Jason: Welcome, all collectors, to another episode of Boomin' Sports Cards, the podcast where the hobby stays hot and the cards stay boomin'. I am one of your hosts, Jason. Alex: And I'm Alex and today we'll have a very special interview. So let's get right into it, shall we? Jason: Let's do it. Breaking has become one of the biggest forces in the sports card hobby and today we have someone who's right in the middle of it. From ripping the newest releases to pulling huge cards live for collectors around the world. Our guest knows exactly what it takes to run a successful break. Hailing from Tampa, Florida and a big fan of the Chargers, Red Sox and Spurs, welcome Bruce Briggs to Boomin' Sports Cards. Let's go! Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Bruce: Hey guys, thank you so much for having me today. Jason: The pleasures are as we love your work, we've seen your work all over ⁓ TikTok and all these different platforms. So let's start right from the beginning of your journey in the hobby. Understand you've been collecting for the past three years. So what first got you into the sports card world? Bruce: You know, honestly, I've been a collector for most of my life of different things, but I never really considered collecting sports cards until really this whole breaking thing started to take off. I got a call from an old friend of mine saying, Hey, there's this new thing called breaking. And I was a streamer on Twitch at the time. ⁓ He said that, think that it would be really good for you to be able to put on a show and also talk about sports, which is something I've been passionate about my entire life. So I'm still pretty new to the collecting side of it, but I've been collecting, ⁓ back in the day, I used to collect pogs. If you guys happen to know what that is, I mean, I've collected trading cards. I've collected pretty much everything that you could get your hands on. This is the sports part is a new ⁓ avenue for me. Alex: Yeah. Jason: That's awesome, yeah. Likewise, I mean, I've collected since I was a little kid and now sports cards really caught my attention. Alex: Okay. we just started collecting cards this year, but we've tried collecting maybe Well, I've been collecting them not as much as until now. But yeah, just started last year first year collecting and So expensive hobby. I'll tell you that Bruce: It definitely can be. Jason: Yeah. Yeah, cause I started, when I first started, was like three, like four or five years old. I've, you know, your typical kid, like you buy cards at the shop and just put them away somewhere. But then I really got into it I was, I stayed away from the hobby for the longest cause I understood how expensive it was. And you hear like all those horror stories that people spend so much money on them. So ⁓ in your PC? mean, I know you are big fan of the Chargers, Red Sox, Spurs. ⁓ What's that player you chase? Anything in specific? Bruce: ⁓ honestly right now, ⁓ I haven't really gotten too far into my own PC. I've been really focused on learning the market, learning how sports cards are growing and evolving. lot of the things that are in my personal collection right now are actually gifts that I've received in the past couple of years from either people in the hobby or friends of mine. My first card when I got into collecting was a gift from a friend of mine. It is a junior say, ⁓ Sapphire from flawless. that Junior Sayow has always been one of my favorite football players for the Chargers. Incredible person, unfortunately everything that happened with him. So it's good to have that kind of reminder in my personal collection to have that story to follow. Jason: That's awesome. Yeah, those stories behind the cards really matter. experiences, ⁓ circumstances, but yeah, I when you have a card and it matters to you. ⁓ I that you have something that resonates to you. Bruce: Absolutely. Alex: I know like ⁓ somebody's gonna ask you to buy a buy that card off you someday you might like like it's worth more than what it is ⁓ I don't think I'll ever sell it. They're gonna end up telling somebody cuz how much it means to you Which is like the good part of I think that's about collecting cards. ⁓ means more than how much it costs. have the time ⁓ What type of cards do you focus on today rookies out of vintage ⁓ Bruce: Absolutely. You know, lot of the things that I'm focusing on right now are, you know, with being a breaker, we're always a little bit more towards the rookie side, as well as some of the bigger set pieces of the products. So right now we're definitely focusing on the newer players, the 2025 rookies for NFL. Recently, I've gotten into tennis. I'm an ex tennis player. So there's a new tennis set that we've been following a lot of, you know, the, new rookies, the new people that jumped into the top 100 in the tennis rankings. So it's really good to kind of try to buy low on a lot of those players to really hope that their career takes off. Alex: You know why Jason: Yeah, there's a lot of like on tap markets and sports cards like golf isn't too big and stars in golf and golf has never been more popular than ever. Like you got Tiger Woods. We know those cards are to go up as soon as he retires and have ⁓ but not much as we think ⁓ as someone follows the sport. But I love that this tennis cards and never really looked at it that Bruce: Yeah, absolutely. And it's really interesting. You mentioned golf. ⁓ the live golf has their own sets through Panini and they're trying to build their own brand. They've been working a lot in the past couple of years to have a competitor to the PGA. So not only can you get some rookies through live, but you can also kind of get in on that ground floor of a brand new competitive league that rivals the PGA that's been around for, I don't know what. ⁓ I think a century at this point, maybe even a little bit longer. So you're definitely getting in on the ground floor with some of those. think they have PGA Immaculate. If you're ⁓ familiar with some of the releases that Panini does, Immaculate is a huge product and they've got it over on Live