My capstone essay and project is on sports card. My main inquiry question is, “What is the process of making a Baseball card and how has the business of Baseball cards changed over time?”

The process of my capstone project was long, exciting and challenging at some times. One thing that was challenging was memorizing my script.  The reason it was long is because there were tons of steps. Some steps where, thinking of questions, doing research. Lots of it, drafting a lot of versions of my script. One thing that helped me was making a essay. This helped me because once my essay was done it gave me a structure for my script. The next step was making the presentation. I chose to do a TedTalk. I chose this because I wanted to talk in front of people and because I got to move the slides and chose how long each slide is while a ignite is each slide 15 seconds and the slides auto advance. This included making a slideshow, putting in text and images and much more. After all of that the next step was the hardest in my opinion. This step was memorizing my script. The reason this was really hard was because my script is long and it took hours and hours too memorize the whole thing. One thing that helped me was making note cards. These helped on my first few presentation’s before I fully memorized my script. All of these steps took a while but were actually really fun! (Down below is my capstone essay and a link to my final presentation)

This is my capstone essay:

Most people have seen a sports card; whether it’s a baseball, basketball, or football card. But have you ever wondered how a card is made or how the business has changed over time? My main inquiry question is “What is the process of making a sports card and how has the business of sports cards changed over time?” The process of making a card is very long and has a lot of important steps.    The business back then was very up and down with popularity and profits. New technology has made the business more profitable.

Although sports cards are easy to find. The process of making a card is very long and has a lot of important steps. Well the way Topps a sports cards business  does it is First they sign individual contracts during spring training with every MLB player. It is really important that they do this so they don’t get fined and have to pay more then they already do to use the image. The fee is usually around $5000 and that money goes to an athlete or organization. Next every player gets a photo session for the cards and there is a process on which photo is the best and what is the best background for it and special features for it for example holograms foil or special paper. Finally, outside companies produce them then Topps cut and ship them to some sellers and sometimes they sell it on their website.

You may be wondering what the business was like in the 18 and 1900’s. The business back then was very up and down with popularity and profits. Well the first card printed was in the 1860’s but it was just a piece of cardboard with a drawing on it. In 1869 the first set of professional baseball teams. The Cincinnati Red stockings were produced.  1909-1915 was known as the golden era for sports cards. In the 1940s when World war ll came cards became less popular because paper was scarce. By the 1980s cards were becoming hot again but There were about 6 or 7 new companies  that came and made baseball cards and there were just a ton of cards in the market. By the 1990s it was less popular and no one was excited and a lot of companies went out of business. But now sports cards are the hot new thing and I think based on my research they are going to stay the hot thing for a while. Now with  New technology coming out is and will keep making  the business more profitable.

When I was doing my research on sports cards, I interviewed an expert on that topic and I asked How do you see sports cards changing in the next couple of years? He said We are starting to see sports cards change a lot. These  past few months there has been an increased focus on digital cards. New technology where Topps make digital versions of cards and is unique and cannot be copied makes it special. Topps just released with NFT technology last month. In the future instead of going to the store he thinks it will be digital and not physical. You can sell a digital card online and Topps makes money on future sales because they can track the sale.

In conclusion,  The process of making a card is very long and important. The business back in the 18 and 1900’s was very up and down with popularity and profits.  New technology has made the business more profitable. Hopefully this information taught you a lot and maybe one day you can start a sports card company.

Overall capstone was a lot of fun and very educational. It taught me how to conduct an interview, it taught me how to conduct a interview, how to put together a slide show, and learn how to present something, plus lots more.

This is my final presentation: