The National and Sports Cards Nonsense Media Turn the Hobby’s Biggest Show Into a Year-Round Story
For decades, the National Sports Collectors Convention (taking place July 29-August 2, 2026 in Rosemont, IL) has been the hobby’s annual pilgrimage. A five-day stretch where the entire collecting world gathers in one place and everything else briefly fades away.
Now that experience is expanding far beyond the convention floor.
Through a new partnership with the Sports Cards Nonsense Media Network (SCN), the National Sports Collectors Convention is positioning itself as a year-round storytelling platform, one that focuses less on what gets bought and sold and more on the people and next generation driving the modern hobby.
The shift comes at a moment of sustained growth. The 2025 National drew more than 100,000 collectors for the second consecutive year of double-digit attendance increases, reflecting a market that continues to expand in both size and cultural relevance.
What was once a once-a-year event has become the physical center of a community that now lives online every day. This collaboration is designed to mirror that reality.
From Transactions to Journeys: ‘National Stories’
At the heart of the partnership is National Stories, a content series built to document the collectors themselves: the road trips, first-time visits, family traditions, and reunions that define the show as much as the cards inside the cases.
“The National has become a 365 day-a-year environment ,” said the JBJ Promotions NSCC show managers. “The partnership with Sports Card Nonsense allows us to leverage SCN as the key hub for news and information, and we appreciate their support for these important hobby community initiatives.”
For many attendees, the National is not simply a marketplace. It is a destination. By focusing on those experiences, the series reflects the hobby’s broader evolution, where connection and community increasingly drive engagement as much as product releases and price movements.
The strongest growth in collecting over the past decade has come from shared experiences, and the National remains the one place where every part of the hobby intersects in real time.
Teaching the Next Generation Through the Hobby
The second pillar of the partnership may have the most long-term impact.
The National’s Youth Collector Clubs Initiative, developed with educator Samuel Evans and launched in Chicago alongside Curtis Granderson’s Chicago Baseball and Educational Academy, uses collecting as a framework to teach financial literacy, negotiation, and entrepreneurship.
As Gen Z and Gen Alpha enter the hobby through content, culture and commerce simultaneously, collecting has become a practical introduction to real-world business skills. Young collectors are not just building sets; they are running tables, managing inventory, studying market trends and creating their own media channels.
By amplifying the program through SCN’s platform, the initiative moves from a local effort to a national conversation about how the hobby prepares for current and future generations.
The Digital Convention Floor
SCN’s reach makes that possible. Across podcasts, newsletters, Collectibles on SI, social communities and video distribution, the network has become the hobby’s daily gathering place; think of it as the digital version of the National’s main aisle.
That scale turns the show from a moment into an ongoing narrative, building anticipation throughout the year and extending its impact long after the final booth is packed.
"This partnership is personal for us because we have always been about the cards and the people," said Mike Gioseffi, Co-Founder of Sports Cards Nonsense. "The National is where our community comes together. We are excited to use our platform to tell stories about passionate collectors, while helping provide the next generation with important life skills learned through collecting."
An Always-On Cultural Impact
Since its first show in 1980, the National has been the hobby’s physical gathering spot. This partnership pushes it toward becoming its cultural one. Cards and transactions will always be the foundation. But the long-term growth of the industry will be driven by the experiences, relationships and life skills that collecting creates.
The National has always been where the hobby comes together. Now it is becoming the place where its story never stops being told.
Lucas Mast is a writer based in California’s Bay Area, where he’s a season ticket holder for St. Mary’s basketball and a die-hard Stanford athletics fan. A lifelong collector of sneakers, sports cards, and pop culture, he also advises companies shaping the future of the hobby and sports. He’s driven by a curiosity about why people collect—and what those items reveal about the moments and memories that matter most.
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