Business
Pokémon, sports trading card boom boosts Target, Walmart ahead of holiday season

Trading cards of the game “Magic” are located in a shop where a “Magic” tournament is taking place.
Frank Rumpenhorst | picture alliance | Getty Images
As screentime soars and technology races ahead, a low-tech pastime is back in a big way: collecting trading cards.
The cardstock depicting everything from NFL standouts to Pokémon and even Taylor Swift is one of the hottest toy categories in stores this year. Big-box retailers are stocking up ahead of the holidays, anticipating that demand will extend beyond traditional toy buyers like children and collectors.
“We see trading cards being a hot gifting category for all ages that we will fuel with newness and with exclusive drops,” Rick Gomez, Target’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, told CNBC. “We’re going to have new releases nearly every week during the holidays that’s going to drive demand. And these make for great gifts and great stocking stuffers.”
Strategic trading card sales — which exclude sports — are up 103% year-to-date through August, while non-strategic card sales, which tend to be collectible pop culture or sports cards, are up 48%, according to market research firm Circana.
Target’s trading card sales are up nearly 70% year-to-date, with annual revenue from the category expected to top $1 billion.
Sales on some online platforms are rising even faster. Walmart Marketplace reported a 200% jump in trading card sales from February 2024 to June 2025, with Pokémon sales up more than tenfold year-over-year during the same period, the company first told Axios. The retailer has even launched a new weekly influencer livestream series focused on sports collectibles.
Since 2021, strategic card sales have grown by $891 million, or 139%, to total $1.5 billion, according to Circana. Sales of non-strategic cards and collectible stickers climbed by $565 million, or 156%, to $925 million in the same period, Circana said.
Millennials and Gen Z customers have been crucial for growth, said Juli Lennett, vice president and industry advisor for Circana’s U.S. toys practice.
“Lots of adults are buying these because it brings them back to a time when they had no cares in the world,” Lennett said. “It’s an affordable luxury with the economy right now. Some couldn’t afford cards as kids and now they have their own money and no one’s there to say ‘no’.”
Some buyers also treat cards like alternative investments. Through August, the value of Pokémon cards has delivered a cumulative return of 3,821% since 2004, according to an index by analytics firm Card Ladder, the Wall Street Journal reported. To combat online resellers, many stores now limit purchases to two packs per customer.
While the trading card category has boomed this year, not everyone is convinced the segment will boost sales during the peak holiday shopping season. Within the past six months, 19% of adults said they purchased Pokémon cards for themselves, signaling they may not be buying them for others in the weeks ahead, according to Circana.
“There has been steady growth in the category, but a large chunk of buyers are purchasing for themselves. There isn’t as much gifting here as you see in other toys,” Lennett said.
Pokemon cards released in 1999
Yvonne Hemsey | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
A year-round rush
What trading cards may lack in holiday flair, they make up for in consistency.
Cards stand apart from most toy categories in two key ways: they are frequently self-purchased and not “super seasonal,” Lennett said.
“Cards sell just as well in March or July as they do in December,” she said. “That makes them very attractive to retailers trying to offset seasonal risk.”
Target, which often gets a bump from merchandise tied to holidays, has tried to capitalize on the year-round fervor for cards.
“We expanded our assortment. We increased the number of drops that we have. We put trading cards in a more prominent place in store, did bolder displays and the business has responded,” Gomez said. “We don’t see the business slowing and we see it continuing to grow in popularity.”
Pokémon remains the category’s top performer, with card sales topping $1 billion last year — it’s the first toy brand to hit that milestone in the U.S., according to Circana. Sports cards are also becoming more popular, particularly among teen boys, with NFL packs leading the charge.
“A lot of different people are coming in to buy. You have your adult collector who’s buying for themselves, but we also see a lot of families coming in with kids requesting them and asking their parents for trading cards,” Gomez said. “It’s a great gift for parents, for kids, especially if they know that they’re into sports or Pokémon.”
While contemporary releases are booming across people aged eight to 28, vintage cards — typically pre-1970s — haven’t connected as strongly with Gen Z and Gen Alpha collectors.
“The majority of my customers aren’t looking for vintage,” Matthew Winkelried, CEO of New York-based Bleecker Trading, told CNBC. “Younger people don’t want to dig through 1960s cards unless they see a Mickey Mantle or Hank Aaron. Plus, the scarcity and price of vintage cards make it a tough entry point.”
Topps trading cards are arranged for a photograph in Richmond, Virginia.
Jay Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Changing customers
After a near-collapse in the 1990s due to overproduction, the trading card industry has rebounded. Growth has been particularly strong since the pandemic, propelled by a blend of nostalgia, community and, for some, investment potential.
For many, cards offer a sense of belonging — whether it’s exchanging cards or playing a game like Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering.
“You still have the game players, and that’s a really tight-knit community,” said Jason Howarth, senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations at Panini America, which supplies sports cards to retailers like Target and Walmart. “Among sports fans, there’s a huge sense of camaraderie around trading. And with Pokémon too, I’ve heard game nights still play a major role in keeping that ecosystem alive.”
For those looking to cards as a store of value, Pokémon cards often prove to be a stronger investment than their sports counterparts, said Winkelried of Bleecker Trading.
“Maybe a highly touted rookie joins the league, and you buy their card early hoping it’ll rise in value,” he said. “The value can change week to week. It’s volatile like a stock.”
He added: “Pokémon is like a commodity. Pikachu can’t tear an ACL or get a DUI. Supply is limited, so the market is more stable.”
Looking past the holidays, major retailers are focusing on building the category’s long-term future. Target is betting on exclusive sets, limited specialty drops and drawing a more diverse consumer base.
“We are looking at reaching not only breadth of age with trading cards, but also gender,” Gomez said.
That process is already underway. The WNBA is now one of the fastest-growing segments in sports cards, particularly among young girls.
And with the 2026 FIFA World Cup spanning the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, soccer is poised to surge next.
“Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese have done wonders for the WNBA trading card business,” Howarth said. “Once it hits June, the U.S. marketplace is going to be taken over by soccer. Fans already know the global stars like Messi, but with the World Cup being held here, at least four or five players will skyrocket in popularity and get recognized.”
Business
Trade talks about ‘hard yards’ rather than photo opportunities, says Starmer

