Tom Brady is making waves in the hobby, especially across the Northeast.
CardVault by Tom Brady just opened its fourth location, this one coming at American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey — right next to MetLife Stadium.
That store joins locations near Gillette Stadium, the TD Garden and Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.
Cllct traveled to the opening of the American Dream location for exclusive interviews with Tom Brady and CardVault co-founder and managing partner Chris Costa.
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Here is our full conversation with Costa. (The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity:)
Darren Rovell: What's the history of the CardVault before Tom Brady?
Costa: So we started the business as CardVault a little over four years ago, but I've been a collector my entire life.
I grew up traveling to the shows across the country: the Dallas Show, the National, the New York shows. (I was) buying and selling and trading everything from Mantle rookies to Brady refractors to Babe Ruth Goudeys, and my business grew on that front. And then the stars aligned.
Now my partners, not including Tom, they own one of the largest nightlife and hospitality businesses in New England. And at the beginning of the pandemic, when nightlife and hospitality in the world was closing its doors, we decided, well, hey, cards are pretty exciting right now. They've been exciting to me my whole life.
Why don't we look at starting a business? And that's where the business was started.
We opened our first location at Gillette Stadium, our second location at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, and our third location at TD Garden, and here we are in our fourth location and our first new location with Tom as a partner.
Rovell: Now what I find interesting about your strategy, not the Tom part, but where you're putting yourself is, it's that people will happen upon it. And it might not necessarily be a (decision of) "I am going to it." The card stores that are "I'm going to it," have a little bit harder business. If you put it in the right place of foot traffic ... So is that kind of the strategy? (To) be in places where there's other things going on, but people will stop because they're into cards?
Costa: Absolutely. I think we're building the next generation of card stores. Now the local hobby shop is super important to me. It's super important to us, and it's super important to the entire hobby, right? But we feel like there's a gap.
There are roughly 160 million fans who attend events live in the United States every year, and only a fraction, a small fraction, of those fans are collecting. And we believe there are a lot of them, a vast majority of them that are willing and want to collect. They don't know where to go. They don't know how to start. They don't know what to do.
Put it in front of the fan's face. Put the cards in their eyes, and when they see it, they will come.
THE RIVALRY IS ALIVE AND WELL ????
— cllct (@cllctMedia) April 12, 2025
It couldn't just be a coincidence that there is only ONE Eli Manning card on display at @CardVaultTB in NJ, right!? pic.twitter.com/HTyqUBtLex
Rovell: How hard is it to maintain a card store these days when we have eBay comps. Now back in the 1980s, you know, it was just a local area. Right now, I see this is $35, this is $100.
I do, by the way, notice there are more affordable cards than I would have thought. If I'm looking in these cases here, I'm seeing a lot of $35 to $200 cards. Tell me about that strategy. And also, how much are people looking at the phone, and do they expect to find an exact comp when they come here?
Costa: Great question. So you know, our inventory, as you mentioned, is curated for an entry-level collector right now. Keep in mind, we absolutely can and are built to support an avid collector.
I fully expect Darren Rovell to be able to come into a CardVault by Tom Brady and get a deal done. But we also think it's really important for a new collector, a young collector to be able to come in and buy their favorite Tom Brady card for $30, their favorite Michael Penix card for $50, their favorite Eli Manning card for $5.
So we carry all of that and then some, and we feel like that's a really important component of what we do, and putting cards in front of non-collectors. And then as far as what we're seeing in our stores, sure, right? Everybody knows how to comp cards these days, or I shouldn't say everybody, but all collectors know how to comp cards these days, and we're always fighting against that.
But one of the benefits, and one of the really great things about having a brick-and-mortar store is you get to give a customer cash now, right? You get to cash them out now and give them liquidity to be able to use wherever they want.
So I think card shops, in the physical card shop, will always have that advantage. They'll always have that benefit. You can give the customer liquidity now so they can reinvest it into a new player, a new product, a new hit, a new case, a new chase.
So, while, yes, it's frustrating to have to fight the comp machine every day ...
Rovell: Right. Because you're brick-and-mortar, you're paying more, but there is also we're living in this kind of degenerate economy. My twin sons basically open up cards over a garbage can, and if it's not numbered or isn't foiled, it goes into the garbage.
Costa: Bring them here. Bring them to CardVault by Tom Brady, because we'll take them.
Rovell: I'm just saying people want it now. Yeah, they don't want it in the mail tomorrow or Monday, and I think that kind of helps the immediacy as well.
