Research thesis: why Pokémon, FIFA World Cup football, and the NBA became collectible culture
Pokémon, FIFA World Cup football, and the NBA are three of the strongest modern nostalgia businesses because they are not just entertainment products. They are recurring cultural systems.
Core thesis: each of these worlds turns characters, athletes, teams, symbols, moments, and memories into objects people can collect, trade, display, and pass down.
That is exactly why they overlap so naturally with trading cards, stickers, and display objects. They are all businesses built on fandom, identity, scarcity, ritual, and repeat discovery.
1. How long have they been around?
Launched as games, then quickly expanded into trading cards, anime, movies, merch, licensing, and global culture.
The World Cup began in Uruguay in 1930 and became one of the strongest recurring global sports rituals on earth.
The NBA traces its roots to the Basketball Association of America in 1946, which merged with the National Basketball League in 1949.
Panini was founded in Modena, Italy and became a global leader in sticker and trading card collectibles.
2. What does the revenue look like now vs roughly 10 years ago?
Pokémon
Pokémon is not just “still relevant.” It has grown from a 1990s childhood phenomenon into a multi-generation licensing machine. Kids discover it fresh. Adults return to it through nostalgia. Collectors treat cards as cultural objects.
FIFA / World Cup football
The World Cup is one of the clearest examples of ritualized global scarcity. It only comes every four years, which makes the tournament, the kits, the players, the stickers, the cards, and the memories feel time-stamped.
NBA
The NBA is a player-driven culture business. Jerseys, highlights, sneakers, signatures, rookie cards, and playoff moments all turn athletes into symbols. The card business thrives because fans do not only follow teams. They follow eras, players, moments, and mythology.
3. What do these businesses have in common?
They all convert entertainment into memory objects.
Pokémon does it with creatures, types, evolutions, card art, games, and childhood attachment. FIFA does it with national identity, tournaments, sticker albums, squads, kits, and once-every-four-years moments. The NBA does it with stars, teams, sneakers, highlights, rookie seasons, championships, and player arcs.
The shared model looks like this:
They also share a few commercial traits:
- Recurring drops: new Pokémon sets, new World Cup tournaments, new NBA seasons, new rookie classes.
- Scarcity and completion: rare pulls, limited cards, sticker albums, chase cards, parallels, inserts.
- Generational transfer: adults introduce kids to what they loved, while kids create new entry points for adults.
- Identity: favorite Pokémon, national team, NBA team, player, era, or collection style.
- Physical proof of fandom: cards, stickers, jerseys, sneakers, posters, displays, sealed packs.
- Ritual: opening packs, trading doubles, building sets, watching games, displaying favourites.
4. What do they have in common with Panini and trading card businesses?
Panini proves the deeper point: the card is not just merchandise. It is a participation mechanic.
Panini has produced World Cup stickers and cards for every World Cup since 1970 and will remain FIFA’s partner through the 2030 edition before Fanatics-owned Topps takes over in 2031. That matters because Panini did not just sell paper. It sold a ritual: buy packs, open them, chase missing pieces, trade with others, complete the set, remember the tournament.
That same mechanic powers Pokémon and NBA cards.
The card business works because it compresses a massive cultural universe into a small physical object. A card can represent:
- a player
- a character
- a season
- a tournament
- a childhood memory
- a favorite team
- a rare pull
- a story worth displaying
That is why a trading card can be worth more than its material cost. The value lives in the relationship between the fan and the culture.
5. Why this matters for Slam Dunks Studios
This is the thesis for the studio:
Pokémon, FIFA World Cup football, and the NBA are not random categories. They are three proven cultural ecosystems where cards already carry meaning. Slam Dunks Studios gives those cards a better place to live.
Instead of leaving cards in a box, binder, drawer, or top loader stack, the studio frames them as design objects for desks, shelves, workspaces, and personal spaces.
That makes the product less about “selling cards” and more about displaying modern nostalgia.
- Pokémon brings the childhood and character universe.
- FIFA brings the global tournament ritual.
- NBA brings the player, sneaker, highlight, and culture layer.
- Panini-style collecting shows why the pack-opening and completion loop works.
Authentic trading cards and display objects for the things people never really outgrew.
explore the studio →Sources
- The Pokémon Company history
- License Global / The Toy Book licensed retail sales reporting
- Serkan Toto reporting on The Pokémon Company financials
- FIFA World Cup history
- FIFA 2019-2022 revenue cycle
- FIFA 2014 financial report
- Reuters reporting on FIFA 2027-2030 revenue projection
- NBA history
- Sports Business Journal reporting on NBA team revenue
- Sports Value reporting on NBA 2023-24 revenue
- Panini Group company history
- Reuters reporting on FIFA collectibles rights
Slam Dunks Studios is an independent design studio and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures Inc., The Pokémon Company, FIFA, the NBA, Panini, Fanatics, Topps, or any related rights holders. All names, characters, leagues, teams, trademarks, and logos are the property of their respective owners and are used only for identification and descriptive purposes. All trading cards included with Slam Dunks Studios products are authentic, officially released cards.
