The sports trading card and memorabilia industry just experienced a whirlwind last few weeks with Fanatics Fest and the National Sports Collectors Convention playing out less than two weeks apart.These behemoth events within the booming industry served as perfect stomping grounds to discuss the “state of the hobby” since it’s difficult not to run into experts and industry leaders from different corners of the collectibles world at both events.The Athletic caught up with nearly 20 movers and shakers within the sports collectibles industry for my second annual “state of the hobby” review, more than twice as many voices as my first roundup last year. That means a wider variety of voices: card manufacturers, auction houses, hobby shops, box breakers, grading services and live shopping platforms.Because of the increased voices for the review, we’re splitting this year’s review into two parts: what’s working and what’s not. This installment will concentrate on what needs to improve in an industry that might now be growing too fast for its own good.(Participants are listed in alphabetical order)Jared Bleznick, Blez Sports Cards owner“I would personally like to see more transparency. One thing that I don’t know if it’s out there or not. I would love to see a full-on like tracker of every single card. Every high value card, let’s say it’s valued at $1,000, I’d love to be able to see where every card is, where it’s been pulled, stuff of that nature. I’d like to have an idea of what’s out there, what’s left. We all know about some of the biggest cards that haven’t been pulled, but I want to know more about what’s not been pulled yet.”Andy Broome, CGC vice president“Transparency. I think pulling back the curtain in all parts of our industry. I think for a long time we’ve been very, as an industry, closed off — ’the man behind the curtain’ kind of thing. I think it’s time we became more transparent and more inviting in talking to the average collector and engaging with them.” Ashish Chhabra, eBay Live vice president“The industry is growing really rapidly and as we continue bringing in the youth, one of the things we talk about at eBay all the time is ensuring that the growth that we are looking for or seeking or driving continues to be trusted growth. So we continue to feel like that is a really important space for us to continue to lean into, and the hobby would benefit from that sort of trusted growth that eBay Live and eBay overall is driving. “People come back to platforms and experiences (where) they have great memories and great experiences. And trust is an important part of that. Making sure what you came for, you got. What you thought you were getting, you were getting. You had a positive interaction with the community there. All of those pieces are a really critical part of creating those trusted experiences that now you have a positive memory for you to come back.”Chris Costa, Card Vault by Tom Brady co-founder“The number one glaring issue in our space is education. There’s no way around the fact that it is a complex, nuanced, intricate space. “There’s affordable cards. There’s generational wealth cards. There’s everything in between. There’s license cards. There’s unlicensed cards. There’s individual cards. There’s sealed product. There’s grading. There’s grading values. There’s authentication. There’s game-used memorabilia, non-game used. On-card autographs, sticker autographs. And that’s like a fraction of the list.“There are so many elements of this industry that I think make it so special because you can always learn. There’s always something to learn. It’s impossible to fully master. It’s kind of an ever-living quest of knowledge and growth. “There’s no worse experience than trying to get into this space, getting bad information and getting burned. … The experience (newcomers) have when they come into the space is the most critical moment in time. For the whole industry, every single one of those first experiences is the most important thing for all of us that are in the space already, because it needs to be great. They need to be pointed in the right direction, and they need to be put on a path to continue to learn and enjoy the hobby.”Finding a Caleb Williams card at The NationalDustin Fontenot, Blez Sports Cards director of app repacks and consignment“The markets need to stabilize a little bit. There’s still a lot of fluctuation depending on what’s happening on any given day, what’s happening with a certain player for people to really kind of trust their investment. There needs to be more stable factors in the marketplace. But that’s also very difficult because the market moves because of transactions and that’s a million people. So getting a million people to think the same way is very difficult. But it would be nice if the asset of sports cards moved like other commodities like gold or silver or the American dollar.” Jordan Gilroy, Lelands director of acquisitions“At shows, I’m seeing a lot of young kids and a lot of people opening cards and stuff. I guess the affordability of boxes of cards is becoming not a problem, but with all these case breaks, you could be involved in a box and not have to buy the whole thing. But that ends up leading to the boxes being a bit more expensive because you don’t have to pay the whole thing. So a kid and his dad or her dad going to a store and wanting to buy a box of cards for fun. They’re going to have to spend probably a couple hundred dollars. And they might get nothing (of value), which was a risk and everyone knows that risk. But it would be nice if there were more boxes that were less than $500 for people to have fun with.”