Staff report
Hit Seekers Sports Cards, a premiere sports hobby shop, is expanding from its home base as a retail store at 2501 Dixie Highway Suite 2, Fort Mitchell, to take card collecting to Great American Ball Park.
Hit Seekers, founded by Greg and Jake Rouse, originally began operations as an online retail shop in 2020. Finding success utilizing online streaming platforms, they expanded in 2022, opening their brick-and-mortar retail store in Fort Mitchell.
Now, they are expanding their partnership with the Cincinnati Reds to a second location on the Great American Ballpark’s main concourse along the third base line.
Greg Rouse and Hit Seekers — see the second shop at Great American Ballpark. (Photo provided)
Card collectors of all ages, backgrounds and enthusiasm will want to visit Hit Seekers’ new location at GABP this season, the first known of its kind at a major league stadium. Expanding upon the relationship it established as an official Cincinnati Reds sponsor in 2023, Hit Seekers’ expanded kiosk will offer a frequently updated assortment of sports trading card boxes, raw cards, and graded singles during all Reds’ home games.
In addition to plenty of Reds and general MLB stars, Hit Seekers’ GABP kiosk will also feature cards from MLS, NFL and the NBA for collectors of all sports. The kiosk will be open during all 2024 home games.
The modern shop for today’s collectors, Hit Seekers is owned by father-and-son duo Greg and Jake Rouse, the latter having also co-founded Braxton Brewing Company in Covington. Sharing a passion for the hobby during Jake’s youth, collecting – and, by extension, Hit Seekers – is about more than just selling collectables for the father and son: It’s also about building community.
It’s this love of learning and building community that has also opened the door for Hit Seekers to be involved with the Reds Heads in 2024, the team’s official kids’ club. Greg noted that classes available through the partnership will help teach the fundamentals of business through teaching the basics of the hobby. Classes are to be determined but could include topics like “the basics of the hobby,” “why people grade cards and what those grades mean,” and “the seven different ways to collect.”
“At Hit Seekers, our mission is based on making ‘baseball cards cool again,’” said Greg Rouse, co-owner of Hit Seekers. “We are more than a broker to sell and trade collectables through; we build community around the love of sports and the history behind them. We can’t wait to meet so many fellow collectors this season as we root for the home team at Great American Ball Park.”
In addition to selling sports cards and “wax” – the industry term for sealed boxes of cards – Hit Seekers is also known for “box breaks,” the practice of opening boxes/cases of cards and distributing them to a group of paying customers. Box breaking and grading – a practice in which collectors submit their cards to a third-party to evaluate and assess their condition – are now a large part of the sports collectibles industry.
As noted by Forbes, The New York Times and other media outlets, sports collectibles are a multi-billion-dollar industry, reaching an estimated $35 billion+ in 2023 according to market research firm Market Decipher.
To learn more about Hit Seekers, visit hitseekerscardbreaks.com/.
See the NKyTribune’s earlier story about Hit Seekers here.
