Collector Nation - Inside Brian Ludden’s Massive Card Storage Unit, NBA Draft Hype, and Pokémon Demand

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Ryan Alford, Brian Ludden, and Bella Shafer are back with a hobby-heavy episode that moves from a real card-storage treasure hunt into the biggest collector conversations happening right now. Ryan shares what it was like going through Brian’s packed storage unit in Chicago, why the Griffey, Jordan, Bo Jackson, and Frank Thomas finds stood out, and how quickly you can lose track of time when a collection actually has quality. From there, the conversation shifts into NBA Draft card speculation, AJ Dybantsa and Cam Boozer upside, Fanatics Fest activations, Pokémon momentum, and the challenge PSA’s backlog still creates for collectors trying to understand value in real time. Brian adds the collector-tech perspective, Ryan brings the card-shop and collector instinct, and Bella helps keep the episode focused on what matters most to actual buyers. It is an easy listen with a lot of specific hobby takeaways, especially for collectors trying to balance excitement, scarcity, grading, and timing without getting lost in the noise. This one feels less like a show and more like a real hobby conversation among people who are living it every day. Topics Covered What Ryan found inside Brian’s storage unit Why quality old collections still feel like treasure hunts AJ Dybantsa, Cam Boozer, and NBA Draft card value The difference between college-card pricing and pro-card pricing Fanatics Fest and how it compares to the National Pokémon demand and 30th anniversary anticipation PSA backlog pressure and collector strategy Ryan Alford, Brian Ludden, and Bella Shafer on what the hobby feels like right now Links Collector Nation https://www.collectibles.show/ Ryan Alford https://www.ryanalford.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ Brian Ludden / Ludex https://www.ludex.com/ https://app.ludex.com/ https://www.instagram.com/ludexapp/ Bella Shafer https://www.instagram.com/isabellashafer/

What shenanigans did y'all get up to? You know, we ripped some packs, though. Ryan nailed some stuff. Yeah, Ryan let me rip. And then I brought him to the sports unit. I was like a kid in a candy store. There's so many boxes and stuff and cards, and it's all cool shit. It's like, you don't want to put a box down.

You're like, it's crazy. It's like 40 feet deep by 10 feet wide. Oh, my gosh. You know, everything's stacked up. And it's like treasure hunting. And we were there 20, 30 minutes. I don't know how long. It might have been an hour.

I lost track of time. I lost track of time. It was, every box was like, this is what you hope the box would be. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, you take you inside the hobby. Here are your host, Ryan Alford and Brian Lut.

What's up, guys? Welcome to Collector Nation here on the Collector Nation Network. You got Ryan, Brian and Bella. What's up, Brian? I'm sorry, my man. How you doing? I'm good, man, just back. We were, you know, in full transparency, I think we said we were going to film in Chicago.

Yeah. Let's just say we were so deep in like business talks and, you know, shenanigans. The podcast had to wait until back in South Carolina. It's okay. It feels like home. You'll get out here again. Exactly. What shenanigans did you all get up to?

I don't know if it was that many shenanigans. We were just, you know, we ripped some packs, though, and Brian nailed some stuff. What'd you get? What'd you hit? I got a numbered jersey match. Jay, Daniels. Hey, that's pretty good. At 5 out of 10, Jaden Daniels jersey match.

Yeah, Ryan let me rip. And then I brought him to the storage unit. Oh, how is that overwhelming? It was everything he said it was. Awesome. It's like we didn't have enough time. You know, there's never enough time, right? But it was like a kid.

I was like a kid in a candy store. You know, like, I was just like, there's so many. I know what Ryan was saying. There's so many boxes of stuff and cards and it's all cool shit. It's like you don't want to put a box down. You're like, but you want to get to another thing because you know you only have, We only were there for like 30 or 40 minutes and, you know, it's crazy. It's like 40 feet deep by 10 feet wide.

Oh, my gosh. You know, everything's stacked up. And it's like treasure hunting. I mean, it really is. It's like, and even I don't even own it. And it's enjoyable, you know, like just flipping through it. Because, you know, like. Brian, did you let him take anything home?

