“How Can It Continue?” Daryle Lambert – Pro Sports Record Payout.

Matthew Stafford - A Happy Young Man - Thanks to www.washingtonpost.com

My question to you is can professional sports continue to pay young kids the amounts of money that they are today? Why should this be important to us as sellers of sports memorabilia, or is it? I will try to share with you both sides of this issue.

First, I just saw where the Detroit Lions paid a young quarterback from Georgia by the name of Matthew Stafford $41.7 million guaranteed over six years with the possibility of that being expanded to $78 million. This is before he even throws one pass in the NFL. I would think that the value of everything that Matthew has touched since he was in youth football must have just skyrocketed in value. If you are fortune enough to be picked the first round of the NFL draft you will become an instant millionaire. That seems totally inconceivable to me but it is true and only a handful of these young men’s names will be recognized by the public in just a few years. My question to you is where does all this money come from? It comes from people like us that sit every weekend glued to the television watching ball games and the advertisements that support the games.

With sure fervor for sports, which are today’s gladiators, I think it is safe to say that sports memorabilia has a bright future. We as dealers should spend a fair amount of time staying current on the value of these items. Yes my advice to the members of the 31 Club is to buy items at a price that they can instantly be sold for a doubling of the price paid. However it is painful some of the time to look back at transaction that we have made.

For instance I purchased a 1951 all Yankee's signed baseball for, if I remember, around $300 and sold it to a gentleman in New York for $1000. Mickey Mantle was on that ball and Joe DiMaggio was on the sweet spot. Today that ball may well bring $10,000 or more. I think there were either five or six Hall of Famers’ signatures appearing on that item. Here is the question. Why was that ball special? Give up? Mickey Mantle’s rookie year wasn't until 1952. He got sent back down in 1951. I think that you will find that the rare and unusual sports items have far outpaced other investments over the last fifty years. Yes, there is still huge money to be made in sports items. However by continuing to double your money in this manner there is no way that holding on for many years to an item will keep pace.

The other side of this issue, however, is can it last? Horse racing is a dying sport. The reason for this is that racing got too expensive and it was too slow for people looking for fast action. I very seldom today run into anyone who is collecting racing items, with the exception of Derby Glasses, and that is because people still want the have a complete set of these glasses. For you that are familiar with NASCAR racing, it was impossible to get tickets for the race at Bristol Tennessee, but not today. It is simply too expensive for a family to attend a race any longer. To maintain the money being paid to the athletes, tickets prices must continue to go up and I think this will be what kills the golden goose for the collector. It may still be several years before people begin to lose interest because it is just too expensive to remain a fan, but I do believe we are headed in that direction. Just look at boxing and try to remember the last time you or a friend went to a boxing match?

Yes, for the moment we the members of the 31 Club should include sports memorabilia in the items we search for, but be ever on guard for a changing tide in this field and don't fall in love with these items thinking they will always continue in this upward cycle we're in today.

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