How much do breakers make?

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by eastbayak

Really?

Let's say a breaker rips through $10,000 worth of product weekly (I'd like to assume that the top breakers do a lot more than this). At 10-20%, that's $1-2k profit weekly.

Annually, that's $52-104k. Not to mention, these days, it doesn't take much product (especially basketball) to meet the $10k threshold.

A lot of products can be ripped in minutes. And getting paid to rip through product, especially high-end product, sounds pretty fun.

If you are a one man breaking crew the income doesn’t sound too bad. But you have to pay for any other employees and staff, and unless you are going to sort and ship everything yourself, it sounds like a crap job.

I just break for myself - that’s the funnest way to do it!

[Onepocketj]

I think it's way more than you guys are saying. Some of those breaks are ridiculous. If I mentioned the math in chat it would be instantly deleted. But I remember Platinum mentioning how much they paid and how many they sold of Panini one and they made over 60k in the first weekend just from that product. Those are one card boxes - shipping and labor is miniscule.

[eastbayak]

Originally Posted by jcardstore

I assume that is gross, not net.

I would be absolutely floored if the average breaker was taking home more than 50k a year after tax. I bet it’s closer to 35-40k

Obviously not including the few biggest ones

Got it. I interpreted it as net profit.

I agree with you that your everyday breaker is bringing home less than 50k a year after tax.

The top breakers are clearly 6 figures with ease (due to having developed a following/brand/etc).

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

If you are a one man breaking crew doesn’t sound too bad. But you have to pay for any other employees and staff, and unless you are going to sort and shop everything yourself, it sounds like a crap job.

I just break for myself - that’s the funnest way to do it!

I assume those who have employees under them are either: (1) making more, hourly, with the addition of the extra arms, or (2) making a little less but offloading work they hate doing onto their employees (e.g., sorting, etc).

In my opinion, the "smart" (financially motivated breakers) are more focused on "fast breaks" (boxes with a few cards, ideally high-end) that they can churn through fast rather than slow/cheap breaks like Donruss/Hoops hobby boxes.

I agree with you, I love breaking for myself when I do break. I've only joined a couple group breaks in my life and it's not the same (although it's not a bad option to have when you don't have product to rip).

I also love sorting cards and could do that for days (maybe not weeks/months though :P)

[RogerGodahell]

Originally Posted by Onepocketj

I think it's way more than you guys are saying. Some of those breaks are ridiculous. If I mentioned the math in chat it would be instantly deleted. But I remember Platinum mentioning how much they paid and how many they sold of Panini one and they made over 60k in the first weekend just from that product. Those are one card boxes - shipping and labor is miniscule.

Platinum breaks probably over $20K a day in product easily. What do they do like 500 breaks of NT a year for football and basketball combined? They're making bank on just that one product.

Now your average breaker isn't opening nearly as much product as them though. They have a huge audience and can just keep em rolling one after the other. I believe they have 2 shifts also, day and night.

[hermanotarjeta]

The profit margins for the big guys may be getting smaller since the start of the pandemic as their case providers are likely asking more for their product and there are less break participants.

[oldgoldy97]

Better get in good with your Fanatics rep.

[ejs23]

Fanatics needs to distribute themselves. Cut out the distributors, take a little for their trouble, let product flow in more directions and pass the savings on to shops… which hopefully gets realized by customers.

[ninjacookies]

Packman's probably pushing a Lam these days.

Smaller scale operation + youtube engagement/adsense rev = enjoy your new townhome.

[Grizzkid12]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Breakers are making probably 10-20% profit on cases they are breaking.

You need to open a lot of cases at that margin to make a living. After taxes, I can’t imagine it’s that great of a job.

This is the closest answer to what it's like that I've seen (unless you're one of the top guys)

You're looking to make up to 20%, ideally, but don't forget there will be some losses along the way when products you are stocked up on tank from release day prices (which is happening more and more in the last 6 months) so some of the bigger wins will even out with the losses/break even products.

Factor in shipping, supplies, employees (if you're breaking at any kind of scale you'll need them) returns, taxes, etc. and you end up working more than most full time gigs (including evenings/weekends) while earning a full time living wage you likely could earn at a regular, less stressful 9-5.

Tl;dr to even attempt doing it in this climate as a full time biz (unless you're already established/ have some crazy hook up or following) you'd better love what you do and be willing to sacrifice. Otherwise you're better off doing virtually anything else assuming you have some sort of education/resume.

[coltsfan23]

Originally Posted by eastbayak

Got it. I interpreted it as net profit.

I agree with you that your everyday breaker is bringing home less than 50k a year after tax.

The top breakers are clearly 6 figures with ease (due to having developed a following/brand/etc).

The 'average' breaker also isn't doing this full-time though and certainly isn't focusing on building that longer-term brand, allocation, etc.

Just running the math on cost versus gross sales on group breaks, it's absolutely stunning how ridiculous top-line margins are (100%+). Sure they have opex and all, but a lot of still falls down to the bottom line. I'd expect the # of serious FT breakers clearing $100K to be surprising to most people. There really aren't that many out there, but those who legitimately take it seriously make a lot of $$$.

If anything, allocation is the biggest limiting factor currently. Fanatics is a huge longer-term threat and I don't think many breakers are actively taking that into consideration. There are going to many who fail to pivot in time and they'll get crushed. But they've made so much money recently and there still is some room left to make more.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by Jb55

An example of the “allocation” cost of something like Prizm Basketball is like $150box. Same ones that sell for $1500 at retail now.

I thought that was higher. How many boxes can some of these guys get at cheap prices?

Those were being sold and broken for $2400-2500.

Now down to $1100 or so.

[jcardstore]

Originally Posted by ninjacookies

Packman's probably pushing a Lam these days.

