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Derek Jeter and the Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles have spent years finding new ways to get ahead of the rest of the NFL, from perfecting the Tush Push to letting Howie Roseman acquire another first-round talent for the contents of his center console. Their latest move makes them the first NFL franchise to partner with Derek Jeter’s Arena Club, meaning Eagles fans can now open packs on their phones and blame the front office when they do not pull a Jalen Hurts card.
The Eagles signed a multiyear deal with Arena Club, becoming the company’s first official NFL partner. Co-founded by Jeter, Brian Lee and Jesse Glass, Arena Club operates a marketplace and grading platform that combines the instant gratification of opening packs digitally with the radical concept of still receiving an actual card.
The Eagles Are Bringing Digital Card Breaks To The Linc
Arena Club’s signature product is called Slab Packs, which sounds like something an offensive line coach would design during a staff meeting.
Users open the packs digitally, but every card revealed is backed by a physical card. Collectors can keep their pulls inside the online marketplace, sell them or have the graded card shipped directly to their homes.
In other words, this is not simply paying money to own a picture of a picture.
There is a real card involved. You just get to experience the disappointment of pulling the wrong player several seconds faster than your father did at the kitchen table.
The partnership will also put Arena Club signage inside Lincoln Financial Field and produce game-day activations throughout the 2026 season. Eagles players will participate in a social-media series where they open packs, providing fans with the rare opportunity to watch a professional athlete pull a card potentially worth more than the cards most fans have collected during their entire lives.
Philadelphia and Arena Club are also launching fan sweepstakes with two tickets and pregame sideline passes to the Eagles’ home opener. The winner will also receive a tour of the Jefferson Health Training Complex and open an Arena Club pack inside the team’s draft room.
Opening a pack at the same table where Howie Roseman conducts trades is dangerous. You could walk into the room hoping to pull a Saquon Barkley card and accidentally leave after exchanging two future draft picks for a SEC defensive lineman.
Derek Jeter’s Company Is Betting On A Collectibles Boom
Digital sports cards are still attempting to establish that they are more than the slightly more respectable cousin of the NFT craze.
Arena Club’s physical-card backing helps answer the most obvious question: What exactly did I just buy?
The company is also rapidly building relationships with professional teams. Arena Club signed its first NBA agreement with the San Antonio Spurs and added the Texas Rangers before breaking into the NFL with Philadelphia.
The digital sports-card market is projected to grow from roughly $1 billion in 2026 to more than $8 billion by 2035.
Market projections should always be treated with some caution. They are frequently created by people who draw a line moving sharply upward and then find nine paragraphs explaining why it will never come back down.
Still, the broader card boom is difficult to ignore.
Collectors can now grade, buy, sell and display cards without shipping them between strangers every time ownership changes. Pack openings have also became social-media events, with viewers watching other people tear into boxes in search of rare cards like prospectors gathering around a very small cardboard gold mine.
The Eagles are a logical team to test how well that experience translates to the NFL. Philadelphia has one of football’s most intense fanbases and a seemingly unlimited appetite for term merchandise. Eagles fans have also been grading players for decades, although their system traditionally features only three possible scores: future Hall of Famer, complete fraud or trade him before halftime.
Arena Club is offering them another outlet.
Jeter spent most of his baseball career finding ways to make New York sports fans happy. He is now backing a company attending to accomplish the same thing in Philadelphia.
That might be the toughest assignment of his career.