Golf as well. Alex: is currently your dream card to own? ⁓ Bruce: I think the dream card that I have is I really want to get a rookie Justin Herbert Downtown. There's something, the Downtown is the chase for pretty much every collector. I don't have a Downtown. I feel like being a breaker and not having one of those big chase cards that everyone's looking for and as a Justin Herbert fan, it is something that I'd like to strive for. Alex: ⁓ wow. Bruce: It's very interesting because everyone wants to talk about how Justin Herbert has no value, but I get priced out of every single one of his rookie cards because they are right at the top of the market every single year. Jason: he has potential like no other. mean, he's a great player and the fact, yeah, he's one of your favorite players. So I understand how that's a dream card for you. Like my favorite player is Drake May. I'm like, those cards are nowhere reachable in my eyes because those prices are insane. But someone like Justin Herbert, I can see the value in that. Bruce: Yeah, Drake made definitely his stock just continues to rise. And honestly, if you check the trends is his price went down just a little bit after the super bowl. But the fact that he made it to a super bowl second year, he's with an incredible dynasty. He's with just a great leadership behind Mike for able he's got a lot going for him. And I think that he's, if you're not buying now, this is probably the lowest dip you're going to get maybe even for the rest of his career. Jason: I agree. second year was insane. ⁓ will only get better in my eyes. So to finish portion of the podcast, ⁓ what is you love about the hobby today? Bruce: I think what I love the most about the hobby is it is so wide open that it allows everybody to come together for the love of the hobby itself. doesn't matter if you're a wrestling fan or like I said, a tennis fan or one of the more traditional sports, football, baseball, anything like that. There's something for everybody out there. And if it's maintained correctly and built correctly. This is a hobby that everybody on this planet could enjoy and that's very rare nowadays. Jason: Yeah, I mean, there's fandoms everywhere. Obviously sports is like what we mainly focus on, but they're expanding to all these different avenues from One Piece, Dragon Z. Everything is going crazy. it's ⁓ most open I've the hobby. ⁓ And it seems like other week there's a new product for a different ⁓ fandom, ⁓ which is insane. I love it about the hobby because my collection is all over the place. from wrestling, I'm over the place. So love that for our of the hobby. ⁓ your journey in breaking. ⁓ For people who don't understand it, can you explain sports card breaking? Because it's a relatively new ⁓ thing that's happening ⁓ and it's all over the But some collectors don't know the aspects of breaking. Bruce: Absolutely, I'll explain it the best way I can. It's actually, it's easy if you understand cards, it's hard if you don't know what we're talking about. ⁓ Breaking, in a sense, is a way to take... the cost of some of these products, which realistically with the hobby nowadays, the cost is just rising and rising and rising with all of these hobby boxes and really just product among the board. You're able to take the cost of the box and split it up over different either teams or players or whatever the breakdown is. So you said yourself that you're a Drake May fan. If you only care about Drake May and maybe even the Patriots, you don't want to buy a hobby box by itself and spend thousands of dollars on the box because you only care about the Patriots cards. 31 of the 32 NFL teams are useless to you. So instead of having to pay that $2,000 for a box, you're able to pay a fraction of it and get every Patriots card that's in that box. So it allows you to work on your personal collection without front loading the cost of the box and taking all that financial burden on yourself. Jason: Yeah, it's a perfect way to put it. Yeah, because these boxes are expensive. You got how you boxed it at like $500 up to even a thousand dollars, even more than that. And yeah, I feel like brakes are a good way for that one. team you're chasing, that one player you're chasing. So that's a perfect way to explain it. mean, this hobby is only going up and breaking has expanded through all these platforms. You got whatnot, got fanatics live, you got TikTok now. It's all over the place. And I liked how you explained it. very, it's advantageous avenue for collectors. Bruce: Absolutely, it's a great middle ground. Alex: ⁓ yeah, When did you realize breaking could ⁓ become something more serious or a job? Bruce: ⁓ you know, what's interesting about my pathway to breaking is I joined an already existing breaking company. ⁓ the company that I work with, they were already making a name for themselves. They are already on, I believe at the time, whatnot and TikTok. And one of the members of the company who was kind of the manager, but he was trying to build a team for TikTok. him and I have decades of experience with each other. We've known each other for a long time and he knew that I didn't know anything about sports cards, but I had a pretty successful Twitch channel at the time. I had created my own culture and I was more on the entertainment side of everything. So I didn't really know about the business. Basically what I told them is, Hey, I've got a family. I've got to be able to take care of my family. And they said, if you do what you do on Twitch over here, and you can help build that community, you'll be able to take care of your family just fine. Jason: That's awesome. ⁓ Where's like some doors is open? I know I've seen like videos of you like going to different card shows. ⁓ What's like one experience you had with like black tie breaks that you just loved? Bruce: a couple. think the one that really did it for me ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ consider myself to be a huge name. ⁓ think that if you ⁓ you know who I am, that's ⁓ interesting to me, ⁓ I'm not going to get stopped on the on the street