GemRate does an awesome job with providing data each month. Interesting to see all of the data coming in on April Grading across the major companies.

Overall activity was down 7% in April when compared to March. And the only major category to show upward momentum was Hockey (up 20%, Thanks Conor Bedard).

Also interesting to see Beckett while still the lowest in total Items graded, it’s showing a 13% increase year-over-year.

Does this worry you at all? Or just par for the course?

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I alluded in another post that I've been amazed at how Pokemon breaks just 'hit' differently. The heavy focus on inclusive streams where people buy the community spots in breaks/graded cards for give aways.

This lead me to dig deeper and started to find basic metrics. Typical streams for Krakenhits (On Whatnot) ranges from 500-1500 on a given night vs. sports card streams where maybe the biggest breakers get 200-300. My view on why 2-5x larger viewership is not only the communal aspect, but the power of pop culture of Pokemon and the broader TCG category.

Looking at Gemrate (if you haven't checked out the site, please do), the 2023 review in graded cards is eye opening. Of the 19M cards graded, 8M were TCH (Mostly Pokemon, with One Piece coming up strong -- likely as a result of the Netflix Live action show). All sports totaled 9M, but what is really fascinating, the growth in TCG grading is up 70%+ vs -6% for Sports Cards.

TCG IPs have always been on the leading edge of moving into cross mediums (Gaming, animation, Live action, movies). For gaming, which is the industry I come from, fantasy/TCG IPs tend to lead in new game mechanics and boost higher unit economics in terms of LTV, in addition to being ones that have longevity.

TCG cards are not new (Pokemon going back to 1999, MoTG, One Piece, LoTR), but will the popularity of Pokemon start other IPs to think about TCG?