From ESPN.com

http://msn.espn.go.com/sportsbusines...1/1579655.html

Nothing memorable about this special "event"
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By Darren Rovell
ESPN.com

LOS ANGELES -- Behind the end zone at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Terrell
Suggs stands in front of a table stacked with Baltimore Ravens jerseys. One
by one, he slips them over his head and shoulder pads, then quickly back off
again as if on a quest to find one that fits.


Terrell Suggs' Upper Deck rookie card may include a swatch of clothing from
either a Ray Lewis or Peter Boulware jersey.
The NFL hasn't played a game here since the Raiders left town for Oakland
back in 1995 and, as evidenced by the names and numbers on the uniforms,
Suggs will never wear any of these jerseys in an actual game anyway.
"They're not going to really sell the numbers," said Suggs, who had slipped
off Ray Lewis' No. 52 jersey and on Peter Boulware's No. 58, "they're just
going to sell a piece of the clothing."

As he reaches behind his head to remove yet another jersey, an attendant
stands ready to place it in a pile with others that soon will be shipped
back to Carlsbad, Calif., home of trading card giant Upper Deck. There each
jersey will be cut into 1,000 swatches and inserted into trading cards that
will become part of this year's NFL rookie card collections.

"Event worn" is the tout that has made these special trading cards so
popular and has helped to bolster a once-sagging NFL card market that is
expected to hit $84 million this year. But as Suggs and 29 other recent
draftees proved in May, the "event" is the NFL's Players Rookie Premiere --
an occasion for which players are paid to pose for pictures taken by trading
card companies -- and the jerseys often aren't "worn" for very long.

Nothing wrong with that, said Doug Allen, assistant executive director of
the NFL Players Association, which oversees the event.

"There is absolutely no intent to fool anyone," he said. "We've gone over
the procedure with the card companies and we're very comfortable. Whether a
player wears a jersey for a few minutes or 20 minutes, what difference does
it make as long as it's worn at the event?"

Since game-used memorabilia isn't available from rookies who have never
played in a professional game, card companies have seized on the opportunity
to collect clothing worn and gear used at created events like the Rookie
Premiere. The pictures they take will appear on the cards, and so, too, will
the swatches of jerseys or shoes they quickly try on, or perhaps a piece of
a football they briefly toss around.


Byron Leftwich's rookie trading card, produced by Donruss, notes that the
swatches of jersey and football in it were collected at the "2003 NFL
Players Rookie Premiere." It does not, however, explain what the event is,
or how long the items were used.

"Get a little foot sweat going on," a card company employee tells Byron
Leftwich as the Jacksonville Jaguars' rookie quarterback makes his way
through box after box of football cleats. Players often never bother to tie
the laces before slipping off the shoes and tossing them back into their
box.

At a nearby station, players seated in folding chairs pitch footballs back
and forth to an attendant standing five feet away. After four or five
tosses, the balls are deposited into a box with the player's name on it.

Bill Dully, president of Upper Deck's rival, Donruss, explained the process:

"We want them to put the cleats on. We ask them to; they step into them. We
ask them to put the jerseys on; they step into them. They take them off. We
inventory them. And we send them back here to the building where we put them
into an inventory control system. And then we put them into cards.

"What mainly makes it OK is that on the back of the card we do state in
writing that this is an 'event-used' item and was taken at the NFL Rookie
photo shoot. There is no gray area in our language how we market or what we
put on our cards."

Officials with industry leader Upper Deck refused multiple requests for
comment. The company also declined to issue a statement regarding event-worn
materials included in their cards.

Victor Shaw of Faribault, Minn., a buyer and seller of game-used
memorabilia, including event-worn cards, said he was already a skeptic of
game-used cards in general because the swatches of material are too clean
and actual proof of visible game use is rare. A spot of blood or dirt can
increase the cards value by five to 10 times, he says. But after watching a
video tape of Leftwich going through the motions of trying on shoe after
shoe, Shaw said collectors will be disappointed.