for the most part. But there was one day I was out grocery shopping with my family ⁓ I got stopped in the grocery store and they said, Hey, you're Bruce breaks. And that was the weirdest experience of my life. ⁓ we were at BJ's and I was trying to eat a hot dog and he just stopped me to like, give me a hug. And I didn't know what to do because I had a hot dog in each hand and I had this grown man coming to hug me, which in retrospect is incredible. Like at that point being, being noticed on the street, not at the national, not at a card show, not at somewhere where people are expected to know who you are, but just out in the real world. Jason: Awesome. Bruce: was just, that's kind of an I've made it moment. Alex: Did you like pull a nice card for him? And that's why he's like, man, Roosh is the best. like, I gotta get him, gotta give him a hug. Jason: love this guy. Bruce: You know, ⁓ I might have at some point, my brand of breaking is I'm not in it to pull the biggest cards you've ever seen. Cards will come and go. ⁓ This hobby is about the love of the actual collecting and of the cards themselves. And I think that if you build your brand off of having the best card ever hit or having ⁓ the biggest pulls or anything like that, you're actually kind of... very superficial about what you're trying to do because it's my job to put on a show for everybody. You're spending a bunch of money to hang out with me with the expectation that maybe you don't get the card that you've been looking for for so long. So if I can make it worth your time, then it's I've done my job. Jason: I like when go into breaks and it's enjoyable and not just someone screaming at your face, ⁓ buy this now, buy this now. ⁓ We have the cards. We pulled this card yesterday and it's in this case. Yeah. It's the worst when you see those on TikTok and I'm like, ⁓ how is this How do people watch this ⁓ constantly? Alex: Guys, guys! Bruce: Trust me, I can't stand that. Alex: ⁓ The funny thing is Bruce, I did meet you in person last year at the Nationals I don't know if you remember but I did come up to your booth and give you like a fist pump Bruce: You, we were in the middle of a break and you walked up to the front and you gave me a fist bump and I swear, I think that you left something. It was a, I don't know if it was a business card or something. Am I remembering you correctly? I believe. Alex: No, I didn't have a business card. I just knew it was like hey, I know that guy It's bruce from bruce breaks. I was like i'm just getting getting like a fist bump Bruce: But it was up at the front, right? I was in the middle of talking to the camera and it was like over the desk. Alex: Yeah, I think, ⁓ yeah, it was there and I was like, ⁓ I know this guy. I've seen this guy on Tik TOK. I just want to say hi to him real quick. But I didn't leave it. Remember leaving anything. Jason: That's awesome. Bruce: I can't remember. There were, I thought it might've been you. Somebody left a card and I was trying so hard to figure out who it was. They gave me a fist bump. They left a card on the table and I was trying to talk to them as they left. I was like in the middle of a rip. I was trying to talk to them after they left and they were gone. They just vanished. And so I, it's, I'm probably, if it wasn't you, I'm never going to find this human being ever again, but it's one of those things where like, Alex: This is... Bruce: whenever somebody comes up and tries to interact or or talks to me, I try to do everything that I can because again, I'm here to grow the hobby. I'm not here to grow my pocket. I'm here to grow the enjoyment, right? And if I do my job correctly, I make enough money to support my family and you guys get the entertainment that you're looking for and then everybody's happy. This does not have to be a one way street. Jason: Definitely. Do you remember your first break you ever hosted? And how was that experience? seeing someone just start, I find it fascinating how someone starts in this business. Alex: Definitely. Bruce: I do. I do, yeah, so I was selling mattresses and I was invited to Black Tie for a weekend to rip with them. And they basically wanted it to be a test run and they said, hey, well, you know, come here, hang out with us for the weekend. I was living in North Carolina, I drove to Tampa. ⁓ And I was there for a weekend. And the second day, Desti, my friend, Alex: ⁓ wow. Bruce: didn't tell me that I was about to rip, didn't say anything. He just said, as we were hitting the timer, he said, are you ready? All right, this is you. And we come back and I'm just sitting there with the dumbest look on my face. And what I do remember is it was 10, 20, 23. It was either 22 or 23 select blasters. Alex: You're welcome. Bruce: In that break, I had no idea what I was ripping. I pulled a Zebra Patrick Mahomes die cut and I dropped it. I didn't, it was, it was a die cut. And so when I was trying to hold the cards, it was a different thickness and I dropped it and everyone started laughing. Desti starts laughing. The chats going crazy. I will never forget that moment. I mean, not only is it a great passing of the torch, Alex: What? Jason: ⁓ no! Bruce: I feel terrible. Nobody said anything that I like damaged this card. got yelled at me saying, you got me a PSA seven, nothing like that. So at least we're good on that point. But what an incredible introduction to the hobby. Jason: You Yeah, that's crazy. So how much preparation is there? Like, is there a crew who like is behind every break? Because I find it crazy like how many cards you guys pull and like the shipping, like how does that work? Because it's like so many cards, so many people around the world. Alex: Yeah. A lot of people. Bruce: Yeah, so the beauty of what we do is honestly kind of in its simplicity, but it's designed that way. we have, we set everything up pretty much, I want to say about two, three years ago on our streaming service and everything is done in house. So all of our graphics, all of our everything is done in house. We've got our own graphics team that takes care of