He did. Oh. Finders deeper. So what'd you find? I got a couple King Griffey Jr. Oh, your favorite. Frank Thomas, Bo Jackson, and then like a classic Jordan card from like 93.

Oh. There might have been one or two others, but those were the standouts. The Griffey Jr. was really cool. I mean, he's got so many insert. Like the 90s inserts are amazing. Yeah. I mean, those are like all your favorite players.

Oh, dude. I thought I was like, oh, my God. Where are they? And that was only 40 minutes? To looking? Oh, yeah. At first when Brian said that, you know, he's like, you know, I had really gone through. I'm like, what are you talking about you?

I'm going through it. That was like in the behind, like anywhere near me I'd go through. But now I know, I mean, I know how busy Brian is. I know how busy I am and we all are. To go through it properly, you have to, you know, flip through these things. And everyone else has been pristine condition. I mean, I'm not saying everyone's a 10, but there's none. They're all like perfect condition sets.

And it's, it's amazing. I had to just take the key and be like, I'm shutting this door. I almost stayed in there and just said, hey, bring me a cot. Hey, you should have extended your stay a day and not told Brian. I know. Snuck in. If I could just abandon all responsibilities. I know.

You know, but it was good. It will, I will be back. I'm trying to convince Brian to ship it all here so that me and the boys can go through it. and, you know, reward him handsomely and do all the treasure hunting. But, I mean, this collector, I mean, Brian bought this collection from a guy's wife that passed. And I can't, I don't even know what it takes to collect that much. He clearly was a hoarder on some level.

Where are you even putting all of that? Oh, I don't know. Supposedly it was like overflowing her house. And I'm going through the math. It must have to be a big house if it even fit in the house. Yeah, 40 by 10 storage unit. Yeah, and now we have like three storage units. I don't know.

1,000 square feet of cards. Wow. But it's basketball, football. I mean, equal opportunity collector. Let me just say. I mean, it was everything. Hockey. Penthouse.

A penthouse cards. Brian, like, stumbled upon, like, 10 or 15, like, random sets. He was like, hey, he was a real collector. He collected everything. No Pokemon. No Pokemon, unfortunately. That would be the only thing. Hey, that would have been awesome if he did.

Yeah, baseball, basketball, football. I mean, you'd never, you pick up one box, you see something written on the side and scribble and it sounded cool and then you open and it's like. Gold money. Yeah, it was. So I encourage anyone if you have the ability and you get offered like collections like that. And you have 100, 200 grand, 300, 500 grand laying around. It's a lot of fun.

A good hobby. A good pastime, if you will. Yeah. But it would probably be. I know it that Brian probably this time is kind of not over it, but like I'm going to get to it when I get to it. I think I'd be like itching to like. Because here, they're just in Greenville. this area of South Carolina is, I've got plenty, you know, Chicago is a high, high rent, lower space

district. And Brian's got a beautiful, huge office, first class. There's nowhere for those cards to go there. Like, unlike here in South Carolina, it's pretty cheap real estate relatively. I can throw that as units behind me, and that'd be itching in my back year every day. You'd be like, where's Ryan? You've got to do a podcast. No, he's out in the, he's out in the storage thing. It's 100 degrees today. Oh, I know. He's out there sweating his ass off. He's going through 90s inserts. It's amazing. You know who would probably have a heyday in there is Corey Williams American Arbuchar. Oh, yeah. Anybody that's into cards and collecting and appreciates, I don't even know that you have to appreciate it. It's not even vintage. It's more midterm modern, I guess, but the best of it.

And it really was, sometimes you go through stuff like that. And we were there 20, 30 minutes. I don't know how long. It might have been an hour. I lost track of time. Really good. I lost track of time. Like quickly. It's not the stuff that you don't want. You know, like sometimes we get a million people want to bring junk wax to us. And this was none of that. It was every box was like, this is what you hope the box would be. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Did you all watch the NBA draft at all? Watch no track on my phone. Yes. It was, I think it went about like, I expected it.

