Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Real American Business News: Print isn't Dead, Just ask Microsoft - Cord Cutting Gets Sharper - YouTube is the new TV - Your Eyes Just Got Even More Valuable
Fri, 23 May 2025
SUMMARYIn this episode of Right About Now, host Ryan Alford breaks down the latest business trends shaping the future. He explores Microsoft’s strategic pivot from print to digital media, the NBA’s groundbreaking streaming partnership with Amazon, and the implications of Sam Altman’s eye-scanning technology. Special guest and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk shares insights on the growing value of collectibles and how technology is transforming the trading card industry. The conversation also covers Major League Baseball’s move into digital collectibles and Apple’s manufacturing expansion into India. Key takeaways include the lasting relevance of print, the accelerating shift from cable to streaming, and the critical need for innovation and diversification in today’s business landscape.TAKEAWAYSMicrosoft's transition from print to digital media and its implications for branding.The NBA's streaming partnership with Amazon and its impact on sports consumption.Sam Altman's eye-scanning technology and its potential effects on online security and privacy.The significance of collectibles and technology in the trading card industry.The resurgence of trading cards and the role of nostalgia in collecting.Major League Baseball's initiative in digital collectibles and the merging of physical and digital experiences.Apple's strategic shift to increase manufacturing in India and its implications for global supply chains.The importance of adapting to changing consumer engagement methods in media and collectibles.The projected growth of the trading card market and its cultural and financial significance.The need for companies to innovate and diversify to remain competitive in a dynamic business environment.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What business trends are discussed in this episode?
This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.
What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's our weekly business news here. On Friday, May 23rd, 2025. Hey, hard-hitting week this week. Lots of topics crossing the gamut. We've got business news, pop culture. Hey, we covered the gamut of trading card business, the hobby.
Everything happens here on Right About Now as we keep it real, we keep it raw, and we go hard right here every week on our news episode this week. Microsoft drops glossy print magazines. The NBA makes a play for streamers. And Sam Altman wants to scan your eyeballs. I don't know about that. Plus, YouTube goes full Hollywood. MLB launches digital trading cards. And Home Depot prices.
And, of course, iPhones in India? Huh. All that and more here on Right About Now. All right, guys, first up today, I did want to give you a little teaser of what's going on in our hobby trading card series. Rule the hobby, baby. We're telling you everything from the top to the bottom, from retail to wholesale. We've had some amazing guests and more to come.
Again, telling you about the business that is trading cards, the investment opportunities, and of course, where it's all headed. We've had some amazing guests. Gary Vee, everybody knows that name. Brian Ludden, he is the founder of LudX. And several other friends, colleagues, and big players in the industry. Here's just a little sample of what that series is bringing to the table.
What the biggest thing is when you open those cartridges, what do I have? That's the question. Because you know you got something good. My kids know, but they're like, they don't know how good. And Ludox is kind of the gateway to knowing what you have.
Yeah, it's knowing what you have and knowing what it's worth. Those are the two pillars that we kind of go off of. And it's technology, so it's never done. It's never completed. But I mean, really, that's what we want to be. We don't want to be an authority in anything. What we want to be is we want to be an information tool to help people enjoy this industry and this hobby.
I think VFriends is probably going to end up being the biggest business I ever built. You know, I feel like it's a very substantial intellectual property, collectible business. I think the characters represent the things I most care about in the world. So I think these 250 characters are going to allow me to extend all these things I want the world to know about.
I've done a lot as a human and put myself on the map, but I'm not going to reach all 8 billion people. Meanwhile... A V Friends cartoon that talks about tenacity and hustle and kindness can be dubbed in Italian and be running on Netflix Italy in five years, and I'll be accomplishing the same ambition, which is my whole life has been about really a framework of selfish and selfless behavior, right?
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Chapter 2: Is print media really dead?
So that's kind of the goal with the framework here.
35% of us are genetically predisposed to want to collect stuff.
Sort of remnants of- Yeah, the human condition a little bit, you know, like that fine language in collecting and hoarding.
i think the the tide is rising on on collecting because collecting is the ultimate you know expression of fandom and and fandom is one of those last safe spaces uh where we can all come together and cheer on a team and and not be angry at each other for something else what made you go from breaks to to retail you know when i was breaking i was i was happy i had no overhead uh
And I was doing really good financially, but I got tired. I'm a people person, Ryan. I got tired of sitting in the house by myself, running back and forth from this room to that room, I wanted to be around people again. The only time I was around people was when I went to a show, which was once every month or two.
I really liked the element of the face-to-face interactions, getting to know people, bonding with people, learning people. Like you said, you know my family. You have a great family as well. And it's been an honor and a pleasure for me to meet your family and become a part of you. I'm an extended part of the family. I love it.
First up today, Microsoft drops glossy print magazine. Seriously, are you kidding? This made a lot of sense to me, actually. And I think here's the punchline. There's a lot of niche audiences that are hard to reach. And for whatever reason, we always think there's like one size fits all.
Like, you know, digital media has proliferated, but there's still a lot of people that read print magazines and that like the physical touch. Look, we're doing a freaking trading card series right now. My kids love it. Physical media isn't completely dead.
