Soccer Jerseys are the New Sneakers?

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Welcome to Alts & Ends, your lively guide to collectible market happenings. In this edition, we examine a burgeoning market in vintage soccer jerseys and the fallout from a tepid week of art sales in New York.

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The Collector’s Golden Goal

The European football season is coming to a close. Manchester City won a fourth straight Premier League title, Real Madrid is marching towards another Champions League victory, and in just a few short months, they’ll prepare to do it all over again. Sometimes in football, it seems like the only things that change are the kits. 

As is tradition, clubs have begun to reveal their new kits for the season ahead, soon relegating this year’s edition to clearance sales. But this summer’s bargain-buy could become a $500 prize years down the road. Unbeknownst to many, vintage football jerseys - even the replicas - have become a globally popular collectible category. 

Those unaware here in the United States might soon familiarize themselves ahead of the 2026 World Cup. At least that’s part of the thesis fueling The Chernin Group’s $38.5 million investment in Classic Football Shirts, a UK-based seller of all varieties of vintage football jerseys. While the company may be lesser known to residents of the US, it's a staple in England, generating nearly $24 million in revenue in the 12 months ending June 30, 2022. Those figures grew from humble beginnings in 2006 when the company started with maxed-out credit cards and a goal of selling ten shirts daily. That meager daily volume has now grown to 2,000 - 2,500 shirts.

So why football jerseys? And what drives their value?

Unlike in American sports, clubs release a new set of jerseys every season. That practice has obvious commercial appeal for the clubs, who can reliably sell new jerseys to the same customers annually. It also ensures that less popular jerseys subject fans to only one year of pain; meanwhile, Broncos fans are stuck with their newly released atrocities for seasons to come, and the Patriots continue to look like a franchise built in Madden Create-A-Team, with uniforms as devoid of appeal as the offensive roster.

From a collectability standpoint though, a potent, nostalgic association with a specific season is more important than any of these factors. Fans can vividly picture the jersey on a player's back when he scored that pivotal goal. Those images are burned indelibly into our memories for a lifetime, and owning the jersey becomes a physical expression of that memory. In that way, nostalgia can be a significant driver of demand, as it is in many other collectible categories. 

There's more to demand for football jerseys than nostalgia alone. Consider a few factors:

• Usage. Not surprisingly, a market hierarchy exists relating to usage, ranging from game-worn at the top to match-issued to simple replicas available in retail settings. While the worn items are most valuable, it’s the retail jerseys that comprise the vast majority of shirts sold. 

• Club. The size of a club’s following and its global appeal matter; generally, a Real Madrid jersey will attract more demand than a Gillingham jersey. But greater size can also mean greater production…

• Season. The associated season contributes incremental value - a jersey from the “Galacticos” Madrid era of Ronaldo, Zidane, and Roberto Carlos cultivates a stronger nostalgic pull than a less memorable and less trophy-laden era.

And last but certainly not least…

• Aesthetics. Because football jerseys sit at a unique intersection of streetwear and nostalgia, pure aesthetics play a role. Some jerseys are iconic and valuable simply because they look incredible, with bonus points awarded for memorable and likable sponsors.

As with other markets, demand is just one component shaping values. For a jersey to be valuable, it has to be both desirable and scarce. Time does most of the heavy lifting for those jerseys of the ‘80s and ‘90s, with most jerseys worn into deterioration, leaving behind scant supply in strong condition. Another variable is the inclusion of a player’s name on the back. Some players are inextricably linked with a certain season’s jersey, but the supply of specific player jerseys is generally lower than the mass-produced plain versions. 

Among more recent jerseys, lower production of popular designs can fail to satiate demand. Lower production can result from a few factors. Manufacturers may produce away or third kits in lower quantities than primary, home kits. Alternatively, a club or nation might not be globally popular enough to merit significant production runs. But when a design is well received, as Nigeria’s 2018 World Cup shirt was, the scarcity of the jersey quickly becomes a story, further increasing the desirability. 

Though collectors in the United States have expressed a thesis on global and obsessive soccer culture through cards over the last few years, it seems an obvious fixture of the match-going public was an attractive alternative all along. One thing is clear: by the time this season's jerseys enter the "vintage" category, the market for football jerseys will have changed dramatically.  

Extra-time. This is a condensed version of our briefing on the football jersey market. For more context - on the role Classic Football Shirts plays, on what the category can learn from growth in the sneaker markets, and what needs to change to unlock future growth - go deeper here.

Solemn Spring

If the energy seems a little down right now in the Big Apple, it was a disappointing week for both art and sports.

The major sales of the 2024 spring art season closed with little to celebrate, and there will be no ticker-tape parade down Broadway for the local basketball team. 

Oh, are you confused? We understand. If you spent any time on X, formerly known as Twitter, over the past few weeks, you might have thought that the Knicks won the 2024 NBA Championship. No, all that excitement and hype was over the 50-win Knicks surviving in six games in a first-round tilt with the Philadelphia 76ers. The bubbling energy burst last week though, as the Knicks were bounced from the playoffs in seven games by the Indiana Pacers.

Art prices didn’t crumble quite as much as the Knicks title hopes, but the 2024 spring sales came and went with little fanfare. The numbers delivered during the week were still impressive. In total, more than $1.4 billion worth of art was sold in New York across Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips, and Bonhams.