I think, uh, BYU. Yep. You know, AJ de Bonsa, there you go, I got his name. Yep. AJ, I love you. I've been saying you're the best player and I don't want to butcher your name, but it's not the easiest thing for my brain to track on. But here's what all you need to know.

This guy's going to be a superstar and I'm glad the Wizards. You know, I do think people, players sort of go there to fizzle sometimes, but this guy might be good enough to take them over the home. I, oh, you go, Brian. I just think it's crazy that he's 19. And they had, so eight out of the top nine picks were all freshmen. And that's, it tied it for the record of most freshmen in the top nine. And I just think that's great.

Like, I could not imagine at 19 years old, just going into the NBA, being thrown into the, and I know, a lot of players do that, but it's just like, it's really crazy to kind of think about, like, I don't know, 19 just seems so baby. Like, you can't even drink. Like, you can't celebrate with your team. I'm going to give you a comp on this guy. I'm going to give you a blend of two players that come to mind. It's if Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards crossed, that's who I think AJ can be. And that's the highest praise I can give you. He's kind of got the athleticism of, of both of the guys. Tatum's a freak athlete, too.

I almost, you know, wanted to say Anthony Edwards, but Anthony Edwards is he can jump out of gym, but so can Tatum, but Tatum's 610. I feel like he's a cross between these two. He's got an cruise jumper a little bit, but he's got the form to do it, and he's a freak. He's going to be real good.

So would y'all buy him now or wait to see how he does? Yeah, I've already bought him. Yeah, I'd be buying him. Does he have cards out? Yeah, he's got the Bowman stuff out and a few things. He doesn't have, obviously, wizards. It's all college stuff. So I've got a few of those tucked away.

I'm excited to see Cam Boozer see how he does. I think he kind of has the total package. I know he went third, so he doesn't have, like, the first overall draft pick kind of energy. But I'm excited to see how his card market does. I think that he has a lot of upside potential, especially being, you know, from Duke, a powerhouse team. I think he could do really well. Yeah.

I think it's like athleticism. It's just something that stuck out to me that's not as athletic as some of those other guys. Yeah. But he's more versatile. He's three's and he's stuck out. But he could. You know, he's a winner. Yeah.

I think he's better than his dad. and his dad was a hell of a player. And so I think his dad wasn't like a freak athlete either. And I think he's actually more. And I think he wasn't. But I think Cam is more of an athlete than his dad was, which is saying a ton. But I think he's actually more skilled. Like he can handle the ball and can shoot the three.

I mean, you know, Carlos wasn't shooting the three. I'm not saying he never did, but he was not, he didn't have the touch. I feel like he would be a sleeper. I think he would be a number one pick in any other draft. They didn't have AJ Peterson and DeMontza and Darren Peterson. Darren Peterson is, health is a little bit of a question, but he's said too. I mean, a lot of people thought he was going to go first. So I have a little game for you all.

Ryan, you can't answer because you can see. But Ryan. So, yeah, AJ DeBonsa and Darren Peterson had a dual auto PSA 10 that sold on June 6. How much do you think that card sold for? Who made the card? No? It's got to be Bowman.

Yeah. It's okay, Borman. Six hundred. Did you say 600? Yeah. $18,300. On June 6th. Way off.

Yeah, but I bet it's tripled now. Now they've both been drafted 1-2. Yeah. I bet it's... It was supposed to be 1-2 for a long time. I mean, is that really... the premium that is lost in college uniforms. Yeah,

it is. And I think, I know why you went there. I think I would have probably said six figures too, like just with the way the card prices have gone. Like, I hadn't seen this. But,

and then on some level, I do know that the college jersey is sort of undervalue it for whatever reason. And not undervalue, that's probably where it should be. But like, everything else is so inflated. Like, what's a,

like, whatever product that is, What do you pay? Like, how much you last day and what are your favorite time? It's probably half the price. It's not, but I want to say, like, again, if that was a NBA dual auto, it probably is in the territory. You know, it's in six-figure territory at least, especially now. Yeah.

