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Today is a deep dive into Cristiano Ronaldo:
- Cristiano Ronaldo 2003 Panini Mega Craques PSA 10 IPO’ing on Rally
Table of Contents
Cristiano Ronaldo 2003 Panini Mega Craques PSA 10
About the asset
This is a Cristiano Ronaldo rookie card from the 2002-03 Panini Mega Craques set. Graded PSA 10, there are 37 other identical cards in circulation with none higher.
This is Ronaldo’s most valuable and widely-accepted rookie card.
About the drop
This asset will drop on Rally 8th October 2021 at noon EST with a market cap of $175k and no retained equity.
Add IPO to calendar
About Cristiano Ronaldo
Read our write-up of Ronaldo. He’s not a nice person.
Recent sales history and Valuation
Rally bought this card from Goldin Auctions 11th August 2021 for $156k, which was the bottom of a downward trend before Goldin sold an identical Ronaldo rookie 4th October 2021 for $312k. Well done to the buying team at Rally.
This was a big sale in the football (soccer) card world, and it got a lot of attention.
CardLadder picked it up as a new ATH.
:// Generate —> #CardLadder #LadderHeadlines
— Card Ladder (@CardLadder) October 6, 2021
The 2003 Panini Sports Cristiano Ronaldo Mega Craques #137 PSA 10 (pop 38) notched a record high when it sold for $319,800.00 (Oct 04, 2021) via Auction with Goldin Auctions. The card sold for $41,211.00(Sep 27, 2020) a year earlier. pic.twitter.com/o5Ozs5uiE7
Primo Soccer was on the case
Soccer cards are showing no sign of slowing down! ????
— PRIMO SOCCER (@PrimoSoccer) October 4, 2021
The 2003 Panini Sports Cristiano Ronaldo Mega Craques PSA 10 just sold at @goldinauctions for a huge $319,800 USD!!! ????
According to Goldin Auctions this is an all-time record for any @Cristiano card! #cr7 pic.twitter.com/8qJbnZPDQd
And Goldin tooted its own horn a bit.
Final Sale Price: $319,800
— Goldin Auctions (@GoldinAuctions) October 3, 2021
An all-time record for any @Cristiano card. pic.twitter.com/UuVWZP7DxF
Soccer Cards United also highlighted the sale on its podcast.
We need to figure out if it was an outlier / one-off, or if it’s indicative of the negative trend reversing. Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United may have played a part.
United does have a slightly bigger global brand than Juventus does, particularly in the English-speaking parts of the world.
I’ve got no insight into the customer demographics at Goldin, but I would guess they mostly come from english-speaking parts of the world. The US, UK, Australia, etc. So re-joining ManU (and doing very well there so far), will certainly help his card values.
On the other hand, Messi. Ronaldo and Messi are the top two players in the world and have been for some time. Ronaldo’s got a slightly bigger international brand (352m Insta followers v Messi’s 272m), but their rookie cards have historically traded in lockstep, more or less: Messi’s card, with a 50% smaller population, has usually been around 2x Ronaldo’s.
This sale shattered that trend.
So, either:
- Messi’s cards are worth more than we think they are,
- Ronaldo’s move to ManU has put his values ahead of Messi’s, or
- I’m missing something
No question Messi’s move from Barcelona to PSG is going to hurt his global brand both absolutely and relative to Ronaldo.
Unfortunately we’re not going to get any useful data points for another couple of weeks when Goldin’s current elite auction ends.
Zooming out, there are two good comps we can look at across other sports: LeBron James and Tom Brady. They’re both the best players of their generation for their respective sports, and we have plenty of their cards to look at.
Baseball doesn’t have a great comp for this, because Mike Trout has only been playing since 2009.
LeBron James (99m Insta followers)
LeBron’s got eight different cards valued at over $1m according to CardLadder and 22 valued above the record-setting sale at Goldin.
Tom Brady (10m Insta followers)
Brady’s got five cards valued over $1m and eight cards valued over $320k.
I do worry a bit the sale above was an anomaly, but long-term, I believe the card (and Messi’s) is undervalued right now.
I’m happy to stick with the current value based on that sale and will be watching the Goldin Elite sale closely over the next couple of weeks.
Inferred Value: $320k
Verdict
This is a recommended buy. I’ve got some lingering concerns the comp we’re all really excited about was a one off, but even if it is, there are significant tailwinds behind football (soccer) cards in terms of how untapped the market is. I believe football cards will continue to gain momentum over the next several years to the point where Ronaldo / Messi are closer to par with LeBron and Brady.
That said, I could be wrong. In August, Goldin asked for everyone’s predictions about undervalued cards / trends, and only a few responses of 118 were about football.
What is the most undervalued card right now?
— Goldin Auctions (@GoldinAuctions) August 27, 2021
(Can’t wait to RT some of these replies in 5 years lol)
