It doesn’t take long to know who Annemarie Farrell is
That’s a good thing.
Collector. Communicator. Comedian. Crusader.
Take your pick. Farrell is all of those things, sometimes at the same time. She’s a powder keg of energy waiting to explode.
She’s a sports management professor and men’s rugby coach at New York’s Ithaca College. She’s done the research. She’s studied the stats and made some interesting conclusions on the women’s sports cards and the sports industry.
At the National Sports Collectibles Convention, she was pitching her passion, Women on Topps. Simply put, she uses sports cards to tell stories and promote women’s sports.
I met her as she held court on one side of John Broggi’s JKJ Sports Collectibles. She deals out out quips – some a little bawdy- and is almost always funny and authentically courageous.
Around her are autographed basketballs, jerseys, a signed Alex Morgan poster, and lots of cards.
Of course, there are more than a few Caitlin Clark cards with significant price tags. I ask, what has Clark done for the sport?
She gets a smirk, as she’s reeling in mine. This surge in women’s sports isn’t a thing she’ll tell you. There is no surge.
Then she backpedals. Smiles even more. Then shoots from the hip telling me point-blank. It’s always been popular.
“I think Caitlyn Clark shows up and suddenly people like women sports is a false narrative,” Farrell explained.
To clarify, she’ll mention, that Clark isn’t the savior of the WNBA because the sport, or any women’s sport, didn’t need her But Clark’s talent is definitely a welcome breath of fresh air.
As we talk, half a dozen people are engaged with her products. She had just finished closing on a deal.
The collector also admits she will not make any significant money at the show but she will make connections. She will make friends.
To her, that’s just fine. She’s building the hobby and giving more momentum to women’s sports.
That’s her not-so-secret motivation why she collects. It’s a reference to making positive things happen through the relationships that collecting builds.
She’ll use terms like ‘maliciously generous’ and ‘cardboard karma.’
Being maliciously generous means doing something extraordinary to a friend so they have to return the favor. It’s a game of upping the ante.
She also deals with cardboard karma by ignoring the price. Sometimes she builds a connection with a fan. She says that’s what ends up happening most of most of the time. The karma came in the form of free “GOAT packs” of women’s sports cards as we talked. She made sure to give me a pack. I got an Alex Morgan card in my stack of 10 freebies.
The friendly lecture continued as aimed at another fallacy: the notion that Title IX created women’s sports.
Reeling me in again, she says, “It didn’t. Women have been playing sports since the 1800s and before. Title IX is when people figured out how to make money from women’s sports. (It’s the same with) women’s sports cards, I have women’s sports cards from the late 1800s to Clark.”
She says the sports world, including the sports card industry, needs a reality check. Interest in women’s sports has always been there but the coverage hasn’t. The financial backing hasn’t.
Women have had a relatively sparse selection of cards because they haven’t asked for them.
“I hope people realize cards and companies will produce better products because women sports collectors have accepted the bare minimum. I’m hoping now we’re going to get a lot more.”
Farrell believes women’s sports have taken on a perceptional second-class status because women’s sports fans are just thrilled to have a seat–any seat– at the table they haven’t pushed for more.
“Clark is part of the rise of visibility, but I think the WNBA has always been a great product. It’s just now people realize there was a party.”
Female sports fans have a higher fan loyalty. It’s affinity. She reasons that it’s hard to find the women’s sports products that fans support.
“I’m not stumbling into too many Professional Women’s Hockey League games on TV. Sponsors understand that. All card collecting does is enhance our visibility, just like gambling, just like all these things.”
There will never be a “junk wax” issue for women’s sports cards.
“That’s because we have had little choice in what they could buy. Before (Panini) Origins came out in WNBA this last year, it had been over a decade since we’ve had a relic in a product.
“When the WNBA its 25th anniversary in 2022, Panini produced its Prizm W25 set subset. My question was, ‘Why are there no dual autos in that W25 set?’ Why can’t I get a Candace Parker/Cynthia Cooper? Why can’t I get a Lisa Leslie, Lisa Sylvia Fowles dual autos? They don’t exist. Nobody made them. People would buy them because of our fan affinity.”
She says it makes too much sense. “Women control over 85% of household spending. This room may not be 85% women, but women control most of the transactions on this floor.
“Making women’s sports cards isn’t charity. It’s good business. Everyone believes no one wants women’s sports cards. They don’t make them.”
Farrell believes the new, larger scope of content and niche websites that can talk to a population that is easy to reach and wants dedicated coverage.
Clark has elevated casual fans’ interest in women’s basketball. It’s exposed how elite the WNBA athletes are. Farrell says the casual fan used to see the WNBA as high school basketball.
“So partly, Clark has made people stop thinking about what a 14-year-old girl plays like is what the WNBA. They didn’t understand how good the league was. They didn’t understand how much, how much more elite these players are.”
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