Manga Madness: One Piece Collecting Takes Over College Hoops

If you were at a Gonzaga, Houston, or Rutgers home game recently and saw students lining up early, phones out, comparing posters and promo cards, you weren’t watching a typical giveaway. You were watching a pop-culture crossover turn into a real-time collectibles moment.

Bandai and Toei’s One Piece College Basketball: US Voyage campaign has quietly become one of the most interesting in-arena activations of the season—a limited-run mashup of anime, college hoops, NIL-era marketing, and trading-card logic engineered to spark exactly the kind of frenzy collectors love.

A 15-Game Tour Built Like a Collectible Set

The US Voyage promo runs from January 23 through March 4 across a slate of select home games at Gonzaga, Houston, Illinois, Rutgers, and St. John’s. Each stop features One Piece-branded in-arena visuals, custom video packages, and at least one marquee halftime experience.

One of the limited-edition poster given away at the Gonzaga vs. USF basketball game. | https://ebay.us/m/lF5U9M

More importantly for collectors, each school gets its own artwork and promo designs for posters and t-shirts, which instantly turns the campaign into a mini set rather than a single generic giveaway. It’s the same psychology that drives parallel chasing in cards: once people realize there are multiple versions, the real hunt begins.

The Giveaways Sparking the Frenzy

Every ticketed fan walks out with a school-specific One Piece poster and a limited-edition Monkey D. Luffy One Piece Card Game promo card stamped “US VOYAGE,” creating an instant baseline collectible for each stop.

At select games, students in designated sections receive an exclusive co-branded T-shirt featuring Luffy in their school’s colors, adding a second, more limited tier. Then during the halftime shows, additional Luffy shirts are tossed into the crowd, introducing a true chase element that turns a free in-arena giveaway into something that feels closer to a limited drop than a traditional promo.

Don’t miss the ONE PIECE giveaways for everyone in attendance, when we host Michigan State this Tuesday at 6:30 pm: https://t.co/asayBxXg4H #ONEPIECE x #USVoyage pic.twitter.com/G8rRabyiBj
— Rutgers Men’s Basketball 🏀 (@RutgersMBB) January 25, 2026

Within hours of early stops at Rutgers and Gonzaga, listings began appearing on eBay, with dozens of confirmed sales of the One Piece cards +$375. Even the posters were selling to fans for $50-$100.

Halftime Shows as Live Collabs

Select games feature special One Piece halftime shows with marching bands and cheer squads performing “We Are!”, the anime’s iconic opening theme. During those performances, shirts fly into the crowd.

A pep band performed the One Piece theme during the Rutgers Basketball halftime show

One Piece motion is insane pic.twitter.com/U7NCblEusD
— unonumero56 (@unonumero_56) January 24, 2026

That matters because it reframes a normal conference game as a themed experience, drawing in new fans and collectors. It’s less of a freebie night and more mini pop-culture drop, which is exactly how modern collectors tend to think about value.

Why One Piece, Why Now?

One Piece isn’t a niche property. The franchise has 510 million+ manga copies in circulation worldwide, a 25-plus-year anime run, and a Netflix live-action series with Season 2 arriving March 10, 2026. Pair that global momentum with college basketball’s rabid in-arena energy, and you get a perfect overlap of superfans, students, and collectors.

In-person look at the LA Dodgers x One Piece GP Luffy leader and hat! pic.twitter.com/PCWFtFWbC9
— BADA (@badaTCG) July 3, 2025

One Piece previously executed a high-profile activation with the Los Angeles Dodgers, proving that anime-to-sports crossovers can work at scale. A PSA 10 version of the Dodgers giveaway routinely sells for +$2,400, while the straw hat and the ungraded card fetch $1,250.

Upcoming Stops to Watch

If you missed the initial games, check the schedule for upcoming matchups against top programs including Saint Mary’s, UConn, Nebraska, Xavier, Washington State, Kansas State, Michigan, Villanova, Arizona, Oregon, and Baylor.

For collectors, that means opportunity still exists—but once the tour ends March 4, that’s it.