Whisky negotiations with the US are about “the hard yards” rather than “one-off photo opportunities”, the Prime Minister has said in a rebuke to First Minister John Swinney.
Mr Swinney has made securing a deal to cut whisky tariffs with the US a key part of his premiership in recent months, meeting President Donald Trump on a number of occasions this year in the hopes of reducing the levies.
The First Minister’s involvement in the talks comes despite international trade being a reserved issue, with the UK Government in the lead.
Speaking to a group of Scottish journalists in Downing Street on Monday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Negotiations and getting the trade deals you want… is about the hard yards of negotiation and that’s what we’ve been up to.
“That’s what we’ve delivered in relation to the India deal and, as you can imagine, we’re continuing those negotiations and hard yards with the US, in particular in relation to whisky.”
He added: “The hard yards is what matters, creating relationships, having the conversations, and these things take time.
“They’re not a one-off photo opportunity.”
Both the Scottish and UK governments are “trying to achieve the same thing” on whisky, the Prime Minister said.
“In the end, I went to Scotland two or three days after the election to say I want to deliver for Scotland above all else and therefore, that’s why we continue these negotiations and discussions with the US and we will continue to do so.”
The First Minister has met with President Trump twice during a visit to his golf courses in the summer, at the State Visit in September and in a private audience at the White House in Washington DC, each time raising the plight of the industry, which claims to be losing £4 million per week due to the US-imposed tariffs.
Speaking to the PA news agency earlier this month, the First Minister said he would like to be involved in the trade talks between the two sides.
“I’ve not been privy to the trade talks,” he said ahead of the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen.
“I would like to be, because I think I’ve actually been quite helpful in all of this.
“It’s clear to me earlier on this year that whisky was not really featuring in the trade talks at all, it was not there as a principal negotiating priority for the UK Government.
“Well, I had to make sure it was, because it really matters to Scotland.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “The First Minister is focussed on securing a zero tariff deal for Scotch whisky, and has raised this matter on a number of occasions with key decision makers, including the President of the United States.
“Further trade negotiations are for the UK Government to take forward.”
Business
What’s the best way to detect and destroy drones?