everything. And we've got it set up so that thankfully when somebody's in front of the camera, they only need to press a couple of buttons to make everything work. And the beauty of that is it doesn't matter who's in front of the camera because we've got a bunch of different breakers. They can all provide the same experience behind the scenes. Everything's going crazy. We, think right now in our fulfillment team, we've got all together. I want to say we've got probably 20 employees. We've got more people. fulfilling than we do breaking. ⁓ which is important because at this point we're now, we have two TikTok channels, two whatnot channels and a fanatics channel. So we've got five channels ripping almost around the clock every single day. So you need that big of a fulfillment team so that we don't fall behind on orders. And I think the beauty is in the past year where, you know, again, we're still a small business, but Alex: ⁓ wow. Bruce: In the past year, I think the longest we've fallen behind on shipping is about a week and that was over Christmas vacation. So if we fall back a week over everything that we're running, I think that we're still pretty successful. Alex: Makes sense. Jason: Out of curiosity, where does all the base cards go? ⁓ Alex: Yeah Bruce: What a great question. ⁓ So we ship most of the bass, ⁓ unless it is a paper, I mean, if we're talking Bowman baseball and nobody cares about the bass, funny story, we used to be at a different location. We've since moved locations and we put all of our bass in the trash and we had this huge dumpster and there was a guy in our parking lot did not work for us. We didn't know him. just knew that every like Monday or Tuesday, he'd drive up to our dumpster and go through all of our trash to take all of our base. I don't know what he was doing with it. I don't care, honestly, but yeah, it Monday or Tuesday, light clock work every single week. This dude's digging through our dumpster for base, not for anything else. Jason: you That's hilarious. There's something in there. I swear, one day I'll get it. One day. Bruce: We thought that maybe he was trying to see if we had missed sorting or something, but he just every single time he's just grabbing all of our bass. Jason: I must have been disappointed when you guys left. They're still coming back. One day I'll be back. One day. Alex: I guess our dreams of being breakers and not adjacent is going to be quite expensive so we might have to rethink our jobs now. What is the biggest card you ever pulled live, Bruce? Bruce: The biggest card I've ever pulled live is a one of one horizontal bonix kaboom from his rookie year. Yeah, so they don't want me to say how much it sold for, but I can tell you that you could comfortably buy yourself a new vehicle with a piece of cardboard. Jason: That's insane. Alex: Is it a nice vehicle? Bruce: I mean, I would consider it to be a pretty decent, I drive a 2011 Toyota Camry, so most vehicles are a nice vehicle compared to what I drive, but ⁓ yeah, I would consider it to be a pretty decent vehicle. Jason: wild. Alex: We'll look up the cops later. Bruce: Yeah, I ⁓ think the vertical comp is public, ⁓ but the horizontal, we facilitated from the beginning. I pulled it, it went straight into a one touch. We had a buyer lined up and it got sold within 24 hours. Alex: Wow. Jason: That's insane. So now let's go to your opinions on breaking, I feel like it's very controversial of the hobby. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Some people are impartial and be like, ⁓ that's kind of cool. So what separates a successful breaker from one that fails? Because we've seen those horror stories where they just disappear ⁓ pulling a card. ⁓ they just don't do numbers. ⁓ Bruce: ⁓ God. Alex: Yeah. Jason: That's people get good deals and stuff like that. So what separates a good breaker? Bruce: ⁓ is ⁓ of those things that you'll find with a lot of different things. ⁓ I will say the one thing that I get asked more than anything is, hey, I'm about to become a breaker. ⁓ What do I need to know? What should I do? And the first thing that I say is it's not about the cards, it's never about the cards, it's about you. It's about the show that you put on, it's about the energy that you have, and it's about your connection with the people that are hanging out with you. Because we are all ripping the same thing. Unless you're one of the top three or four companies that's ripping case after case every 15 minutes, everybody has the opportunity to rip the same cards, every box has the opportunity to have the same thing. We can talk about other conspiracy theories here in a moment But it doesn't matter if I buy a box of optic or if you buy a box of optic the same cards the same possibility can show up The people that don't succeed in here are focused on the money and on the return and are not focused on giving a good Experience that is all you should worry about everything will come the money will be here There's I mean if you look at the statistics of how much money changes hands in sports Alex: Yeah. Jason: you Bruce: cards over the year, I believe last I checked it was over a billion dollars a year. So the money's there and the money will come. But if you don't have any personality and it's obvious that you only care about money and it's obvious that you don't care about the people that come into your stream and hang out in your chat room, you're not going to succeed no matter how good of a card you hit. Alex: well. Jason: Yeah, but on your spare time, do you go into different breakers and see like how they're doing it? Bruce: I do. I have two different alt accounts because I have multiple times popped into an account and especially on TikTok, it'll say this person joined the live and I've had viewers of mine that are in other channels, which I mean, Hey, you like breaking and I'm not there. I'm not going to, I'm not going to shame you on that, but they'll call me out. They'll tag me and be like, Bruce, I didn't know you were going to be here. So I, I've got a completely, I've got two different alt accounts