It's just there's a lot of synergy and a lot of efficiency that happens with digital media and digital knowledge spreading digitally on your phone. But people still like to spend time with printed materials, collect those things. People are reading. People are trying to put the phone down even. So it makes a lot of sense, especially with Microsoft's target being a little older.
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Chapter 3: How is the NBA adapting to streaming services?
And you can order that and get it the next day or even in two hours to your house straight from Amazon. Don't think we're that far from that. We are here. This integration for this shopping giant with the media. makes it a perfect play for commerce and entertainment coming together. So big deals, ESPN last week, Amazon this week, NBA jumping heavy into streaming.
This next one gets into that space of sci-fi a little bit. I'm thinking back into the days, watching Star Trek, different things, scanning. We know it's coming. Biometrics have been out there, fingerprint scanning. Now, Sam Altman, one of the founders and original players with ChatGPT and always in the ring with Elon Musk. Sam Altman and Elon Musk don't like one another, if you weren't aware.
Let's just get over. Let's get a UFC fight going already. Anyway, Altman has got eye scanning big. Look, I saw this device. It literally and look, let's say why they're doing it before we get into sort of scary part of it. You know, you have all this deep fake, all this personal, you know, like fake everything happening where you don't know what's real and what is.
You don't know what identity is or isn't because you don't know if someone's just really the video of them. The eye scanning creates, literally, it's like the fingerprint. You know that this is the person that you're doing with. So that whenever you're doing activity online, if it scans your eye, it's identified you. And again, it can be part of creating safety and assurance online.
Also, when you're going into a store or different places. Now, you could go down the rabbit hole that a lot of people do, which is, okay, you start scanning your eye. It's going to allow you to do things or not do things. It's going to create gatekeepers because, hey, you can't... I'll stop short of that. I will just say it... how do we control how this information kind of gets out?
Once there's this eye scan and it's out there, can it be protected? I'm sure they've thought of all of these things, but that's where my mind goes. And, you know, it's one thing, defake, and then someone steals your perfect iris pattern and they're going around, uh,
impersonating you and doing things so i don't know we'll see i think you could go down the privacy nightmare or the smart future it's hard to say which one is right or wrong i don't know i don't have a crystal ball but maybe your eyeball is the crystal ball it's all about blockchain deep thinking here blockchain is where this all ties into its id so again
I'm going to start short of all the code and everything that's involved with blockchain. I don't want anyone's eyes or ears to go crazy. But this is the future of identification. It's not going to be a future where we're scanning our driver's license off of our iPhone app. There's got to be a more safe and secure, identical way to verify identity.
It's getting really important because in a world where you don't know what you're watching is real or fake, we want to have that identity guarantee. So that's where I agree with it. It's just in whose hands and when and how is it used.
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Chapter 4: What role do collectibles play in today's market?
They're leaning into getting stuff made and put together in India, leveraging the incredible workforce they have, the size and scale of India, and again, getting less reliant on China. Hey, if you make it hard to work with you, you raise costs, and you have all this government oversight, at a certain point, companies aren't going to keep dealing with that.
So China's going to have to recognize that. They're going to have to realize that you can't have it both ways. All this control, but still want all this world money coming to you. And Apple recognizes it, leaning into India, becoming a real player in the tech manufacturing space at the same time. They've got a huge population. They can scale these kind of things, and good for them.
They're an ally of the US and it's great for business to diversify. Apple teaching us the way. Let's talk about some key takeaways from today. Print isn't dead. There's a time and a place for everything. Niche audiences, print included. Again, it's not about printing everything. It's about printing the right thing for the right audience. Sport leagues are ditching cable like it's 2013.
Look, we've been talking cable cutting forever. It's going fast. And look, I don't want to watch the same 400 channels, 390 that I don't like. It's about choice, yes, but it's about the right choice, when you want it, where you want it, how you want it. Same thing with YouTube. That's your takeaway.
Remove friction and realize that the ways of doing things in the past, what people would deal with, isn't the same. You got to get that stuff out of the way if you want to advance. Baseball cards, still cool? Yeah. Digital? Yeah. Physical? Yeah. Lots of money? Hell yeah. Finally, Apple wants less China, more India. Yeah. Point noted.
That's your episode for today, your business news, business trends, and all the highlights that you need to get ahead. The stuff you need, none of the fluff you don't. We remove the spin. We take it where you want to go right now. This is Now Media. This is Right About Now. Billions of dollars, millions of collectors, one booming industry. Trading cards aren't just back, they're taking over.
Projected to hit $52 billion by 2027, the hobby has evolved into a full-blown business with culture, cash, and clout all at the center. From the vault to the backroom, we're talking to the heavy hitters right in the future of the hobby. We feature Brian Ludden from Lud-X, the fastest and most accurate trading card scanning app. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and creator of VFriends.
South Carolina card king, Matty Rich, one of South Carolina's largest retail store owners. And SI Collectibles contributor and sports executive, Jeremy Eisenberg. Plus, some other surprise guests. This isn't just about collecting. It's about investing, scaling, and ruling the hobby. Right about now, we're making the hobby make sense. Massive dollars. Don't miss this incredible series.
Go to RyanIsRight.com. Find highlight clips, all the episode information, links to social media, YouTube, all the good stuff. None of the bad stuff. We appreciate you. See you next time on Right About Now.
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