Elly de la Cruz, Tom Brady, WNBA Highlight eBay's Year in Collectibles

An explosive debut for Elly de la Cruz and a massive increase in WNBA interest were major highlights for eBay in 2023.

The collectibles category continues to grow on eBay, and few athletes had a bigger year on the platform than Cincinnati Reds star rookie Elly de la Cruz.

According to a 2023 eBay recap provided to Sports Illustrated, ‘Elly de la Cruz’ was the second most searched keyword in the sports trading card category for June after his debut on June 6. He followed that as the fifth most searched in July.

Elly de la Cruz was one of the most popular players on eBay in 2023.

eBay

Along with de la Cruz, Yankees stars Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez were top targets for collectors. Arizona Diamondbacks star and National League Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll also saw his searches peak in October as the team surged toward the playoffs.

Overall, the collectibles category continued to be extremely popular on eBay in 2023. According to eBay’s most recent earnings call in November, more than one in four buyers on the platform purchased at least one collectibles item over the previous 12 months. The collectibles category also generated over $10 billion in gross merchandise value over that same period.

In football, Tom Brady was a major driver of interest in early 2023. Searches for the all-time great increased 170% in the days following his retirement at the end of January.

Interest for another all-time great surged in 2023 as well, with searches for ‘Aaron Rodgers jersey’ jumping 630% in the days following his trade to the New York Jets.

As expected, basketball was led in 2023 by San Antonio Spurs superstar rookie Victor Wembanyama — searches for his collectibles jumped by more than 460% in the United States and Canada from January to May.

Michael Jordan also remained one of the most popular searches while sticking in the top 10 for the sports memorabilia category from January through October.

Led by stars like Sue Bird, Candace Parker, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu, sales of WNBA-related collectibles increased nearly 700% from 2018 to 2022.

Outside of sports categories, non-sports and entertainment collectibles saw plenty of success in 2023. In May, a one-of-kind Tyler the Great Warrior card sold for $311,211 to become the most expensive Yu-Gi-Oh! card ever sold on eBay. The card was originally created and gifted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to a teen battling cancer.

Interest in TCG categories ramped back up in September after Disney’s Lorcana release in August. Lorcana finished September as the third highest search in the collectible card game category and one of the top 10 across all collectibles categories.

Beyond trading cards, movie and entertainment memorabilia saw interesting trends throughout 2023. The success of the Barbie movie dominated eBay over the summer, with users searching ‘Barbie’ over 14,000 times per hour in the week before and after the release in July.

Searches for ‘Elvis Presley memorabilia’ were among the most popular for entertainment in January and lined up with what would have been his 88th birthday.

Collectors even searched for Taylor Swift items — she was the top search across all entertainment memorabilia in July, August, September and October.