Christie’s weathered the storm of ongoing cyber issues to sell a pair of works for more than $30 million, as the house’s total sales reached $413 million, up from $330 million in 2023. The 20th Century Evening Sale in particular delivered a 25% year-over-year increase in volume. The most expensive painting sold by Christie’s was Andy Warhol’s Flowers, which realized $35.5 million, more than doubling the record for any previous sale from the Flowers series.

At Sotheby’s, it was Claude Monet’s Meules à Giverny that led the New York sales with a price tag of $34.8 million. The Contemporary Evening sale at Sotheby’s saw every lot sold hammer for at least $1 million, while their Modern Evening event closed with 38 seven-figure results. The total sales across the Contemporary Day and Evening auctions at Sotheby’s eclipsed $300 million and their Modern auctions realized $290 million.

The highest-end works were dominated by familiar names like Basquiat, Picasso, Magritte, and Warhol, as male artists continued to outpace demand for their female contemporaries. Joan Mitchell continued to climb the ranks as she led all female artists with more than $60 million in sales. Contributing to the impressive total were four paintings that realized more than $10 million, three of which sold in a single night at Sotheby’s.

Overall, sell-through rates remained above 90% across nearly all spring sales, with events buoyed by irrevocable bids and pre-sale guarantees. There were a few notable records established throughout the week including the $13.6 million achieved by Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled (America #3), which doubled the Cuban-born artist’s previous high.

For those wondering, the artwork is a string of 42 lightbulbs connected to an electrical cord. If you’re thinking “There’s no way a string of lights could sell for $13.6 million”, you might have your sanity, but you would be incorrect.

For now, it’s too early to tell if the art market is experiencing a correction, or just a return to reality. Without context, the decline sounds detrimental. The $1.4 billion in total spring sales represents a 22% decline versus 2023 and a 36% drop from 2022. Today’s art market is driven by large single-owner sales - which this season lacked - and high-end nine-figure pieces – which again, this season lacked. For further context, in the spring of 2015, Christie’s delivered the first billion-dollar week in art market history. We now stand less than a decade later and a $1.4 billion week can represent a 36% decline over a two-year period.

Sometimes a breakout year and high hopes can distort reality. In a trend found across much of the collectibles world, the art market now faces an uphill battle to reach record-breaking results that came during unprecedented times.

Speaking of distorted reality, did we mention Knicks fans already?

Breaking News!!

Yesterday, Heritage Auctions announced that it will sell Babe Ruth’s jersey from Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. In that game, Ruth infamously called his shot, creating one of the great moments in baseball lore. The jersey last sold for $940,000 in 2005 at Grey Flannel. At the time, that was a massive result, but there’s a notable difference today.

The jersey has been photomatched by MeiGray.

Rapid reaction: Heritage has set expectations for a $30 million result for the jersey, and the opening bid will be $7.5 million. There is little doubt that, when the hammer falls in late August, the jersey will break both the records for most expensive sports collectible ($12.6 million) and most expensive sports memorabilia (non-card, $10.1 million). The question is by how much?

Bidding past $20 million will require the attention of incredibly deep pockets. Ultimately, the result will tell us much about the extent to which cultural collectors outside the traditional sports memorabilia collecting realm buy into both the cultural lore of sports collectibles and the photomatching concept.

This is an item that transcends sports and sits at the very heart of American pop culture.

Results Round-Up

• The napkin that sealed Lionel Messi’s future with Barcelona sold for £762,400 at Bonham’s, or about $967k.

• Heritage tallied two massive vintage baseball sales, selling a 1920 Walter Johnson jersey for $2,010,000 and a 1955 Sandy Koufax jersey (which could be his debut) for $1,800,000. Both were photo-matched. However, a 1968 Mantle jersey with a $3,000,000 estimate did not hit its reserve.

• PWCC sold Chet Holmgren’s 1-of-1 National Treasures Rookie Logoman Auto for $144,000. The card, which is perhaps the most desirable Holmgren card, was not yet graded. But in an illustration of differing collectability, Victor Wembanyama’s Gold Prizm, numbered to 10 and graded BGS 9.5, sold for $150,000.

• The fascination with the CoroCoro Pikachu Illustrator card may be fading, as PWCC sold a CGC 8 copy for $204,000, which is the lowest result we could identify since 2016.

The work of Leonora Carrington, a British-born surrealist artist who passed away in 2011, has seen considerable momentum in the last decade. Despite that momentum, going into last week, the record sale for one of her works was $3.25 million, achieved in 2022. But the Modern Evening Auction at Sotheby’s was set to change that, as one of her best pieces, Les Distractions de Dagobert, came to auction with an estimate of $12,000,000 - $18,000,000.

It ultimately sold for $28,485,000.

Why did it fly so high above estimates? Pure passion. There was one bidder who would not be deterred, having lived with nearly 30 years of regret in losing the bidding for the work as the underbidder in 1995. Then, the work sold for just $475,000.

Over those three decades, it 60X’d in value, appreciating at a rate of 15% annually gross of buyer’s premium. While the winning bidder missed that appreciation, he won’t miss another moment of enjoyment and can bid farewell to regret.

Also on the slate:

• Closing 5/23 - Sotheby’s NBA Auctions: Playoff Contenders

• Closing 5/24 - 5/25 - Heritage Video Games Signature Auction

• Closing 5/25 - Heritage Movie Posters Signature Auction

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