Drake Maye's Market Could Mirror Fellow Super Bowl Runner-Up QB
Falling short in the championship game is something that kills a lot of hype surrounding a player, and in the collectibles space, hype is pretty much everything. From unprecedented growth throughout the season and in the weeks leading up to Super Bowl LX, Drake Maye's market has stalled for the first time all year.
The prices of his cards are expected to drop slightly in the coming weeks when auctions start completing. That being said, this Super Bowl loss isn't the end for Maye and his collectibles; it's likely only a small bump in the road.
On the Sports Cards Nonsense podcast, Jesse Gibson and Mike Gioseffi talked about Maye's situation as a player and its connection to his card market. They compared his career trajectory to another notable QB who also came short of the title at a young age: Joe Burrow.
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Maye was far from stellar in Super Bowl LX, but putting him side-by-side with Burrow shows a number of similarities. Burrow went through future HOF lock Patrick Mahomes to reach the Super Bowl in 2022, and Maye was the catalyst for the Patriots' spectacular turnaround just one year removed from their 4-13 season.
On top of that, they both made their first Super Bowl appearances in their second year of NFL play. What Maye even has over Burrow's sophomore season, which is remembered as the latter's best, is the fact that the Patriots' QB was one vote shy from being named the NFL's Most Valuable Player.
On the SCN podcast, Gibson and Gioseffi explained that while Burrow did not win Super Bowl LVI, his cards actually increased in value in the months following the game. His market became even healthier compared to that of championship-winning QB Matthew Stafford, whose prices actually went down.
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The reason for Burrow's growth in market value is due to his status as the next big thing at the time, which is the kind of player that collectors and investors all look out for. Stafford, despite the career-defining victory, was already in his mid-30s and was no longer considered a player to watch for the next decade or so.
Drake Maye benefits from being in the same situation. He's a young QB who finished as the runner-up in both MVP voting and the Super Bowl, and is being viewed as the next franchise player for the most successful franchise since the turn of the millennium.
“I will say this definitively. I would not sell a Drake Maye card right now. I think you will see them drop for the next month or two because people will overreact,” said Gioseffi. “If I have Drake Maye cards in my possession right now, people will not listen because we make emotional decisions, just put them in a box and forget about them.”
Joaqin is a journalist with a strong passion for the Hobby. He has published work for HLTV.org, Rappler.com, and DLSU Sports. A decade-long Pokémon TCG collector, he recently shifted into sports cards to collect Lakers, Dodgers and Chargers players with growing PCs of Shohei Ohtani and Justin Herbert.