With the World Cup approaching, sports are entering an era of "fractional finance."

Original: Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author: Planet Xiaohua

The World Cup is about to kick off, and besides the prediction market gearing up, another industry is quietly heating up.

Recently, FIFA announced a new rule: all players participating in the World Cup for the first time must wear a "debut patch" on their jerseys. This means that even if you are a globally renowned superstar, as long as you have never set foot on a World Cup pitch before, such as Erling Haaland or Lamine Yamal, you must also wear this special badge. Some national teams returning to the World Cup after many years may even need the entire squad to wear it.

This isn't just about adding a "sense of ritual" for World Cup newcomers. Those familiar with the sports card industry know that this patch will be removed, certified, cut, and then embedded into sports cards after the game. Ultimately, it could become a 1/1 debut autograph card, get graded, auctioned, traded, and its price could one day exceed that of a supercar.

Just this May, FIFA announced a long-term exclusive collectibles licensing partnership with Fanatics. In the future, the World Cup-related sports card, sticker, and collectibles system will officially enter the Fanatics/Topps era.

You might not be into sports cards, but it's worth noting that behind these small cards lies an alternative asset world exceeding tens of billions of dollars in value, with a massive secondary market and long-term bull and bear cycles.

At the same time, the entire sports world is entering a new era of "fractionalized finance."

Sports Leagues Are "Monetizing History by Fragmenting It"

In the past, fans cared about "a historic moment witnessed by a jersey," but now people might care more about "how many pieces of history can this jersey be broken down into?"

After all, a single jersey can belong to dozens of cards, hundreds of buyers, be resold countless times in the future, and even form a price curve that either keeps surging or experiences significant volatility.

A piece of fabric might travel from a player's chest to a card factory, into a blind box, then to a grading company, into an auction house, and finally become an alternative asset within some investment portfolio.

Soccer trading cards aren't new either. Since the 1970 World Cup, Panini has established the system for World Cup stickers and trading cards. Many fans' childhoods began with a World Cup sticker album.

However, it has never been able to establish a mature, highly liquid "sports financial asset system" like the NBA.

Those unfamiliar with this might find it strange. Soccer has the largest global fanbase, and its superstars possess immense commercial value. Yet, the prices, liquidity, and depth of the secondary market for soccer cards have long been unable to compete with the NBA.

The reason behind this is that the NBA is inherently more suitable for "assetization," while soccer lacks a unified, continuously narrative-driven, and scarcity-creating commercial operation system like the NBA.

Basketball is a sport of extreme individualism. Superstars win games in clutch moments, data systems are standardized, the league's narrative is unified, and the American industry is exceptionally skilled at creating stars. From draft night, debut, All-Star game, MVP, playoffs, to the championship, every milestone can be packaged into an asset.

The soccer world, on the other hand, is too fragmented. National teams, leagues, clubs, the Champions League, sponsors, and rights systems are often disconnected, making it difficult to form the unified and sustained financial narrative that the NBA possesses.

It's easy to understand that the World Cup patch mentioned at the beginning is FIFA's active attempt to create "financial raw materials" for future high-priced trading cards.

The NBA Took 70 Years to Turn Cardboard into a Financial Asset

Many in the crypto community might have learned about sports cards during the NFT boom, but the NBA trading card market has been active for over 70 years.

In 1948, Bowman released the first set of NBA player cards; in 1986, Fleer released the Michael Jordan rookie card that would later change the entire industry. In the 90s, with the Jordan era and the NBA's global expansion, the trading card market experienced its first wave of mass frenzy. Back then, almost every mall, convenience store, and toy shop in America sold cards.

But soon, the industry faced its first major crash.

In the late 90s, numerous publishers massively overproduced cards, printing volumes spiraled out of control, and the market entered a deep bear market. This period is even known among collectors as the "Junk Wax Era."

What changed the industry was the "scarcity revolution" after the year 2000.

In 2003, LeBron James entered the NBA. That same year, Upper Deck launched the Exquisite series, which fully introduced concepts like autographs, jersey patches, serial numbering, and 1/1 cards into the high-end card market.

From that point on, trading cards began to transform into an alternative financial asset.

They started to have clear identification numbers, scarcity tiers, long-term price trajectories, grading systems, auction platforms, professional market makers, and a vast secondary market.

During the pandemic, grading companies like PSA and BGS rose to prominence, auction platforms like eBay, Goldin, and PWCC matured, breakers started live-streaming card breaks, and the entire industry gradually formed a complete ecosystem.

The size of this market is far greater than one might imagine. According to 2025 data, the global sports trading card market has reached approximately $11.5 billion. Basketball cards remain the most profitable core category, while autographed cards and patch cards are the fastest-growing high-end assets.

Meanwhile, grading companies have essentially become genuine "platform businesses."