And, but it's not a quarter or, you know, that's why I think it's actually a good value. Like, overall, you know, in some ways, but you're upside. I think your chance of pulling it's probably higher. I'd have to look at all the percentages. But at the same time, just about half the price, I think. Because like a hobby box at a time might be 250 to 350 for Bowman and then twice that for, you know, an NBA product. So.

Yeah, that'd be, yeah. That sucks because you, like, you saved $200 on a $500. It was, like, way less value. Yep. Yeah, and the Cam Boozer card recently sold. for $14,520. So I'm sure that, and that was back in May. So I'm sure that that card is also skyrocketed.

Yeah. And I like to Bella did a game for just me, so I won. You are. You're one of one. You're one of one. You're always a winner in our hearts, Brian. Caleb Wolf is a good. This is a pretty loaded draft.

I mean, we'll see. I mean, you never know until they get out there and play. But there's a lot of, David, Caleb Wilson, probably be a one or two tick. And speaking of NBA collectibles, Jalen Brunson's NBA final debut jersey is already being auctioned off for over a million dollars. Crazy. Well, anything that high. I mean, it's going to go for instance.

Yeah. I mean, New York fans don't mess around. So I'm interested to see how much it actually, sells for. And I mean, Wembe's game three jersey and the balls and the nets and all of that are also being auctioned off. And they're going for like three million, something close to that. Yeah. It's crazy. Who owns that? What'd you say? Who owns that? Is it the NBA or the team?

Oh, I'm actually not sure. Soesby is the auction house, but I don't know who's like the original owner. I mean, Tops obviously did a ton. I don't, and I'm not saying, they're involved in this of whatsoever, but they did a ton of autos and everything with the now product. I think we talked about that last. Yeah. And so I don't, all these guys got it figured out, you know, like as soon as something's over, they've already got it scheduled. All right, back to like the dual pass. They have autograph sessions set up with both the winners and the losers in case, because they don't know who's going to win. And like making the t-shirts,

you know, that they have to burn. No, it's been in that. It was game seven. Yeah, I've always wondered what they do with like the shirts that they make extras of. They honestly go a lot in Africa. I was in Africa. It's like whoever the Bulls beat

those years. It's like they had their champion on. I'm like, they didn't win it. Bulls did. That's funny. That's funny. Well, Brian, I know that you have to

head out to another meeting. Is there any Luddax final thoughts from you? No, I'm just that Ryan came up The Lodics HQ. We had a great time. He was so generous.

I thought it's a ripping pack. Much love. Much love. Yeah, bro. Enjoyed it. Appreciate the hospitality and the team there at Lodex. They're doing exciting things.

L-U-D-E-X in the App Store. Go check them out. Lots of new stuff coming out. I got a sneak peek on some of it. So we'll talk about that more as we go. All right. I know we aren't going to be going to Fanatics Ice this year just with the World Cup.

and the national like two weeks later. But they are having some pretty fun things happening at Fanatics Fest. I heard Serena Williams is joining them. Tom Brady, which I know he's probably there every year. So probably not groundbreaking. He's got to show up so he keeps his tops allocation. Believe me, he would keep it no matter what. I joke for us dealers out there that have to scrape our way through it,

don't have Tom Brady's name. Hey, we're doing pretty good. We had a review saying how stocked we were. Oh, I know. But, yeah, they're going to be given, or one of the prizes you can win at Fanatics Fest is a $250,000 messy trading card. And I'm sure that that's probably going to be worth even more after the World Cup's over. Yep. And we were there.

The boys and I were there last year, and they didn't have this, I don't know this exact thing, but they had a lot of games and different things built into the activations with sponsors. So this plays right into it. I mean, it was, we went to the national and fanatics fest last year. So I got a pretty good perspective of the differences. And Topps does a good job. I mean, it's, it's a, it truly is more of a fan experience. I mean, go figure, fanatics fest.

Uh, no shit, right? But the, but they do live up to that because it, having done a lot more of those types of activations in the past with brands, they do a good job of lending entertainment with activity, with big names, and then they had a nice card section. And supposedly it looked like everybody was selling everything they had. So it almost created more scarcity because you go to the National and there's 5,000, you know, vendors, probably more than that. And it's just like, whoa. And not that they didn't all do great too, I'm sure.