Costa: Absolutely. Without a doubt. And I think it's also the experience you provide, right? We seek and aim to be an educational experience for collectors, for new collectors, for non-collectors.
We want to be able to push people in the right direction with reason on why a certain product is a certain way, why a certain card costs a certain amount of money. Why you might want to open Bowman baseball versus Topps Chrome baseball.
We want to be able to provide that education to create the next wave of collectors across the country. That's literally what we're doing. We're trying to be the entry point for the new collector, while still being able to have enough savvy to support the advanced collector like a Darren Rovell.
Rovell: Now let's bring in the Tom Brady part, which is, I don't know the deal, but I assume he got a whole bunch of extra points for being Tom Brady, right? That makes sense.
Costa: Absolutely.
Rovell: How much is it worth to you?
Costa: Great question. Something that we're constantly keeping an eye on, right? What is the Brady effect?
Now, we love Tom. Tom's an amazing partner. He's a savvy business person, and his insight, his input, his network, are priceless, right? But at the same time, we have to monitor, "Hey, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? Where are we pushing the right buttons? Where are we pulling the right levers?"
Our business is up 50% month over month with Tom on as a partner. Now it's still early, and certainly some of that is organic growth, because we've been growing as a business, but we attribute a large portion of that to Tom coming on, his brand, his personality, his likeness, and not only that, but his vision.
A lot of what we're doing is part of our original vision and core vision, but so many of the changes and the moving pieces and the adjustments are coming out of his mind, and he has been so collaborative. His team is incredible. You could tell he loves doing it. He loves it. He absolutely loves it.
So to answer your question, long and short, it has had a massive impact, and we couldn't be happier to have him on as a part.
Rovell: Have you guys played around with some of the Brady stuff coming out of his vault, the signed cards? He has had some inscriptions that have already been slabbed at PSA?
Costa: Well, listen, I'm a collector. I've always been a collector. I always will be a collector.
So just the opportunity to see Tom Brady's collection was one of the coolest experiences of my life, being able to handle them, being able to talk to him about why he chose certain cards over others, why he chose certain players over others. That has been one of the coolest experiences of my collecting journey. Not the fact that we've partnered, which is a close second.
But, yeah, I think really understanding what makes him tick is really shown and represented through what he collects, which I think is fascinating. And, yeah, to your point, he's got some really impressive stuff that I don't think everybody knows about.
I think they're starting to learn about it, and it'll definitely be on display at the National and at Fanatics Fest, and we're super proud to be able to display some of that in our booth. But I think Tom as a collector, has evolved so much, not just in the last couple months being a partner in this business, but over the last few years.
You hear the stories about how he has had access to his cards over the years, and he never got rid of them. He never sold them. He kept them, he hoarded them. That's special. That's impressive.
Rovell: What can we expect? This might be the hardest question, the fact that you've partnered with Tom — Tom's a Fanatics person. Fanatics owns Topps. Does that give you a little bit more access as well to product?
Costa: I think your question's valid. Tom has a really great relationship with Fanatics, as do we, and as we do with all manufacturers. Tom's network, like I said, has also been super instrumental in us helping for them, be able to build the business and get access to bright minds and get access to meetings and conversations that are pivotal in us being able to scale the business the way we want.
The goal is a store a month until further notice.
Rovell: Wow.
Costa: So a store a month, until further notice, that's the goal. And it's putting card shops in the most iconic locations, venue-adjacent to ballparks, arenas, stadiums, concert venues, retail meccas like this at American Dream, we want to bring the cards to the people.
Rovell: Does the Tom Brady (effect) get you a discount on the rent?
Costa: You know what? Really good question.
Rovell: Because, you know, it is seen as, all of a sudden, a an attraction, versus a normal card store with the three words "by Tom Brady."
Costa: You'd think you were a businessman. The Tom Brady effect has not just been our following, our customer base, our sales, our foot traffic. It's absolutely been our negotiating power with partners. Real Estate locations, retail locations.
Who wouldn't want Tom Brady opening a business in their local property? So that's absolutely been a you know piece of the puzzle. It has been super helpful, as have a number of other you know components of this partnership.
But my favorite part of the partnership is that Tom's excited about it. It's not about, "Hey, how can I apply pressure, or how can I add value?" He's excited about building a business, and he's excited about the hobby, which I think is the coolest part of the whole deal.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.