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Frequently Asked Questions
The simple answer is the sport’s global popularity. While football and basketball may be more popular than soccer in the United States, soccer is the most popular sport on a global scale. We can see this by checking simple metrics, such as the follower counts of major players in these sports.
For example, it’s fair to say that LeBron James is the biggest basketball star in the world right now. He currently has about 70 million Instagram followers. Compare this to Cristiano Ronaldo, who is soccer’s biggest star. He has over 230 million followers.
The point is that the audience for soccer cards is larger than the audience for cards made for other sports. As such, sellers should find it easier to make a profit from their soccer cards.
This is a big question because there are many different soccer leagues, each of which may have its own card manufacturer. That said, the two largest soccer card manufacturers right now are Panini and Topps.
Panini makes the official cards for the English Premier League, which is the sport’s most popular domestic league. However, Topps makes the cards for the Champions League, which is the premier European soccer competition. Topps also makes the cards for the Bundesliga, which is Germany’s soccer league. Generally speaking, Premier League and Champions League cards have the largest audiences. Champions League cards also offer access to players from all over Europe, rather than restricting you to a single country’s league.
Knowing who the most popular soccer players are will help you build a collection of valuable cards.
Though they’re nearing the end of their careers, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are still the sport’s biggest stars. Their rarest cards also attract the highest prices, meaning investors should prepare to spend five and six figures.
Rising stars include Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, both of whom have established themselves as top players despite being in their early 20s. Collecting cards featuring those two players is already costly. But they may represent the best returns on investment, especially if these two stars fulfill their massive potential.