Ranking Methodology
The Hobby100 is not a performance ranking. It measures collectibility: how much demand exists for an athlete's cards, how fast that demand is changing, and how durable it is likely to be.
Direction and acceleration of realized sale prices across grades and tiers.
Total dollar volume transacted across tracked marketplaces.
How quickly cards sell and how tight the bid-ask spread is.
Collector search demand relative to the athlete's own baseline.
Volume and velocity of hobby conversation and content.
On-field production, awards races, and postseason impact.
Editorial coverage scored for impact and sentiment.
Submission trends and population growth by grade.
Supply expansion that can dilute scarcity over time.
Durability of demand across multiple market cycles.
Normalization across sports
Raw sales volume differs enormously between basketball, baseball, and Formula 1. Every input is normalized within its own sport before entering the composite Hobby Score, so no single sport dominates the chart simply because it has more total card sales. Cross-sport comparability comes from relative demand intensity, not absolute dollars.
Outlier handling
Single record-breaking sales can distort an athlete's market. Outliers are flagged, weighted down, and reported separately so a one-off result does not manufacture momentum.
Role of AI
AI is used to summarize and interpret verified data: explaining movement, generating bull and bear cases, identifying catalysts, comparing athletes, and recommending cards by budget. AI never generates prices, sales results, or ranking inputs.