Kevin O’Leary, the “Shark Tank” panelist lovingly known as “Mr. Wonderful,” made a major statement in the sports card hobby when he revealed that he was in the group that purchased the Kobe Bryant-Michael Jordan dual logoman card for nearly $13 million.
The 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection dual logoman autographed 1-of-1 received 82 during the two-day auction, which ended Sunday. The card was graded by Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) at a six out of 10. The card sold for just over $12.932 million.
O’Leary is a collector at heart. He has a wide-ranging collection of watches and pens, but his interest in sports card collecting only piqued a few years ago after he started talking with Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin. Fanatics bought Topps trading cards in January 2022. O’Leary told FOX Business that after speaking to Rubin he began to research the hobby.
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“The thing that’s amazing about the hobby is the relationship between a father or a mother and a daughter and a son because if you look at collecting, everything you need to learn about entrepreneurship is baked in to what happens when you start to collect cards,” he said. “’Should I buy it? Will it go up in value? Should I sell it?’ These are the decisions that kids that are five and six years old are getting into. And as a result, we got multiple generations, particularly father-sons that have been forever. So, I was really intrigued.”
O’Leary said he dug into “piece uniques” of the hobby – or items that a person could buy at a crazy price and turn into a major profit well down the line.
He then spoke to well-connected hobbyists like Matthew Allen (known as Shyne150 in the collector world) and Paul Warshaw to get a better understanding of the market. O’Leary said he told Allen he wanted to build an index akin to his watch collection.
“And I said, ‘If we go to buy a card, we’re going to buy it,’” O’Leary recalled to FOX Business when he spoke to Allen and Warshaw about the purchase. “There’s no maybe. We’re gonna buy it. And Shyne said, ‘This is the No. 1 card on Earth.’ A lot of it has to do with that gold patch logoman. It’s mesmerizing.”
O’Leary said he believed there were going to be “three major players” for the card. One guy dropped out during the last moments of the bidding and he knew the other person he was bidding with was a serious buyer.
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“He is a serious dude,” O’Leary said. “I could feel it right through the computer this guy was a serious dude. So, we knew it was going to be huge and it was.”
The entrepreneur said he wasn’t prepared for the reaction he received because of the purchase and he hoped to get more in the future.
“Every piece I get is virtually going to be a ‘piece unique.’ I’m gonna build an index,” he said. “Now, the reason I’m doing this as an investment, I looked at the numbers, the returns have been phenomenal. This card we just paid $12.9 million for once traded for $75,000. That is a (Jackson) Pollock story. That is a (Pablo) Picasso story. That is an F.P .Journe sort of thing in the watch world.
“It’s really gotten a lot of fathers calling me about what this means for the hobby and everything else. I think it’s fantastic.”
The O’Leary group purchase set the record for a basketball card. The previous record was set by a 2009-10 National Treasures Stephen Curry logoman autograph card when it sold in a private sale.
“While the NBA logo sourced from a Kobe jersey is provided in its standard patriotic colorway, the golden logo beside it assures participation in the glorious 1996-97 season that saw Jordan claim the penultimate NBA Championship of his storied career,” Heritage Auctions’ description of the card read. “Framing these twin logos are blue felt tip signatures that remain as bold as the date of their application. The result is a dazzling showpiece with aesthetics worthy of the subject matter.”
O’Leary said he remained fascinated by the card and had no plans to sell it.
“What I do is build indexes. It’s a labor of love – it’s half art, half science,” he explained to FOX Business. “But what’s the emotional connection with the card? For me, with that card, it’s that gold logoman. It’s unique. It’s a piece unique.
“I can’t stop looking at it and neither can anybody else. It’s very, very cool and its in our index now and it’s not going anywhere else. So, that piece is off the market forever, at least my forever. Everything else I get is going to be very similar.”
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