Karl-Anthony Towns starts ripping packs on YouTube
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New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns (KAT) is adding to the growing list of professional athletes who have joined the card collecting community. He has been opening card products since the offseason and broadcasting the rips on his YouTube channel.
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Karl-Anthony Towns is a hobby legend 🔥
— Topps (@Topps) October 5, 2025
The five-time NBA All-Star has been uploading his trading card adventures on YouTube throughout the offseason! pic.twitter.com/kVpQQzFQu5
According to his YouTube profile, the channel is seven years old and has garnered 117,000 subscribers. A majority of the content on the channel surrounds his every day life. Sort of a personal vlog, showing his workouts and NBA event appearances. But it also shows the lighter side of him, like doing an iPhone review, working as a guest cashier at a Cub Foods grocery store, and multiple Q&As.
But if you navigate to the 'Shorts' section, you'll see KAT ripping high end sports card products. His first short was posted on July 28, 2025, and features the seven-footer ripping a box of Topps Midnight basketball.
Currently he has 25 videos on his channel. Given that it's been about nine weeks since he first posted a card video, it's been about two or three videos posted per week. And it will be curious to know how frequently he'll continue to post as the season opener is around the corner.
Towns joins other pro athletes like Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout, and Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Matt Strahm who publicly talk about their collecting. New innovations by Fanatics, as they get more athletes involved in the marketing of the hobby, have combined with the growth of the hobby since covid to create new collectors from the professional athlete pool.
The hobby has brought the fans closer to the athletes, as many of the pros have solicited help from the public looking for new cards.
Anyone with low pop/rare Harper cards that is interested in trading him game used memorabilia (batting gloves, bats, cleat) for them comment the card below. Going to help get his collections started. @Topps @TheCardLifeTV
— Matt Strahm (@MattStrahm) August 9, 2025
Players have even been motivated to find their own stuff, particularly their 1-of-1 cards and other rare pieces of themselves. One of the most prominent methods has been trades, as made public in some cases, trading memorabilia for cards.
It's only a search away to find other athletes who collect cards. Social media has bridged that gap between fans and players and allowed fans to meet the players and the players to get ahold of rare keepsakes from their own career.
After graduating from the University of North Dakota in 2008, Cole worked as an advertising copywriter until shifting to print journalism a few years later. Managing three weekly newspapers in the Dakotas, Cole won numerous awards from the North Dakota Newspaper Association including Best of the Dakotas and, their top award, General Excellence. He returned to collecting in 2021 and has since combined his passion for writing with his love of cards. Cole also writes for the Sports Cards Nonsense newsletter and has made guest appearances on multiple sports card collecting podcasts including Sports Cards Nonsense, and the Eephus Baseball Cards Podcast. IG: coleryan411 X: @colebenz