Adrienne MurrayTechnology reporter

In the northern Danish city of Aalborg, the firm MyDefence makes equipment that jams and repels drones.
“We’ve had a big surge of interest,” says chief executive, Dan Hermansen.
He says that up until early October his company was mainly dealing with defence firms, but now it has “completely shifted”.
The small, box-like kit made by MyDefence is mostly used by the military of Nato countries and Ukraine.
However lately demand has grown from civilian customers.
“It’s coming from critical infrastructure,” he adds, “from big companies, looking to protect their own assets”.
The device detects communication between the drone and its pilot, then breaks that connection, explains Mr Hermansen, by emitting a powerful radio signal on the same frequency.
Rather than falling out of the sky, the drone is pushed away and has a controlled landing. If it tries to reconnect to a GPS signal, that can be blocked too, he adds.
Mr Hermansen reckons that radio frequency jamming works against 80 to 90% of the drones that are flown.

While forcing an unwanted drone to crash land is a good result, it’s essential to be able to detect it first.
“The first part is really about identification. And the second part is an interceptor system,” explains Kasper Hallenborg, director of The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at University of Southern Denmark.
Identifying a drone is not so easy, points out Andreas Graae, the head of research at the Institute of Military Technology at the Danish Defence Academy.
“[Drones] can be very small or really big, and are often produced from materials like plastic or fabrics that are very hard to detect on a traditional radar,” he says.
A suite of technologies are under constant development, to help find drones.
That includes acoustic sensors that listen for the drone’s buzzing; advanced optical cameras, with very high resolution; and increasingly sophisticated tactical radars, which work over longer ranges and can even differentiate between a drone or a bird.
Once detected, a drone needs to be disabled. Electronic jamming, similar to that used by MyDefence has leapt forward, thanks in large part to the war in Ukraine.
“[Ukraine’s] frontlines are totally jammed,” Mr Graae says, which means that drone controllers lose control of their machines.
So, Russia and Urkaine have adapted by using drones controlled by fibre optic cables, or using drones that can navigate autonomously, or fly along pre-programmed routes.
Such drones need to be intercepted or shot down and plenty of firms are working on novel ways to do that.
Among them is Swedish start-up, Nordic Air Defence. It is developing a low-cost interceptor designed to strike the targeted drone, forcing it to crash.
“It’s missile shaped, so travels incredibly fast,” he adds. “It’s incredibly easy to manufacture. It is basically 3D printed,” says Jens Holzapfel, the company’s business director.

Cost is a criticial factor in countering drones.
Last month, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte said: “It’s unacceptable to shoot down drones costing one or two thousand dollars with missiles that may cost half a million or even a million dollars.”
That’s been a big lesson from Ukraine, says Mr Graae. “It’s become a competition of how cheap you can actually make a drone attack, and how expensive it is to defend against.”
“As hostile drones become cheaper, it puts pressure on the defender to manufacture low cost products,” agrees Mr Holzapfel.
Low-cost drones are increasingly a security issue away from the frontlines of Ukraine.
Poland and Romania had their airspace breached by Russian drones; while separate drone incidents were reported, in Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Romania and most recently at Germany’s Munich airport.
In Denmark tensions have also run high after a string of mysterious sightings at airports and military installations around the country.
That spurred the defence ministry to deploy “several capacities” that can detect, track and jam drones; and last week Sweden announced plans to invest more than $365m (£275m) in anti-drone systems, including measures to jam and shoot them down, as well as the deployment of hunter drones.
Mr Holzapfel at Nordic Air Defence currently works with Sweden and its European allies. As well as the military, clients are from law enforcement agencies and security companies.
But he also sees civilian sectors like shipping and the oil and offshore industries as potential markets.