and Alex: Heh. You Bruce: That way nobody knows it's me. And I've heard some stuff, man. I honestly, this is something that might get me in trouble. This is something that people might not like. I'm a very anti-breaker breaker. And it's because a lot of breakers are very obviously in it for the wrong reasons. Jason: Yeah, definitely. We've seen so many horrors here. I saw a TikTok earlier. Some dude pulled the uptown of Ash and Gentie. And he goes like, ⁓ and the Raiders, we're going to cancel that team. And then they blocked the guy right away. like, you're going to get called out no matter what. Everything's online. do you expect from that? Your career pretty much over Alex: ⁓ my goodness. Jason: It's scamming what people do in breaks. Bruce: Yeah, and I mean, it, you know, there's, there's a lot of different things that could be ⁓ said about that kind of stuff. And one thing that a lot of people don't pay attention to is if you get the wrong person upset and I, I'm not in the, you know, I'm not in the market to get anybody upset, but if you get the wrong person upset doing something like that, where you take back a card or you don't ship a card or anything like that, they actually have a lot of, ⁓ buyer's rights on their side. that they can make it very difficult for you. And even if you keep that card, it's not gonna be worth it when you're done with all of the legal fees and all of the different things that you have to pay for because now you're in a couple of different courts ⁓ and then you run the chance of losing your business license if you even have one and you run the chance of losing all of these different things and it's just not worth it. Jason: Yeah. Yeah, like they think like you delete your channel everything's over. No, probably will not has all like that information all these platforms have your information. And that's just the surface of it. Yeah, that's insane. People do that. Alex: yeah, overall, think you're right, think it is matter to who the person is. ⁓ ⁓ break with black tape breaks, I would prefer you over anybody else. when I see you guys live, I'm like, all right, Bruce is not here. So don't want to really spend any money. So I usually just skip it and just like, all right, I'll just wait for Bruce to come back on. I hope he opens today. Jason: You Get that good card. Bruce: I do appreciate that. It's one of the things where I try to get everybody, especially the things that we can control, we try to get on the same page, but everybody does have their own flavor. Everybody has their own personality. And there are definitely some times, I I was in our chat a couple of days ago. And somebody said to one of the other breakers, you're my favorite breaker and I'm so glad you're here. And I have to deal with that internal jealousy of like, wait, why am I not the favorite breaker? But it's, everybody has things that they're attracted to. Everybody has things that they enjoy. And if my performance, because that's really what it is at the end of the day, if my performance isn't your cup of tea, then the beauty of it is in two hours, there'll be another show. And... Jason: day. Alex: You Bruce: Maybe you like that one better. If you're not a big fan of the action style, then there's a comedy coming up in two hours and three hours from that there's a rom-com and by the end of the day we'll find something that you like. Jason: love you. How you put it? Yeah, romcom. Alex: Got you. Do you think breaking has helped or hurt the hobby overall? Bruce: I think that breaking is a necessary product of the hobby. I think that people might've hurt the hobby a little bit. And I think that that's one of those things because breaking on its own, I think is a byproduct of the prices going up. And I honestly think that breaking got as big as it did because of the pandemic and because of all of the scalping that happened because of the pandemic. And... Alex: and Bruce: with the scalping and the price gouging and everything that was going on with that, you needed a way to be able to get these cards for cheaper. And that created its own opportunity. Breaking was around a little bit before that, but it really didn't kick off until we were all kind of stuck at home, right? And so as with anything, as things, as new things come across and as new avenues to purchase become available, there's going to be growing pains. And I think that the test of time is going to be incredible. They talk about, I come from the restaurant industry, actually, I went to culinary school, and they talk about how most restaurants fail within the first five years, right? Well, we're still kind of in that five-year grace period of breaking. Most of your breakers are less than five years old. So these people that are doing it the wrong way, they only have a couple years left until they're not going to have a business because that's how business works. Any... Alex: Hmm. Bruce: any avenue that you go through with business, you've got a five year stress test. If you survive that five years, you're probably pretty good. You probably got solid business practices and you're probably a good person. And then you're going to continue. If you don't survive, well, that speaks on a couple of different things. And so as we get out of that five year, I think breaking is actually going to be a lot better for the hobby. I think it's going to be a great avenue for people to get into collecting on kind of like an entry level. ⁓ but we're not quite there yet. We still have a couple more years of stress testing to do. Alex: Gotcha. Jason: I agree, because one of our hot takes from last episode was that this hive is getting way too expensive and this next generation of collectors are going to shy away from it. And even collectors now are going to disappear because these prices insane. And I feel like the breaking are making it possible to have that card that you want, hunt for that card. without buying that $400, $500 product that you will probably won't grab a player that you like. I like it's helping the hobby a lot. And it's part of the break because the breakers