In 2025, Collectors, the parent company of PSA, completed the acquisition of Beckett (parent company of BGS), pushing the entire industry towards greater financialization and centralization.

In recent years, grading companies have essentially become very similar to the "asset issuance layer" in Crypto. PSA's annual revenue in 2024 already exceeded $300 million. In today's trading card world, whether a piece of cardboard can go from $500 to $5000 often depends solely on whether it eventually ends up sealed inside a PSA plastic slab.

Furthermore, numerous specialized offline "exchanges" for trading cards have emerged globally. CardsHQ in Atlanta, USA, is called "the world's largest trading card store" by many media outlets. It's not just a store selling cards; it's a large-scale financial entertainment venue that integrates live-streamed breaks, auctions, KOLs, community, and trading.

Today's NBA trading card market is actually very similar to the Crypto world.

It has stood the test of time, experiences long-term bull and bear cycles, boasts massive secondary liquidity, has long-term "diamond hands," features KOLs hyping cards, and involves emotional trading betting on the next GOAT.

Many trading card break communities resemble meme communities, with streamers setting the pace, communities pumping cards, betting on rookies, speculating on scarcity narratives, and experiencing FOMO-driven pack openings...

Collective Sentiment Can Become an Asset

What gives this market sustained liquidity and allows it to be financialized, like other assets, relies on "narrative."

In June of last year, a Stephen Curry 2024 Topps Now Paris Olympics 1/1 autograph card sold for $518,500 at Goldin Auctions.

This card was valuable because it was tied to a specific moment. During the 2024 Paris Olympics men's basketball final, Curry hit consecutive clutch three-pointers and made that iconic "night-night" gesture towards the French team.

Therefore, a card's price is deeply intertwined with the "narrative moment" hyped behind it. That shot, that game, that cheer, that feeling of "I witnessed history firsthand."

However, this price isn't extreme in the top-tier trading card market. In 2021, Curry's Rookie Logoman Autograph 1/1 card sold for $5.9 million.

This represents the most profound change in the sports collectibles market over the past few years: prices are no longer solely bound by absolute time or scarcity, but are defined by different "storytelling hype."

This is essentially the same logic as the booming prediction market. On Polymarket, we trade on whether Trump will be elected, whether Bitcoin can hit new highs, or whether a certain movie will win an Oscar.

In the trading card market, they trade on whether Yamal will become the next global football king, whether Haaland can win the World Cup, or whether a certain rookie will become the future GOAT.

Prediction markets sell "outcome probabilities," while trading cards sell "historical ownership." Both are essentially about pricing collective sentiment in advance.

What NFTs Couldn't Achieve

Crypto players burned by NFTs might find this "sentiment-to-asset" chain familiar.

But NFT projects all face the same insurmountable problem: the lack of ability to continuously produce "new stories."

A single profile picture can be very popular for a period after minting, but once the hype fades, the project team can only struggle to maintain market consensus by constantly creating new roadmaps, airdrops, collaborations, and utilities.

After endless cycles, they can only launch new projects until no one is left to buy.

But sports are different. Sports are the world's perpetual "emotion-generating machine."

It automatically updates the plot every day and never ends. Someone hits a game-winner, someone gets injured, someone gets revenge, someone retires, someone becomes a legend overnight, someone rises from the bench to stardom.

Its narrative isn't fabricated by project teams; it continuously unfolds in the real world.

I've always enjoyed watching the UFC. Dana White is one of the best sports operators of the past decade when it comes to "attention finance."

The UFC doesn't just sell tickets to fights; it sells rivalries, trash talk, revenge storylines, underdog triumphs, fallen dynasties—it sells constantly fermenting emotions and dramatic narratives.

People don't pay for "statistics," but they will always pay for "narratives."

In reality, the NBA has been the same in recent years.

On one hand, older fans constantly complain about the league's "entertainmentization"—referee controversies, superstar teaming up, drama, league hype, increasingly scripted feel. On the other hand, the undeniable fact is that the NBA's reach and commercial value among younger people are growing stronger.

The Financialization of Sports Leagues

The logic of sports consumption today, and even the consumption logic of the entire entertainment industry, has changed.

Many young people don't necessarily watch a full game, but they will consume trash talk, memes, short video clips, player personas, social media drama, and post-game interviews.

Sports increasingly resemble a large-scale reality TV IP that never stops airing. Trading cards have become the most direct financial outlet for these emotions.

During the NFT bull run, project teams once loudly proclaimed that Web3 would redefine sports collectibles. But looking back now, it's the traditional sports leagues that have truly completed "assetization" first. Because they possess something Web3 lacks: real people, real games, and the consensus of real collective emotions.

In today's world of financializing everything, sports are not just a perpetual motion machine for creating "future history," they are also becoming a platform for issuing financial assets.