Smaller scale operation + youtube engagement/adsense rev = enjoy your new townhome.

Difference is, he’s a YT influencer, mane. Whole different ballgame… levels.

He’s probably blowing full time breakers out of the water. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s 6fig+ a month

[LC2nine10]

Originally Posted by ejs23

Fanatics needs to distribute themselves. Cut out the distributors, take a little for their trouble, let product flow in more directions and pass the savings on to shops… which hopefully gets realized by customers.

Or since they are paying 10 times (!!!!) What panini did for the licenses they will jack prices up even higher and distribution method won't really matter.



Why do people always thing giant companies paying record amounts for exclusive deals are going to then lower costs to us?

[JeremyNick]

Originally Posted by Onepocketj

I think it's way more than you guys are saying. Some of those breaks are ridiculous. If I mentioned the math in chat it would be instantly deleted. But I remember Platinum mentioning how much they paid and how many they sold of Panini one and they made over 60k in the first weekend just from that product. Those are one card boxes - shipping and labor is miniscule.

Exactly.

Some of these bigger breakers are easily pulling 7 figures a year.

The Ebay/IG breakers are another story.

[jcardstore]

Originally Posted by JeremyNick

Exactly.

Some of these bigger breakers are easily pulling 7 figures a year.

The Ebay/IG breakers are another story.

I think we need to make the distinction between sports card companies and breakers.

The big breakers aren't only breaking. Yes, the largest ones are probably pulling 7 figures gross but have a ton of overhead between physical locations and employees. MAYBE the biggest of the big guys are netting 7 figures.

The margins are way thinner than people think. You can't just look at the distribution price and break price of a box.

[JeremyNick]

Originally Posted by jcardstore

I think we need to make the distinction between sports card companies and breakers.

The big breakers aren't only breaking. Yes, the largest ones are probably pulling 7 figures gross but have a ton of overhead between physical locations and employees. MAYBE the biggest of the big guys are netting 7 figures.

The margins are way thinner than people think. You can't just look at the distribution price and break price of a box.

I’m looking at your Layton and Platinum level Breakers. I believe they both have a physician building, but they are predominantly breakers and personalities to some extent. Using both of those as an example I’m also talking about the owners, not the employee like Brad, who break.

The money they bring in off breaking is crazy. It’s not too difficult to keep overhead lower if they have been doing this for a while. They also have other revenue streams including monetizing YT videos that likely bring in much more than you think.

Just like social media types though, the ones making big money are the top and there are countless ones “below” that level that are scratching to make every dollar they can and/or just entering the arena thinking it’s easy money.

[jcardstore]

Originally Posted by JeremyNick

I’m looking at your Layton and Platinum level Breakers. I believe they both have a physician building, but they are predominantly breakers and personalities to some extent. Using both of those as an example I’m also talking about the owners, not the employee like Brad, who break.

The money they bring in off breaking is crazy. It’s not too difficult to keep overhead lower if they have been doing this for a while. They also have other revenue streams including monetizing YT videos that likely bring in much more than you think.

Just like social media types though, the ones making big money are the top and there are countless ones “below” that level that are scratching to make every dollar they can and/or just entering the arena thinking it’s easy money.

Yea, Layton and Platinum I'm sure are bringing in 7 figures. Doubt the owners are netting 7 figures but it's definitely possible.

They've also been doing this for like a decade at least

[ThatGuyPal]

Anyone trying to downplay what breakers make is:

A. Naive
B. A breaker who doesn’t obviously have any interest in disclosing that they’re pillaging customers gambling addictions.

When there are literally tons of examples with a simple search of people who do RETAIL breaks bringing in double what it would go for MSRP, I doubt anyone who does it consistently or even has a distributor is “barely breaking even”. A lot of breaks I’ve seen charge shipping so not sure how that’s included in so many arguments, bulk supplies are cheap and not having a store or employees=no overhead. Thinking there isn’t people doing this solo, nightly making more than you do working each day is either wishful thinking or dumb

[armyatc22]

It majorly fluctuates....

When a product releases at a certain price they buy as much as possible and adjust prices as is to probably get around 20% over. Now say they still have that product on hand but the price has increased online everywhere due to the demand so they then adjust prices accordingly and this is where the most of their money is made. Selling the same box/case that they were selling a week ago for double the price but are into it for the same cost.

Hence why the retail "boom" went crazy because all these kids saw the price of Blasters and Megas from 2017 and on after a player goes off (Mahomes, Luka, Trae, Zion, etc) compared to what you can buy them at ($19.99 - $39.99)

So now there are a million tiktok/Insta/facebook/whatever "breakers" that only break retail and they think they've been in the game forever but have ZERO idea of what the game actually is.

[advan24r]

What do you think these mainstream breakers' margin is on getting their product to break? 20-25%?

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by advan24r

What do you think these mainstream breakers' margin is on getting their product to break? 20-25%?

It varies from product to product and how much turnover they have. I would imagine they would break at even 10% margin or even at a loss on occasion just to move product and pay overhead.

[casebreaksllc]

if earning decent allocation, easy 6 figures a year. if buying at market probably about 20% after all said and done. Most big breakers get a set amount of allocation at a very low price and then after that dries up they rebuy at market price and break that. buying a TON of product at market price is the only way to earn allocations from distributors.

[mbrahv1984]

Originally Posted by kobemagee29

i believe it's the opposite, they make way more then people think

This is really the only true answer. They wouldn't break this much of that weren't true. Unless we all think breakers just love to rip item packs for free while keeping none of the hits.

[TheTruth17]

Not Enough

[armyatc22]

Originally Posted by TheTruth17

Not Enough

Chad with the answer of all answers!!!!