are doing a great job. I feel it's only gonna off from here for breakers. Alex: So you were saying that you went to culinary school. So we were so close to having a chef chef show with Bruce. ⁓ Bruce: So there actually have been a couple of chef shows with Bruce. Again, back when I was on Twitch, I did some cooking content. But yeah, I went through the culinary pathway. went to culinary school, went all the way up the ladder, was a head chef in Washington, D.C. ⁓ Really, really thought that cooking was gonna be my passion. But a lot of that was, I just like making people happy. And really, any way that I can do that is incredible for me. yeah, back then it was food. know, you can't be mad if you're eating good food. ⁓ It's ⁓ very impossible to upset you're eating the best cake you've ever had in your entire life. Exactly, you've gotta be a super villain. Jason: Never. I'd be a bad guy to do that. Alex: Man, this is so good, but I'm still mad. Bruce: I'm so angry. Jason: Something about this delicious food that takes me off. Alex: what product do you think delivers the most? Like what is the best value? Bruce: That's a great question. Let me think about that for a second because it's gonna be one that you don't expect because of my hot take that you guys used in your last episode. I think that one of the best products that you can get your hands on and one of my favorite products and I'm very sad that it's not gonna be what it is nowadays is Luminance. I think that Luminance is kind of... Alex: Yeah. Hmm Bruce: collecting at its most pure. You've got incredible action photos. You've got great artwork, which is really what these cards should be. And you've got them as a standard, a base card in Luminance looks like a short print in most other products. Plus you've got three autos in a hobby box. So if you're packing it out, there's four packs in a box. Three of the four packs are getting an auto. It's very fairly balanced. It's got a lot of really great stuff. It's not case hit dependent. I hate those words. It's not case hit dependent. And it's just a great way to experience the hobby in a very introductory way. Alex: Yeah Jason: That's football for the listeners out there. That's a new product. That's awesome. Is there like one card like you pulled off stream and it's just now it's like one of your personal collection or like something you sold off? Is there like that one card that you pulled and you're like freaking out about? Bruce: Absolutely, yes. I'm sorry, Luminance Football. Alex: Yeah. Bruce: not so much yet. ⁓ I don't rip too much for myself. I'm very much into very different kinds of cards right now. So I haven't really been able to lock down on what kind of cards do I want to purchase for myself? One thing that I do have and probably one of the most exciting card collecting moments, and it has nothing to do with sports cards, but I found out through sports cards and through my TikTok feed and everything that if you fly on Delta Airlines, the pilots have their own trading cards. And so my wife and I were going somewhere and we specifically flew Delta for this reason. And I went to every pilot I could find and I now have four different plane trading cards. And if you look at my PC, it's all... Alex: ⁓ yeah, I some both. Jason: That's awesome. ⁓ Bruce: Justin Herbert, it's a couple of Red Sox players, and four planes, for no reason, but I think they're neat. Jason: It's time to grade those cards. there one thing that you would change about sports card breaking or just like lives in general? Bruce: Absolutely. yeah, absolutely. ⁓ one thing I would change about breaking is, first off two things. I'll change two things about breaking. Stop yelling at people. ⁓ it doesn't do anything. It's not good for anybody. Nobody wants to get yelled at. They're not going to buy in because they want, they are getting yelled at and you just look desperate when you're yelling. I mean, sometimes I'll get a little, I'll get a little antsy because we're not selling. Alex: Nice. Bruce: And what I try to do is explain that that's an incredible deal that somebody is getting. You're getting an incredible deal right now. And there's always a way that you can word something where it comes out positive instead of yelling at somebody. hear so many breakers saying, guys, I'm losing money on this. I'm doing it. Hey, you opened the business. You took that risk. I really don't know what you, if, if McDonald's told their customers that they were losing money every time they sold a burger the customers would say we don't care We don't care about you either. Give us the burger or don't so these breakers I don't understand why they think that it's gonna be different for them But I think that that whole play needs to stop and then number two. We gotta stop chasing case hits guys They're not real. I will die on this hill. I'm probably the only breaker that's going to Jason: Yeah. Bruce: do this and is going to fight for this and it's made me multiple enemies in the industry, which is hilarious to me. ⁓ But it's not real. Any breaker that's ever told you that the case hit is live, any breaker that's ever told you that you need to get in because the case hit is live, they're actively trying to lie to you because they don't know. There's no way for them to know. And for them to use it as a selling point when it's actually chance is... Alex: ⁓ wow. Bruce: borderline illegal, but we're in kind of a Wild West situation right now with breaking that there hasn't been the best legislation on it, but it is borderline illegal for them to say that. And so it's something that you will not ever find me saying. It's something that I tell everybody at Black Tie, we should not be saying. Some people agree, some people don't, but I think that it's just... we need to stop chasing that one card because if you only care about that one card it devalues not only the entire set but it devalues the hobby as a whole. Jason: that's perfect way to say it. mean, one of our takes from last week also ⁓ like, it's close to gambling. There's a fine line to it, It's a crazy