18 Years of Fantasy Football Taught Me How to Buy Cards

The first one is going to be the off season.

Now, there's a popular channel of sports cards that actually claims that there isn't an offseason.

And in Dynasty Fantasy Football, there really is none.

I would take about a week or two off, and then I'd start looking at my team, fiddling with things, figuring out who I was going to be trading out, finding out if the upcoming draft class was worth getting picks in, and really just generally taking stock, taking inventory of the assets that I had and how I wanted to transition those.

When it comes to fantasy football, especially dynasty fantasy football, where you own the team from year to year, you're looking at maximizing value.

When you maximize value, selling an asset at its peak and being able to buy one before it was properly valued, you do that enough times and you will build yourself a dynasty.

Just look at the New England Patriots.

Having a nose for value and understanding where the peaks and the troughs are is really what makes you a great dynasty player overall and a great sports card investor.

Because the funny thing is a lot of people will argue about collecting versus investing, flipping versus vending.

I think collecting and investing are pretty much the same and flipping and vending are pretty much the same thing as well.

It's really semantics and lenses when you look at these things.

collecting is something you do for a long period of time.

You mostly put it into assets that you enjoy and your aim usually span some things like identity.

These are things I really love or memory or nostalgia that you want to go back to.

And you might say that's way different than sports card investing, isn't it? Well, If you're a collector, unless you're never going to sell a card ever, either for yourself or your family, your motivation might be different, and it's probably not as different as you want to tell yourself, but the end goal is really the same.

You don't want to leave your kids with less money.

You don't want to have less money in your collection than when you first started.

Most people being honest with themselves will admit that.

So really, it's just about timeframes.

If you're sports card investing, whether it's short term or long term, your goal is going to be ROI, which is part of your identity.

You're probably trying to build a certain life for yourself, your future identity, so that you can empower yourself to that future.

And probably the most unpopular thing I'm going to say here, but flipping and vending is two sides of the same coin.

Vending, you're just behind a table and people say it's okay.

Flipping, you're out in the wild, walking around, making deals, and people generally think you're only doing it short term.

Well, let me tell you, vendors aren't usually holding cards for long periods of time, guys.