One Piece College Basketball Cards Are Coming to St. Johns

Okay, here’s the situation. Five NCAA teams have partnered with the anime and manga property “One Piece” for a unique promotion. Fifteen home games from January to March will feature exclusive giveaways and special celebrations.

The most important of these is the Monkey.D.Luffy College Basketball promo card. These are given away free to every ticketed attendee at every single One Piece College Basketball game.

One Piece collectors are going absolutely berserk for these. After each game, we see tons of new eBay listings for the cards go up and sell online for $200, $300, even $500. And while every attendee is guaranteed at least one card, some have managed to snag several in one trip. The result is thousands of dollars in profit for attending a basketball game.

Don’t believe us? We interviewed one of these fans (who is also an RC Elite member.) He attended a game at Gonzaga and worked with a group of dedicated resellers to secure almost 300 cards. At the time of our writing, the haul was worth over $100,000, and he had already brokered a deal to sell half the collection for $60,000. This promotion is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In fact, the value of these cards has blown up so much online that they’ve come to the attention of bad actors. Jersey Mike’s Arena, home of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, was robbed after a game, with thousands of One Piece cards stolen. Yes, people are getting a little crazy.

With all that said, we wanted to prepare a little primer for St. Johns fans to know what tonight’s game will look like. Whether you’re a seasoned reseller or you just stumbled on this article thanks to magic of Google, you’ll want to hear we’ve prepared.

A lot has happened since this promo first launched. After the inaugural games at Rutgers and Gonzaga, One Piece College Basketball cards were reselling for as much as $800 at a time, and even as thousands of new cards entered the market, prices held firm.

Well, that’s no longer the case. The Luffy college basketball promo card has definitely come down on eBay, but not by much. Cards that once sold for $600+ are now trading for around $250 to $300.

That’s a hit, sure, but it’s by no means a death blow to the market. These cards are absolutely still worth the effort to acquire and resell. That said, tonight’s game is the first to be played at Madison Square Garden, which seats up to 20,000 fans. This dwarfs Rutgers’ and Gonzaga’s capacities, so more cards will be entering the market tonight than ever before. That might translate to a depression in average prices.

Second, it seems like it’s up to the individual stadium on how they choose to distribute cards. Gonzaga elected to simply hand the cards out at the gate after scanning tickets, while Rutgers distributed vouchers that could be redeemed for a card at dedicated stations. Pay attention to signs and employees directing you to receive your cards. Every attendee is guaranteed to receive one.

Stadium security will likely be increased, and they may be hostile to fans attempting to buy cards from other attendees. Rutgers took a very strong stance against this, putting up signs and patrolling security guards to shut down resellers in the act.

Again, we don’t know what the situation will be like at Madison Square Garden, but we’d expect a lot of security, especially after the robbery at Rutgers last week. If you’re going to try and buy cards from other fans, be discrete and don’t hassle people.

Tonight’s game features a special One Piece timeout show, and we don’t know exactly what that means. Rutgers and Gonzaga both hosted halftime shows where they gave away free merch, including One Piece College Basketball t-shirts, so this is likely something similar.

Attendees have had success reselling their One Piece College Basketball card, poster, and shirt in one bundle, sometimes for as much as $800. Keep this in mind if you manage to snag all three.

Finally, you’ve probably already noticed the rise in ticket prices. Pretty much every college basketball game hosting the promo has spiked in price, sometimes rising from $15 to $20 for a ticket to upwards of $200. If you haven’t secured your seats yet, expect to get scalped a bit.

In a previous article, we estimated that as many as 123,000 One Piece College Basketball cards would be produced, based on the published seating for all the teams playing. However, that calculation missed the fact that St. John’s will be playing their games at Madison Square Garden.

That adds an additional 15,000 seats and cards per game they play, so now we’re estimating that as many as 170,000 One Piece College Basketball cards will be produced and given away.

Now, it’s easy to look at that number and assume the cards will become worthless cardboard by the end of the promo, and that’s what a lot of fans have yelled at us on Twitter.

We have two rebuttals: for one, the cards are still reselling today. As many as 36,000 cards have been given away by now, and the market is still going strong. Yes, prices came down, but that was an obvious conclusion. The fact they’re still trading for $300 at a time is a strong indicator of their continued value.

Second, we have a pretty good comparison to make. Last June, One Piece partnered with the LA Dodgers for a similar card giveaway. This was just a one-game promotion, but estimates indicate more than 30,000 copies of the card were given away.

Shortly after the game, they were reselling for around $375, a little more than these college basketball One Piece cards. Fast forward a few months and the cards have exploded in value, with raw examples trading for nearly $1,500 and a Beckett Pristine 10 Black Label example selling for $15,000 in November.

This should show that there are One Piece TCG collectors with deep pockets. We still think the price on these Monkey.D.Luffy College Basketball cards will come down a bit as more cards enter the market, but we don’t think it will crash like some are suggesting. If we’re going off the Dodgers’ cards, prices might actually rise a few months from now, especially for highly-graded examples.

And while it’s easy to look at that 170,000 print estimate and FUD it, remember that this is not a normal card distribution. It’s not TCG collectors receiving these cards; they’re being handed out at the gate after scanning a ticket. How many will end up forgotten in someone’s dresser, or pitched into the trash with an empty beer cup? The actual number in circulation by the end might be far lower.

The One Piece College Basketball collaboration runs for a little over a month through January 23 to March 4. Only home games from the sponsored teams feature giveaways.

• Feb 6, 8 PM ET – St. John’s vs UConn (special timeout show)
• Feb 7, 12 PM ET – Rutgers vs Nebraska
• Feb 9, 6:30 PM ET – St. John’s vs Xavier
• Feb 10, 8 PM PT – Gonzaga vs Washington State
• Feb 14, 8 PM CT – Houston vs Kansas State (halftime show)
• Feb 15, 12 PM CT – Illinois vs Indiana
• Feb 21, 2 PM CT – Houston vs Arizona
• Feb 27, 7 PM CT – Illinois vs Michigan (halftime show)
• Feb 28, 8 PM ET – St. John’s vs Villanova

• Mar 3, 8 PM CT – Illinois vs Oregon
• Mar 4, 8 PM CT – Houston vs Baylor

This is a full send for resellers in the area. If you’re already a college basketball with tickets to any of these games, put effort into securing as much merch from the giveaways as you can. This might be your only opportunity to actually profit from attending a game.

And if you’re not? This is a great time to start rooting for the home team. With the prices we’re seeing from these cards, One Piece’s NCAA collaboration might make you a fan for life. Don’t sleep on this opportunity.