platform. a crazy experience going into a break. ⁓ But ⁓ there's lot of things that need to change. And I feel like they will in the next couple of years. Is there a player that you would invest in? ⁓ why is it Roman Anthony? ⁓ Bruce: Oh my God, Roman Anthony. You know what? I actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you something a little bit different. Roman Anthony, absolutely. But Roman Anthony's market is nuts right now and you're just not gonna be able. I'm gonna give you one. This kind of sounds wild, but his comps are very cheap right now and I'm actually about to load up. Jaren Duran. Alex: Yeah year. Bruce: Get your hands on Jaren Duran rookie cards. They are not expe... I mean, compared to Roman Anthony, they're dirt cheap. Jaren Duran has hit a home run in every single game that I have watched this season, this off season. I went to a spring training game two weeks ago. He hit, he was up to bat twice. He hit two home runs. I saw him in person last year. I saw him in person this year. I don't know if he's put on 50 pounds of muscle. Alex: Chantorin. Bruce: but the new Jaren Duran looks like he ate the old Jaren Duran. This guy is going to go on a tear this year. Get his cards right now before the season officially starts because I promise you, by the All-Star break, his comps are going to be insane. Jason: Hahaha He's a tank. mean, he had two homers yesterday. Yeah, I can see his, like, all his cards are undervalued, like his home field advantage. I was thinking about grabbing his card. And that's, what, like $40. It's not even nowhere near like these top guys. Bruce: Yes, he did. Yep. Alex: $130? That's not bad at all. Bruce: You have, I'm telling you, I'm putting you on right now and buy a bunch before this episode airs so that when everybody else hears it and they drive the value up, I'm telling you right now, Jaren Duran, and then I'm gonna tell you, depending on, I'm following the Red Sox a lot this year. Another cheap one because a lot of people have already written him off. He's kind of one of those fringe, he could be really good, he could be really bad. I'm still investing in him, Marcel Omeyer. Jason: Yeah. Alex: You Bruce: Marcelo, if he wins a starting position, which I really think he will, his defense is insane. If he wins a starting position, he can be with the team for a decade. And he's gonna be one of those players that he's probably not gonna make you millions of dollars, but if you look at it as an investment, he is going to have a good solid S &P 500 return every single year. Jason: I love that. Yeah, that Red Sox team is very young, and any of these guys can explode at any moment. ⁓ Yeah, that's a great one. I was not expecting And he's of the players I've been looking at as well. So now let's wrap it up. ⁓ What advice would you give someone thinking about becoming a Breaker or even being a part of the hobby? Because it can be intimidating going to the live space or even just joining and being part of it. Bruce: Absolutely. So, I'll, I'll, I'll answer that question in two different ways because we'll do breaker and we'll also do somebody getting into the hobby. If you're new to the hobby, understand that it's supposed to be fun. And if you're not having fun, do something else. I interact with a lot of people, especially people that get into breaks, that they are very upset because they haven't hit a card today, or they haven't hit a card in a couple of days, or they haven't hit the cards that they thought they were gonna hit, or something like that. If it's not fun, stop. This is designed to be a hobby. It's designed to be fun. You're designed to have a good time. And if it is dreadful, if you are stressed being a part of the hobby, either find a different way to be a part of the hobby, or take a break from the hobby for a little bit, because I would much rather you be mentally stable than you have that one card that you've been chasing for the past six months. We only have one life. It is very important that you work on your mental stability first. And if you're doing something that's not good for you mentally, it's time to do something else. Jason: I love that. Mental is very important. And I can see how opening packs and pretty much failing. Because of these cards, packs, you won't get anything good out of. Odds are you probably won't get some in like ⁓ boxes or something like that. But yeah, it's important to check yourself. ⁓ sure that you're in a stable place and not let that consume your whole life and your whole ⁓ overall. Alex: That's great. Bruce: I had a case break of flawless last weekend that took four hours to fill and it was 20 cards. And it's one of those things where most of you are not going to get a card and I need you to understand that. And if you go into it and you're of that mental capacity of I need to hit and you don't hit, then that is going to absolutely ruin not only your night, but could, you know, have other trickling effects into everything else. And we can't be doing that. Alex: ⁓ well. ⁓ well. Bruce: Right. It's, one of those things, you know, you had said that it's very close to gambling and I think it's very close to a lot of different things. kind of compare it to if you're at, if you're playing video games and they have those packs that you can open or, ⁓ I'm a big counterstrike player where you can open a ⁓ counterstrike case and you might get a really good skin. You might get a really bad skin. It's very similar to that, right? Because you're getting something, but you don't know exactly what you're getting. And. If you can't handle that in this moment, then let's reevaluate it later on down the Alex: Has, ⁓ have you ever like turned away somebody like if they bought too many spots or like, like, like, they got, like got to the point where they got frustrated and they're like, I haven't got, I haven't hit anything like has that ever happened? Bruce: Yes, we've had a couple of different times where we've talked to somebody and we've said, hey, we just want to let you know that you're very obviously not okay. And we don't feel