In a civilian setting. simply shooting down a drone might be too risky.
“It could be rather dangerous,” says Kasper Hallenborg, pointing to the falling parts and potentially flammable fuel.
“We saw the impact in Poland,” he continues. “That was just drone fragments, which more or less removed the roof of a house.”
Early detection would help, says Mr Hallenborg: “Then you can probably take it down somewhere it’s more safe to do so.”
At short ranges, shooting out nets to tangle up the drone is another method and cheap lasers are also being developed.
There are also safer, so-called soft-kill options, including hacking. “That’s a more secure way to neutralize the drone, because then you can actually control the landing,” says Mr Graae.
Crucially, a traffic management system is urgently needed, suggests Mr Hallenborg, involving electronic license plates for each drone device and way for users to register the flight in advance.
“Then we can quickly identify which drones are allowed to be there and those that aren’t,” says Mr Hallenborg.
“The [Danish] police have been overloaded with people telling them about what they’ve seen in the sky. A lot of these drones are probably there with a [legitimate] purpose,” he says.
Business
Disney+ cancellations soar after Jimmy Kimmel suspension

Danielle KayeBusiness reporter

Disney+ and Hulu cancellations rates doubled in September after TV host Jimmy Kimmel was briefly taken off air, suggesting the move may have hurt the entertainment giant financially.
Data from analytics firm Antenna shows Disney+’s so-called churn rate – the percentage of subscribers who cancel each month – jumped from a 4% average to 8%, which equates to about three million cancellations, while Hulu’s rose to 10% or more than 4 million.
Disney suspended Kimmel after comments he made about the shooting of Charlie Kirk, following pressure from a federal regulator. The decision sparked free speech debates.
ABC, which airs Jimmy Kimmel Live, reinstated him within a week after a backlash.
Disney, which owns ABC, decided on 17 September to take the comedian off air, two days after Kimmel had said, during one of his shows, the “Maga gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and of trying to “score political points from it”.
The abrupt suspension came hours after Brendan Carr, chair of broadcast regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast licence.
The move was met with protests in California and lambasted by the writers and actors guilds, lawmakers and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Critics and First Amendment advocates had railed against ABC’s decision as censorship and a violation of free speech. They also called for economic pressure on Disney, urging people to boycott the company’s services.
Hundreds of celebrities and Hollywood creatives signed a letter backing Kimmel, who was later reinstated.

The new data from Antenna, released on Monday, offers the first indication that Disney may have taken a hit from the blow-back.
Disney+ and Hulu lost millions more subscribers in September compared to recent months, while Netflix saw its churn rate hold steady at 2%.
But it is not clear whether Kimmel’s suspension was the only factor driving the surge in cancellations.
Disney’s move to suspend Kimmel coincided with its announcement of previously planned increases to subscription prices, as the company faces pressure to boost its profit from streaming services.
Despite the rise in cancellation rates, both Disney+ and Hulu saw an uptick in new sign-ups in September, offsetting some of the loss, according to Antenna.
Disney declined to comment and Hulu is yet to respond. However, Disney noted discrepancies between Antenna’s data and its internal figures.
-
Tech1 week ago
Australian airline Qantas says millions of customers’ data leaked online
-
Tech1 week ago
UK police to upgrade illicit asset recovery system | Computer Weekly
-
Tech6 days ago
What Is Google One, and Should You Subscribe?
-
Tech4 days ago
Why the F5 Hack Created an ‘Imminent Threat’ for Thousands of Networks
-
Entertainment1 week ago
Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau are dating: Report
-
Entertainment1 week ago
Victoria Beckham thinks Brooklyn Beckham is fed up with Nicola Peltz drama?
-
Business1 week ago
Environment minister Bhupender Yadav heads to Brazil: India engages in pre-talks ahead of COP30; climate finance and adaptation on agenda – The Times of India
-
Tech1 week ago
A New Algorithm Makes It Faster to Find the Shortest Paths