Ginnitti of Spotrac joins ‘The Chase’

By David Yarger

Co-Host “The Chase”

Happy hump day everybody, and happy 69th episode of “The Chase!” If you missed today, we had a tremendous show as we ripped 2022 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball hobby, teased to an interview we had with Behind the Card movie Director Christopher Fitzjarrald, talked a bit about what our buyer Reed has been up to, and also had another live guest – Mike Ginnitti of Spotrac. 

Ginnitti is the founder and managing editor of Spotrac, which has become the largest online sports team, & player contract resource on the internet.

Spotrac tracks players’ contracts from almost every team in every professional league, which is a ton of inputting data for Ginnitti, he said. 

Ginnitti said the idea for Spotrac came 15 years ago as contracts, such as Alex Rodriguez’s, began to climb and become richer. From there, the site listed not only A-Rod’s contract but the rest of the league that not many people knew about.

“I started to realize, ‘Hey, there’s money in all this stuff. Everybody cares about all this stuff,’ ” he said. “It quickly became from a list of contract values to actual player salaries, to salary cap nerdiness, to repurposing the CBA into something people can read and now we’re 15 sports deep.”

He added that it takes a lot of communication and networking with the leagues and agents to keep their site as updated as possible with so many athletes.

Ginnitti admitted that he’s a collector in the hobby and he said the site does help him from time to time with who he wants to collect. 

“I’m obviously involved with who’s coming next and things like that, so we have conversations internally about draft prospects and in baseball even high school and international prospects. So, I have interest in that, and we do have a pulse on that to some degree. There will be some instances where I’m on eBay or some site looking for names that have not yet hit, because of what we do for a living,” Ginnitti said. 

Ginnitti had plenty more to say on media trends and with his background in journalism, he talked about the legitimacy of certain stories and rumors that come out and the difference between either being first to report a story or reporting the story correctly. 

To find more on Spotrac, visit their website and check out Ginnitti on Twitter.  

To see the whole interview with Ginnitti, check out the full interview here.

Also on “The Chase” …

The crew got to check out some recent purchases from our head buyer Reed, who was recently in Florida sealing a deal. The deal was a record in dollar amount for Reed, amassing $995,000. According to Reed, the collection consists of close to 1,000 graded cards, primarily vintage, in all four sports.  There’s everything from Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle. 

Additionally, there are several examples of Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, Nolan Ryan, Michael Jordan, Johnny Unitas, and Wayne Gretzky rookies. The majority of the collection is mid-grade level, as there aren’t any six-figure cards and only a handful that are $25k or more.

Reed said these cards will be listed on the website in the coming weeks. Additionally, to get a glimpse of all of Reed’s buys, head to the Dave & Adam’s Card World website.

Additionally, the crew had the chance to talk to Behind the Card movie Director Chris Fitzjarrald. His new film will be taking a look into the rise of the hobby and how cardboard has turned into an investment. Additionally, he got to sit down with a ton of influencers in the hobby, including Steve Aoki and Vegas Dave, but also athletes and much more. 

The movie releases Friday. For our full interview with Fitzjarrald, check out the DA Card World YouTube. 

And lastly, Troy and I ripped some of the new release Allen & Ginter Baseball. The cards were definitely creative and interesting, with mini cards, and a card even dedicated to National Hot Dog Day. We did get some nice hits though, including Byron Buxton and Trey Mancini game uses memorabilia patches, as well as a Kyle Muller rookie auto from the Braves. 

To enter to win, comment on the YouTube video of your favorite non-sports figure autograph! A winner will be announced on Friday.