okay. Harboring this. I really want in one of the things that you'll see if you're ever in my streams, if you're ever in my chat room is I care about you being there and being the best version of yourself. If you've never spent a dollar with me, but you're in chat, I'm totally fine. If you don't have the money or don't want to have the stress of buying into a break or whatever, but you want to hang out, I'm so happy that you're there. And with that being said, sometimes you have to cut people off. You have to tell them, look, you're not okay. It's very obvious you're not okay and you're not going to do anything about it. So because we care about you, we're going to shut you down for a little bit. And then once we can reevaluate and we can talk maybe 24 hours, maybe 48 hours, maybe two weeks from now. Once we can talk and see, hey, you're okay, you're better mentally, then we can start to open that a little bit more and get back into that hobby. Because the last thing that I want is to ruin somebody's life over cardboard. Alex: That sounds great. That sounds more genuine than half like the people do that do breaks. That sounds great. It's overall, this is supposed to be fun and it is fun. Cause me and Jason talk about cards every day and half the time, well, we'll say we'll go buy a car, but we will eventually get around to it because what we just like talking about cars. I'm like, oh, like yesterday we talked about this, the elite cruise card 3d from stadium from last year. Jason: Absolutely. Alex: I thought that was the coolest thing ever but it's like $400. I'll get around to buying it but not like now but this overall is nice to have like a good conversation with somebody. Jason: Yeah, you can admire your cards. I feel like fear of missing out, FOMO is very much in this hobby. Because everyone that card. ⁓ And ⁓ odds you're going to grab it right now. But ⁓ that doesn't mean can't grab it later. ⁓ I mean, it's a. Bruce: Absolutely. Yeah. And we live in a world now where, you know, influencers have million dollar cards chained around their neck, you know, and people are bringing, ⁓ there was a, there was a politician that had a card around his neck recently. And, know, it's, it's a lot more into the, into the forefront and it's in front of everybody's eyes now. And more than just FOMO, it's one of those, I want to be like that, you know, and, back in the day, Jason: You Bruce: we all collected because we looked up to these heroes, right? We looked up to these players. We looked up to these in wrestling. We looked up to these wrestlers, these characters, whatever. Now it's we looked up to the people who have what we don't. And when you change that view and you change that focus and you make it a monetary thing, it comes with a lot of hidden pitfalls that we have to be, we have to pay attention to. Right? And the only way that this hobby is gonna continue is if we understand we need to do it for the love, for the money. Alex: That's the main reason. But yeah, the hobby's supposed to be overall enjoyable and I do enjoy it. I love spending time with my folks because everyone at home does collect cards, Pokemons, sports cards, hanging out with Jason at conventions. That's the best part of it. Jason, you have any other questions? Because I have one more question for him. Jason: I think he's answered everything. Alex: ⁓ Is there like a a community based thing for you guys like you guys hear about what somebody else is doing? Or like a rumor spreads around you guys hear that like is that go around for you guys like as a breakers? Bruce: ⁓ We have heard certain things about what's going on with other breakers, with the hobby, with things as it is, but to be perfectly honest with you, one of the beauties of what we do is we try so hard to stay in our own lane. Once you start bringing that kind of outside influence into your stuff, you really kind of taint the water. ⁓ Alex: Yeah, like the forums. Jason: search sheets and get into wrestling. Bruce: We try so hard to harbor the community that we have. for that reason, some of the rules that we have, we have, ⁓ you know, our own social medias and we've got a discord where other people can hang out and everything like that. And one of the things that we talk about is like, look, I don't. care about the other drama that's going on. If they're sinking their own ship, they're sinking their own ship. If they're doing their own thing, they're doing their own thing. And that comes back to something I alluded to earlier where people are talking about, know, Jews cases for some of these big people. We don't know, we don't care. We have our own ⁓ communications with these companies that distribute this product. And to my knowledge, it's not a thing. Now, maybe I'm not on the, I'm not. big enough, I'm not a big enough fish in the pond, but also I don't care. The food that I'm eating is the fish that I am is right? So ⁓ don't ⁓ care and I think that once you start ⁓ involved in that drama, you really open the door to get some really bad stuff back your way, whether it's intentional or not. Jason: huge thank you, Bruce, for joining us. mean, we enjoyed your conversation giving us the behind the scenes of running successful break and the growing side of the hobby. So thank you so much. We hope to have you again further on ⁓ as we grow this podcast. We're ⁓ aiming high. ⁓ You can't low. You can't aim low. We appreciate it. Alex: Yeah. Bruce: Hey, absolutely. Thank you guys so much for having me. you know, I'll definitely whenever you guys want to talk again, feel free to send me a message. I'll definitely be paying attention, cheering you guys on and watching you grow as this whole thing goes. Alex: We'll ask for more hot takes from you and see how those goes. ⁓ you, close it out. Yeah. If you enjoy the show, make sure to give us a follow on the socials and wherever you enjoy podcasts. Stay ripping, stay collecting. Remember the hobby's always booming. We'll catch you next time. Jason: Thank you. You Bruce: I've got a bunch of them. Jason: Go ahead, Alex, you can pause it out. See ya. Alex: See ya!