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The hobby of collecting sports cards is making a huge comeback during the pandemic.
Two years ago, entrepreneur and social media personality Gary “GaryVee” Vaynerchuck predicted that investing in sports cards would be a great investment. And as recently as last week, a mint condition Michael Jordan rookie card sold for more than $700,000. But the odds are that even Vaynerchuck couldn’t have known that one of the fastest appreciating cards in 2021 would belong to… “The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson showed off a photo of his own college football card on Instagram, which was bought for $45,100 on eBay that Super Bowl Sunday. Although not fetching as high a price as the one belonging His Airness, The Rock was very surprised with the winning bid and caption the pic with, “This story of how my UNIV of MIAMI football card’s value continues to rise has become so surreal to me.”
From 1991-1994, Johnson was a defensive lineman for the Miami Hurricanes, and they actually won the NCAA Division I championship in Johnson’s rookie year. However, a series of injuries and a young upstart named Warren Sapp iced Johnson’s professional football dreams for good.
Nevertheless, that detour may have been what led Johnson to his ensuing career in professional wrestling and becoming the world’s highest-paid actor for the past two years in a row. The poetic significance of the date of its sale wasn’t lost on The Rock either. He concluded beneath his IG photo with the following: “Playing in the @NFL was my dream, and playing in the Super Bowl was my even bigger dream. Of course, neither dream came true for me but years later… On SUPER BOWL Sunday, my rookie card gets sold for 45K!! Congrats to the winning bidder.”
Despite a perforation in the corner, the card was graded PSA Gem Mint 10, which means it is a virtually perfect card. And it wasn’t printed by a classic card company like Topps or Panini – instead, it was pressed up by BumbleBee Seafood. Sports analyst Darren Rovell showed on Twitter how the card’s value increased by more than 3,000% in just over six months.