But it's a little more controlled, I guess I would say, because it's kind of like one corner of that. but I'd love to win a $250,000. You know, I'm playing some kickball or whatever. I mean, they were throwing football around. We were at a couple of the things. Like, with Dix, they were launching their, like, in-store, you know, trading card store in certain stores and had that activation. And they had, who was it?

One of the QB guys that were on ESPN, I think of his name as soon as we stopped this segment. but he played at Baylor. Played a Watt for Washington, D.C. I love how you know everything about him. I know everything about his name. R.G.3. Thank you, Cole. Cole saves me from the pack bar. Yes, RG3.

He was a freak, too, back in the day. Still is. Still could zing the ball. Let me tell you. Poor kid he was stolen it with. You about took his head off. That's right. But, yeah.

It's a fun. It's a lot easy. But I guess when you have, you know, prizes like. I don't think. think he was like trying to show him up for anything it was just i think let me take that back the kid kind of threw him a little bit of his anger and he's like really and and he just kind of flicked his wrist and about like decapitated and it didn't hurt it didn't even get hurt it just he didn't even catch it he wouldn't even thought about catching it i think he realized for the okay i think there's always

those guys that like think oh i could have plagued you know i just didn't they just don't realize the difference between the athleticism like okay The next NFL quarterback sings one, like, barely at you. And you're like, okay, all right. Yeah. My dream's over. But I think the next fest will be fun. It's very New York to me.

Like, the whole activation, the whole setup, it's very, like, cosmopolitan and New York to me. And I feel like the national is very Chicago. Like, I don't know how to explain it. That is very, very true. Like, they fit the cities and. And there's be in Detroit next year, which is. It's different, but similar. Yeah, similar vibe.

Yeah. Middle America, but just people are winding, man, going through those lanes. Look at all those cars. Like, you know, like, and it is, man. It is a fire hose. It's kind of like going in that freaking storage unit. Yeah. As we wrap up, I know we had our trade night at collector station this weekend.

I was not able to attend. But Pokemon was kind of flying off the shelves a little bit. and I'm super excited for the 30th anniversary set coming out in September. I just want to kind of know your thoughts on that. Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking that, you know, the Pokemon thing, it's kind of like not fizzle, but like settle. And every week, it's crazy madness. Yeah.

People buying and ripping and I'm all about it. I just, it feels, it doesn't feel like a bubble because I think we're well. It's been a six-year bubble if it is. but it blows my mind how many different people are into it. And, you know, and I enjoy ripping the packs. Open a few last night, actually. Yeah, they're fun. Yeah, it is.

Artworks cool. And even the most expensive packs, like, when you think about it compared to sports, are more affordable and more, you know, like, when these sports things are $40, $50, $60 a pack once you start adding it up. Yeah. And the hits can be bigger, but Pokemon is probably, It's weird to say it as popular as it is and with scalpers and all that shit, it's still probably the best value.

And at the end of the day, at least you can still, like, even if you get, you know, 10 cent cards for the whole pack, like you could theoretically still play the game. Oh, yeah. If you wanted to. I know a lot of people don't tend to play Pokemon anymore, but I think it. I mean, Hudson's put together a master's set of the Chaos Rising. He's only like maybe a couple of cards off. and he's more into sports than he has Pokemon,

but just as, you know, an accomplishment, like putting it together, building his little binder and stuff. So has he been ripping it or has he bought any? He's done a little bit of both, but we've probably, we've ripped quite a bit, and I've just let him keep whatever we get. Yeah. I mean, and he pulled, I think, like,

ironically, like the gold green ninja, it's like one of the first ones we got, and then we haven't gotten the actual, like, big green ninja SIR. So that was still to come. We're still out there. Still chasing it.

Some final thoughts here. Hold some stats on what PSA's grading was like over May. They had over 2 million cards submitted in May, which was down 7%, which is crazy, but still up 25% year after year. You know what's interesting. So here's what's interesting about the stat.

