Thanks to NIL, college athletes have trading cards. Their value is hard to quantify.

Arch Manning hasn’t played a down of college football, but he is already setting records.

A Manning trading card produced by Panini sold at a charity auction last month for $102,500, a record price for any card that stemmed from a college athlete’s name, image and likeness deal.

Click here to read the story at washingtonpost.com.

Discussion Questions:

1. What is NIL?
2. Why would a business or brand want to align with a college athlete?
3. Why types of athletes might appeal most to a business or brand as an NIL partner?
4. How do you think NIL has impacted college sports?
5. What are collectibles?
6. What is fandom?
7. Why do you think collectibles are such big business? How might fandom fuel the popularity of collectibles?
8. According to this story, how much did an Arch Manning card from Panini sell for at an auction?
9. Why would anyone want to buy a collectible featuring a player who has yet to play a single down of college football?
10. The headline of this story suggests the value of college athlete trading cards is hard to quantify. What does that mean?
11. Why do you think it is hard to quantify?
12. What is supply and demand?
13. What is a secondary market?
14. How might supply and demand impact prices in the secondary market?
15. Do you think the value of college collectibles will grow in the future? Why or why not?