those. And you can help me, you know, direct where to, you know, how to honor this collection. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me, right? I just did it to be good to somebody who did a post and who was hurting.

And as it turns out, now I'm going to get a cool piece at some point, I don't even care when, that I'm going to have in my collection that has a story behind it. because all we got is our stories, right? And I think that's what collecting does for a lot of people brings