They have a 15, I'm sure it's going down, but 15 million card backlog. Yeah. So how does that factor? You know, like, I guess it's just what they actually got done. So this is more of an efficiency chart than anything else. So they got 2.07 million done. Some percentage that is the value backlog. And some percentage of that is the ones, the people that are like overpaying or paying for high end cards.

But I will say, look, this is, and a lot of the other shows out there talk, I mean, almost ad nauseum about. this and but owning a store and being a collector myself it's a problem when the company that owns sort of the value you know like what determines the highest value like there's there's not a lot of rationale unless it's Pokemon with CGC to use a different company if you're collecting for value than PSA and when that value tier is all in the shelf indefinitely, it becomes a challenge in how you collect, especially if you're a store or a flipper or however, if you're not playing the long,

even if you're playing the long-term game, you don't really know what you're holding until you get it graded. Yep. Exactly. And like I have cards now, like in my personal collection, things that I've got, even some stuff that Brian gave me, that would absolutely be like on, you know,

the first list of getting graded. And, but I'm not going to spend, $185 to $150 on it. Especially when the cards don't have as much of that upside unless you get a 10. So it's like if you get like an 8, you're kind of screwed. Exactly. So it's a problem for a lot of people. And I think I don't know the solution other than them getting through the backlog.

I think they're going to have to, they're probably going to have to increase the price. You know, they increase the price. Everybody hated it. Well, do you hate that more? Supply and demand, baby. Yeah. You can't. You can't even get it.

done. So you want to pay more? You know, you want a good, fast or cheap? Pick two. You can't have all three. Exactly. It's time for this week's On It segment of the week. What's up, guys? We are back with our On It segment of the week with Leonard Berry here, the digital marketing specialist over at Onet athlete. Leonard, how you doing? I'm doing good, Bella. Glad to see you, and it's been a busy couple of weeks over here at Onet. Yeah, you're finishing up your tour of the Midwest, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yeah, finally made it all the way out to Boise. So, it's good to be here, be in the office. And then I'm going to turn around and do it basically all over again. Any more fun stories that you have from your travels? No, not really. Didn't do a whole lot.

Just kind of wrapped up some signings. And we did have one guy who's, like really interested in hunting down his 101. So that'll be pretty cool. He wrote DM me on the back of it. That's hilarious. It's been a big week for On It. How has the Gravity Baseball release gone through Walmart? Yeah, it's been super cool.

So we're out in Blasters or at Walmart and in Myers. So folks who are in the Midwest know that Myers is kind of like a regional chain out there. But nationally, we're in Walmarts for Blasters at least. and then for megaboxes, those are out Best Buys nationwide. And then there also had some select hobby shops as well. So some hobby shops got their hands on them and are selling them. I can't say, like, for certainty, what hobby shops you have. So like if you're going around in your local town, some places might have them, some places might not.

All of them might have them. All of them might not. But if you want to get your hands on it, for sure, Walmart and Best Buy are the two places that are kind of universally nationwide that you can guarantee to get your hands on some on a gravity baseball. And we've seen some cool hits already. Some people have been sharing off their hits with us. I've seen a Sawyer Stroh Snyder, a Hollow Form, which is a true case hit in this new release that somebody submitted to us. So I'm really excited to see what the community polls. I mean, it's a product that seems to be well received so far.

Yeah, we need to get some over here at Collector Station. Got to be refing on it at all times. So, yeah, I'm super excited for that and for you guys. and with the new transition of ownership, I think that this is really a great step for y'all, especially getting into those big box office stores, that's really hard. So I'm very impressed with On it, and I hope that it, you know, continues to grow and continues to happen. Because, you know, we need to have those smaller brands break through the walled gardens of Walmart. So I'm really excited for you all there.

