Forget about the $1.50 hot dog combo and the double chocolate chunk cookies. One of the hottest items at Costco in recent weeks has been a box of football cards.
Released earlier this month exclusively at Costco locations, the 2024 Panini Donruss Football Bundle Box, which features the new 5-inch-by-7-inch Jumbo Downtown insert, has been scooped up by collectors by the pallet.
Originally retailing for $56.99, sealed boxes, which contain 81 total cards, have been flipped on the secondary market for as much as $175 each, according to Card Ladder, with one buyer paying $1,300 for 15 boxes.
Part of Panini’s continued push to grow its retail footprint, the deal with Costco was something the company expected to work.
Panini didn’t expect the bundle to be this popular, however — and Costco probably didn’t either, with it now limiting the number of bundles each customer can purchase.
“The intent was never to have these packs be broken or anything like that,” Panini’s VP of product development Jim Stefano told cllct. “It’s a mass product, and [Costco] worked with us for a long time. We’ve had dozens of other retailers come, and we said no. But in this case, the results are just phenomenal right now in every area, in every aspect of why we chose to go where we did.”
This is far from Costco’s first attempt to sell trading cards, with the retailer known to carry Pokemon cards, including the ultra-popular Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Series — 151, but it’s the first time the company has collaborated with Panini on a unique product.
According to Stefano, Panini receives frequent requests from retailers to carry sports cards, but a commitment to long-time partners such as Target and Walmart as well as a preference to be highly-selective has limited who the trading card manufacturer has been willing to work with.
And while Target and Walmart have become the most popular places for collectors to purchase retail products at retail prices, Panini believed it was time to explore a different type of customer that might not be the typical collector. Along with Costco’s Donruss Football bundle, Panini also recently delivered a 2024 NBA Hoops Premium Stock bundle to Sam’s Club that also includes an oversized card.
Once Panini decided the two wholesale retailers were the right fit, it had to develop the right products. In addition to fitting into the right price point — both Costco and Sam’s Club know exactly which price points do well — Panini had to produce the right brand and configuration to win over what it hoped would be newer collectors.
Finding the right brand to fit those parameters wasn’t difficult.
“Donruss has been one of our flagship brands forever,” Stefano said. “The casual collector, or the beginning trading card collector, either knows that name or knows somebody who knows that name.”
Then there’s the Jumbo Downtown insert, which captured extreme interest from football collectors across the hobby immediately. Among Panini’s most coveted short-printed sets, Downtown has been arguably the most important insert featured in Donruss Football and Optic Football during the ultra-modern era.
Being able to include one of Panini’s most popular chases in every box could guarantee collectors would chase it, but Panini also didn’t want a guaranteed hit to ruin the market for the traditional card. Jumbo cards, which have become extremely popular among Pokemon collectors, and box toppers, which have long been included in sports products, provided the evidence Panini needed.
“It’s added value and has worth — and worth can be described in many ways ...” Stefano said. “We’ve all seen other companies do a 5x7-inch in the past, but they aren’t considered traditional trading cards. They are far enough from the traditional 2.5x3.5-inch trading cards that it wouldn’t have an effect on the traditional purchaser, but it gave [Costco] something that only they had in the SKU.”
So far, the oversized Downtowns have sold incredibly well on the secondary market, even if that wasn’t the objective. According to Card Ladder, the highest sale to date for a Jumbo was the $631 paid for a Drake Maye rookie Downtown, and a Caleb Williams rookie Jumbo fetched $500.
The traditional Downtown, which includes a base variation as well as Gold /10 and Black 1/1, has sold for significantly more on the secondary market, with Card Ladder tracking a $4,500 sale for Jayden Daniels’ true Downtown on eBay.
To date, the high sale for Caleb Williams’ true Downtown is $3,000, Bo Nix has fetched $1,200 and Maye has sold for as much as $1,000.
Recent sales, as the hype has decreased, show the Jumbo Downtowns might be turning into the collectors’ items that Panini intended. According to Card Ladder, a Daniels Jumbo sold for just $53 recently, and Williams, Nix and Maye have all recently sold for less than $50.
Sales could also see a shift when graded examples hit the secondary market — PSA confirmed to cllct it has already begun grading the Jumbo Downtown in its oversized holders.
The full release of 2024 Donruss Football should impact the market, too, with it currently only available in Costco’s retail bundle. Panini expects additional retail and hobby configurations to hit the rest of the market in late November or early December.
Based on the sales volume and secondary-market prices, Panini’s first collaboration with the two wholesale retailers appears to be a success. Despite that, collectors might not see the exact same thing again.
“The takeaways have been that it exceeded our expectations ...” Stefano said. “We viewed it as an area of growth, but we’re going to be very cautious moving forward. And when I say cautious, we’re going to go in a different direction and try different things, but we had to start somewhere.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.