You may not realize this, but Sophie Cunningham cards are the hottest thing in collecting right now. We need to talk about this. 

It’s not at all unheard of for athletes to enjoy the rapid ascent Cunningham has experienced recently. But the staying power is what we want to look at. For every Livvy Dunne, there are 100 Yermin Mercedeses…es.  

 Let’s look at Cunnigham’s growth. There are three major points that she took advantage of:

1. Last August, she went viral with an outfit she wore that “showed off tan lines” 

2. Her trade to Indiana this offseason put her alongside Caitlin Clark. Every game. 

3. Her “enforcer” moment in June, when she retaliated for Clark getting poked in the eye on a probably dirty play, lifted her to another level.

Need more proof that Cunningham is on fire? Check out the “most popular” Fever gear at Fanatics:

3 of the top 6 are Cunningham shirts. One is Clark. Two are “Fever” generics. If you go to overall WNBA jerseys by sales, there’s Clark at 1, Angel Reese at 2, and then a Fever custom option at 3, because Cunningham doesn’t currently have a jersey for sale there. 

Here’s “Sophie Cunningham” on Google Trends over the past year. Keep in mind her viral video last August got 15 million views. It barely makes a blip here. 

That giant spike on the right is when she got the flagrant foul for retaliating on Jacy Sheldon after Clark was poked in the eye. People are sick of Clark getting destroyed and everyone shrugging it off loved it. People who already loved Cunningham were like, “yeah, see, she’s awesome!” 

As for that first mini-spike in May? I think maybe it’s from when she wore a lacy outfit and made news then? But whatever the case, Cunningham is having a moment. Several of them. And her card prices are reflecting it. You can’t get a decent autographed non-Leaf card for less than $120 right now. And it’s not stopping. This is a woman who understands media. 

On July 2 she went viral for twerking during a celebratory livestream after the Fever won the Commissioner’s Cup. 

Late last week she knocked Cleveland and Detroit and then deftly clarified her remarks without sounding like it was written by a PR person.  

And despite the google trends line predicting a downward slope, I think we may still not be at the top of the Sophie Cunningham mountain. This is an emerging superstar who will likely be doing women’s college hoops analysis at a desk after the WNBA season ends this fall. None of this feels rehearsed, she’s just…fun. Plus, Indiana is not the crappy team of the last two years, so they’ll go far and she’ll get more exposure and interviews and chances to wear attention-grabbing clothes and get in your (our) social media streams. Everyone is watching Fever games. And I’m sure a lot of people are surprised to see that Cunningham, the enforcer, is just a 6’1” guard and not a 6’7 behemoth. 

We’ve seen this before, recently, with Livvy Dunne. Talent + media savvy + lots of followers = a Leaf card stardom. But even Dunne, who has a giant social following, was still “just” an LSU gymnast — she wasn’t on TV twice a week next to one of the world’s most famous athletes. 

So… what are we buying? 

2024 Monopoly parallels.

I’m kidding. 

Or am I? 

Cunningham’s 2024 Monopoly “GO” parallel before The Enforcing was $13.50. After? $21.99 and holding. She’s even made Monopoly cards a thing!!

Because I have a sickness, I also searched for Leaf holiday autographs, which completely tracks for Leaf… but they don’t exist (although she does have other Leaf cards). I searched for her cards on Fanatics Collect, which has generally been a little more buyer-friendly than eBay. There’s not much there. I keep going back to the Prizm autograph, but I also keep losing auctions. Every day I live in fear she’ll do something else cool (“Sophie Cunningham is dating Tom Cruise”) and her cards will go up another 20%. 

There’s still time and space to get in on this, I just cannot figure out the perfect route. 

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I’d be remiss (and I feel like you’d be disappointed) if I didn’t share a quick update on the “Lil McDonald’s” toys, which are, predictably, on fire. I don’t think this market will last, but I can see your local McDonald’s selling out of these way earlier than expected. Remember the cups last year? There’s a similar brand of excitement here!

Case in point: The Lil’ Boo Bucket. It’s selling for $20-50 right now:

In my own experience – I order four Happy Meals despite not having that many kids… for research! For Mantel! – I can tell you that there are definitely some “commons” and some “chases.” We have several “fries” and soda fountains (which are actually super cool; this is not a joke) but only one “store.” And I actually feel – since you come here for advice – that the “store” may prove to be the long-term big winner here, at least in terms of value. People on reddit are speculating on the gold Happy Meal box but I think that’ll settle down once everyone realizes it’s not limited. 

And here’s a fun hack that I’ve learned – this was from desperation years ago with screaming kids who wanted Happy Meals at 8am – if you go to McDonald’s for breakfast, you can ask for just the Happy Meal toy and they’ll sell them to you for $1.99 (that price may have changed, I’m not sure). You can’t order it on the app, but it shows up as an actual menu item when you check your order on the drive thru screen. 

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Yankees rookies who do well — particularly the ones who come out of nowhere — see their card prices skyrocket (and eventually fizzle when the fanbase sours on them for whatever reason). Enter Cam Schlittler, who has a 2.82 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, and an 11.6 K/9 over 76 ⅔ minor league innings this season. There’s one catch: he doesn’t have a card yet. 

He has some of those “minor league team set” cards, but no Bowman or anything. And so this is like Steven Kwan, when he made his debut and his “only” card was a Topps Now one, which spiked for a few weeks until he cooled down and his prices plummeted. It’s worth $3 now. 

Schlittler had absolutely zero buzz until late last week, when he became the latest member of the Yankees rotation. It stinks to know how good he is and anticipate this and then not being able to do anything about it until the rest of the world catches on and he gets a Topps Now card. 

Ah well. Pick him up in fantasy at least! 

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There are autographs, and then there’s whatever Ken Kesey did here. It’s crazy and beautiful and… thoughtful? At this point it’s more a piece of art than an autograph that will appreciate in value. Also, how do you authenticate something like this?

Maybe because it seems like this is his M.O.?

Did I pay up for it?... Find out in two weeks!!

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Have a great week, everyone!! GET TO McDONALD’S!!