Yeah, I think it's a big testament to what our folks have been doing behind the scenes, you know, to create a product that is desirable enough that Walmart and Best Buy, you know, two of the biggest nationwide retailers come to us and say, hey, we want to carry your product, you know, and to have an exclusive product, basically, that, you know, only they are carrying. I just think that it's a lot of hard work over the past three years and a lot of people on the team that have contributed to get to this point, you know, like you talk about overnight success or whatever. I don't know if it's necessarily overnight success, but overnight successes don't happen overnight. They have been over long years of building. And then it's finally just like one snowball

effect moment. I do want to talk about the Golden Spikes Award. I've heard that there's some good on-it contenders that could win this award. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, out of the three finalists, two of them are on-it athletes. So we have Rock Shalowski, who signed for us on our UCLA team set, one of the best players in the Big Ten this year, one of the best players in the country, pretty much the unanimous number one overall pick out of the Chicago White Sox when the MLB draft rolls around here in a couple weeks. Everybody is projecting

that he will be going number one overall. But he's in a fierce battle with Landon Harrison, who's one of the best players in the Big 12 this year at Arizona State. Landon was in our Arizona state set this year. That was a non-autograph set, so he didn't sign for us, but he does have parallels and inserts,

and both of those guys are incredibly deserving of the award. I've seen a huge amount of ASU fans and Landon Harris and supporters out there. He seems to have the biggest backing of the two. But Rock has an incredible season too. And I know that if either of them win the award, we'd be really happy here on it.

There is one other guy in the competition who's from a non-on-it school. So I'm not going to mention that. But to have two out of three, you know, in the... I have two out of three in the final running is pretty awesome. And then we also had the Oklahoma's winners,

of course, win the national championship. So it's been a pretty good month of June for us. Who, if you had to pick, who do you think is going to win it? I'm going to put my money on Rock just because, I mean, everything all, he came in with the highest expectations. Like, everybody anticipated him to be the best player in the country. He was projected to be the number one overall pick for months now. And with all of that, he still lived up to the high he delivered an incredible season. Even with UCLA's unceremonious dumping out of their own regional,

you know, Rock did everything that he could for this team this year. through injury, you know, didn't really struggle as much as a guy who is injured as supposed to, showed everything with the glove, with the bat, with the speed. So I'm going to take Rock, and I think that's part of the reason why the White Sox are going to take Rock. So now that we're kind of transitioning out of baseball season, what's the kind of fall sports lineup looking like? Yeah, we've got a, I mean, fall sports signatures are basically coming in day after day. We're working to get all of our football schools ready. and prep to go for, you know, some August releases, volleyball too.

I'm not sure if we're expanding the volleyball line, but we're definitely going to be carrying more volleyball products again. This year, you know, Nebraska volleyball was a huge fan favorite every year that we've done it. And so expectations to have some more Nebraska volleyball on shelves, one of the best teams in the country. And just working with a bunch of new schools, new players, stuff that I can't talk about right now in terms of who we're going to give away. But I promise some folks down in the South are going to be pretty happy with some of the new school additions this year.

And then to tie us over too with Oklahoma winning, Oklahoma winning the championship, we do have our final product of this year, which is the Oklahoma commemorative box for baseball. So it's kind of the last hurrah of the 2025-26 academic season as we transition on into 26, 20, Yeah, that is awesome. And if you're listening, you need to go check out onetathlet.com. Use code collector nation at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. And go get that commemorative box. I mean, nobody would have guessed that Oklahoma would have won the championship.

So that box is even more special. Be on the lookout for all of on its new releases coming out in August for football and volleyball and everything like that. We love Onit. We love having this partnership. Leonard, any final thoughts? I just really always appreciate coming and chatting with you and you and Ryan. So looking forward to seeing what people think of the commemorative box, what people think of the new football product, because it'll be here before you know it. Yes, it will. Awesome.

Well, thank you, Leonard, and we will see you next week. Well, any final thoughts before we close out here? I don't think so. We're in the summer countdown to the national. And lots going on, lots of news. We're at less than a month. I know. That's crazy.

Yeah. I don't. Crazy. Well, hope to see. Well, actually, no. A little over a month. A couple days. A couple days over a month.

Well, excited to see y'all at the National. If you're coming, hit us up. We'd love to chat and meet you and make some deals happen. Exactly. You know to find us? Thecollectornation.com. See you next time. Right here.

Right now. Thanks for tuning into the show. Be sure to follow us on. your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at collectornation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.