2017-18 Prizm Basketball For The Soul || $1,000 Retail ROI Study (Upd: 1/4) — 95%

As most of you know, when there is an intriguing retail product that may induce hours of enjoyment and $100’s in commitment… I’m usually all-in. 2017-18 Panini Prizm Basketball is no exception. I’m taking you on a short journey to explore what a $1,000 investment into this extremely hot basketball product will produce. I’ll give you the honest workings of the product and help you understand if it’s worth a chase of your own.

The Product

2017-18 Panini Prizm Basketball

Product Page is HERE.

The Journey

On 12/21 & 12/22 (Week+ after retail has hit stores) we managed to hit up 10 different Target’s & Wal-Mart’s across KS/MO. It took about 4 hours and produced some surprisingly good results. We were able to acquire the following goods:

• Blaster Boxes: 15
• Cello/Rack Packs: 25
• Retail Packs: 119 (4 fresh boxes)
• Subway Sandwiches: 2x

Total Cost = $970.09

I essentially purchased whatever was available at each of the WM/Targets. I was 2-4 @ Wal-Mart….and 5-6 at Target’s. I found 2 Target’s that has brand new retail boxes of Prizm out for display. There seems to be the most availability @ Target.

The Results:

Initial Thoughts:

I love, love, love the retail experience from Prizm Basketball. Honestly I haven’t enjoyed chasing non-auto / “hits” in a long time. It’s a joy opening a pack and getting excited when you see a refractor (or “prizm”). That is obviously driven by the value you receive from premier silver rc’s… but darn, it’s fun. 🙂

Setting the Silver aside, I thought there was a decent balance between color + autos. In blasters I only hit relics… but I also hit a /42 or /25 every 3 blasters. You get an auto in every retail box (24pcs)…

If I’m going back in to buy new retail Prizm, I’m ranking in this order:

1. Retail Box Packs
   • Buy a fresh box if possible. If not, there is a lot of good value in all packs. Auto’s were scattered across whole box. You’ll likely get Pink Pulsar refractor /42 and a few green refractors in each box. In over half I was grabbing the /25 Pulsar Refractors.
2. Rack Packs
   • Red / Blue Prizm’s come in an extra 3-card pack. These alone make it worth the $10. Hard to pull autos…. but you aren’t buying for the autos.
3. Blaster Boxes
   • Unfortunately I didn’t pull a single auto in my blasters (15!!), but I had 2 or 3 blasters that had some nice green #’d refractors. I also nailed 2x Fultz Silver Prizm’s in the blasters.
   • Relic’s = extremely weak.

In terms of the checklist / player variance… it was interesting. I was obviously looking for Tatum + Ball for ROI purposes…. but had absolutely horrible luck in pulling them. Pulled only 2x base chrome of Lonzo Ball…and ZERO base rookies of Jayson Tatum. But, I made it up for with 6 Fultz, 5 Mitchell, and 5+ of almost every other rookie. I was very surprised to see the lack of Ball / Tatum in the splurge.

The Sales:

I’ll start looking at ROI once sales start coming in… but I’m guessing I’ll end somewhere around 80-90% ROI. This will be after I keep a complete base set, most of the inserts (for kids), & some random Spurs cards for my collection. You don’t find that with many retail products (or hobby). This makes the chase much more exciting.

Final Results

It’s really hard to complain about a 95% ROI for a a retail product. I got to keep 100’s of base cards, inserts, and a few extra parallels. Kids loved it…. and it was really easy to manage.

I’m not sure it’s worth another round, but this is absolutely a product I’d recommend you try if you have the “itch” (or “disease”) 😉

Stay tuned, updates and lessons learned will be posted throughout the week.

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