" You need to wear it some time. You can't just try it on. That's not
really fair to the collector. We're expecting something that the player was
with quite a while, not just that he touched it. ... If it's not even part
of the action, then why bother? "
- Collector Victor Shaw, on "event-worn" jerseys that are included in
rookie trading cards
"You need to wear it some time. You can't just try it on," Shaw said.
"That's not really fair to the collector. We're expecting something that the
player was with quite a while, not just that he touched it."

"If it's not even part of the action," he asked, "then why bother?"

Swatches of sports memorabilia, including game-used materials ranging from
footballs and helmets to baseballs and bases, have been layered inside cards
since 1996. These cards have helped to keep alive the sports card industry,
which has steadily declined from its height in the early '90s. Memorabilia
cards are expected to be the driving force in the NFL card industry again
this year, and event-worn rookie cards will comprise between 1 and 5 percent
of all football memorabilia cards, according to Greg Ambrosius, a senior
editor for Sports Collector's Digest, an industry trade publication.

But when Donruss' "2003 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia" arrives in two weeks
at the local hobby store in Hanover, Pa., 11-year-old Jeff Wise said he
would be less inclined to put his entire $20 weekly allowance toward buying
packs for the chance to get an event-worn rookie card. He said he's not
giving up his event-worn collection, but his passion has been dulled because
he does care how long the players have worn the items.

"You don't want it to be just tried on," says Wise, a Ravens fan who owns
more than 100 memorabilia cards -- some "game worn," some "event worn." "You
want it worn ... like an hour maybe. Not just like run out for two passes
and take them off. Or not just throw two passes and switch it. Wear it for
20 passes and run out for a pass 20 times."

Many players at the NFL Players Rookie Premiere seemed unaware of exactly
what was going on at the event-worn stations. Leftwich said it is hard for a
player to monitor everything that was going on over the two-day period and
how all the items would be used.

"Putting a lot of stuff on. Taking a lot of stuff off," Leftwich said at the
Rookie Premiere. "I don't know what they are going to do with the stuff."

Afterward, he added: "I ain't gonna give up their secret. But you know what
they're doing. When you sit there and think about it, you're just doing it.
You don't have a problem with it, you're just happy that they asked you to
be a part of it."

Suggs said he didn't have a problem putting on the items, "as long as people
know that we only had it on for a few minutes."

Shaw has read the back of the cards, but after seeing the amount of use
event-worn materials actually get, he said the card companies still don't
tell collectors enough. If they did, he reasoned, the secondary market for
the cards might be sent on the decline, the result of fewer collectors
buying boxes of the cards.


Michael Vick's 2001 rookie trading card, produced by Upper Deck, has a
swatch of a Falcons' jersey. It is trading on the secondary market for more
than $1,700.
Collectors could stand to lose on the secondary market, as well. A 2001
autographed, event-worn jersey card featuring Michael Vick recently sold for
more than $1,300, but collectors could shy away from spending as much on
items that reek of assembly-line production.

But Howard Wheeler, a longtime collector from Syracuse, N.Y., who recently
purchased two Antwaan Randle El rookie cards, was skeptical that word of how
memorabilia is collected for the card will hurt their value.

"(It is) bogus, in essence. They are barely putting them on," he said. "But
for some of us, that's as close as we ever get to any of these players."

One industry insider believes the game-worn card market is on the decline
anyway.

"In 1997, when Upper Deck started doing memorabilia cards, they had three
versions of jersey cards all year," said Rich Klein, price guide analyst for
Beckett.com. "Now, if you want, you can be guaranteed to get a memorabilia
card in every pack."

Dully says Donruss constantly reviews how collectors perceive his company's
products. "Today, I'm comfortable, but it is definitely an evolutionary
process," he said.

That process isn't evolving fast enough for Kathy Wise, Jeff's mom, who now
isn't too happy about where her money is going.

"I would think that they would make more of an effort to make them a genuine
product -- a little more than they've done," she said.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at