Cards, collectibles, childhood nostalgia and a loaded celebrity lineup made the Broward County Convention Center feel like one enormous treasure hunt.

August 15th – 16th, 2026

Somewhere inside the Broward County Convention Center was the card you didn’t know you needed until you saw it.

Maybe it was a rookie card of a childhood favorite. Maybe a slabbed gem that would immediately become the centerpiece of a collection. Maybe it wasn’t a card at all, but an autographed football, comic book, vintage toy, Funko POP! or some wonderfully random piece of memorabilia capable of stopping a grown adult in the middle of an aisle and sending them straight back to being 12 years old.

That was part of the fun at The Hobby Card Show, which returned to Fort Lauderdale Aug. 15–16 and transformed the convention center’s Grand Ballroom into a sprawling marketplace of sports, pop culture and nostalgia.

The numbers alone hinted at the scale. Organizers advertised more than 250 tables, bringing dealers and collectors together for two days of buying, selling, trading and the hobby’s favorite pastime: staring through a glass display case while mentally attempting to justify one more purchase.

Yet calling this simply a card show sells the experience short.

Sports cards remained at its heart, but tables stretched well beyond baseball, football and basketball. Pokémon, comic books, Funko POP! figures, vintage toys, video games, autographed memorabilia and other pieces of pop culture filled the ballroom. The result was the kind of show where hardcore collectors could hunt for something remarkably specific while families and casual fans could simply wander and discover what caught their eye.

And there were plenty capable of doing exactly that.

Where Collecting Becomes a Conversation

What separates a good card show from scrolling through listings online is everything that happens between the transactions.

Collectors inspected cards under the lights. Dealers opened cases. Offers went back and forth. Kids flipped through boxes alongside adults who may have started collecting decades before Pokémon ever entered the conversation.

In fact, one of the coolest sights throughout the weekend had nothing to do with the price of a card.

Middle aged collectors, namely men who grew up ripping open packs themselves, could be seen sharing the experience with teenagers and even boys who weren’t yet teenagers. Fathers and sons wandered the aisles together, peering into the same display cases despite sometimes searching for players and collectibles separated by generations.

One might have grown up chasing Dan Marino, Michael Jordan or Ken Griffey Jr. The kid beside him might be searching for today’s stars or the perfect Pokémon card. Yet there they were, side by side, speaking essentially the same collecting language.

That’s part of what makes the hobby endure. The names on the cards change. The excitement of finding one you desperately want doesn’t.

A trading card can be an investment worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, but it can just as easily be a relatively inexpensive piece of cardboard connected to a favorite player, championship season or childhood memory. The Hobby Card Show managed to put both sides of collecting under the same roof.

An Autograph Lineup Built for South Florida

Then there was the celebrity side of the weekend.

Palm Beach Autographs handled the show’s public autograph appearances, assembling a lineup particularly suited for a South Florida crowd. Current Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo was among the headliners with former Heat star Caron Butler, while Miami Hurricanes favorites Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Najeh Davenport, Jerome McDougle, Brett Romberg and Frank Gore gave Canes fans ample reason to arrive carrying something in orange and green.

Caron Butler and Bam Adebayo with fans at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

Gore had to reschedule his appearance, but fans didn’t have to wait long Sunday to see the Hurricanes legend. He was present very early in the day, giving the morning crowd an opportunity to meet one of South Florida’s most recognizable football products.

The guest list stretched well beyond the gridiron.

Boxing royalty was represented by former champions including Larry Holmes, Buster Douglas, Michael Moorer and Winky Wright, along with Olympic gold medalist and former heavyweight champion Ray Mercer.

Buster Douglas at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

Sunday brought another dose of Miami football nostalgia with former Dolphins Ricky Williams and Louis Oliver, while the event’s pop-culture side came alive through appearances from actress Sean Young (Lois Einhorn in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) and members of the cast of The Sandlot.

Sean Young of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

It made the autograph area almost a convention within the convention.

Better yet, nobody had to arrive carrying a prized card, football or photo from home to participate. There were plenty of items available for purchase that could immediately be taken over and signed by the guests in attendance. For someone who walked through the doors empty handed and suddenly decided that, yes, having a signed piece from one of their childhood heroes sounded pretty darn good, the opportunity was right there.

Photo opportunities provided another fun takeaway, but the encounters weren’t merely an assembly line of signatures and snapshots.

The athletes were cordial with their fans, taking the opportunity to exchange a few words, hear brief stories and share some laughs along the way. Those little interactions made the experience feel considerably more personal. Someone might have approached the table wanting an autograph, but they walked away with a photograph, a signed collectible and, in many cases, a quick story attached to both.

That’s something eBay can’t exactly ship in a padded envelope.

Ricky Williams Comes Full Circle

Few guests embodied the South Florida connection more than former Dolphins running back Ricky Williams.

Williams’ relationship with Miami fans has always been unusually complicated. There were spectacular performances, controversy, departures and returns, but time seems to have transformed much of that turbulence into something considerably more personal.

“It’s funny because I have a special bond with Dolphins fans,” Williams said. “It’s like any relationship where you’ve been through ups and downs together. It makes you closer.”

Williams said that during his first stint in Miami, he felt like he was simply the team’s running back. Everything that followed changed that relationship.

Ricky Williams at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

“Whenever I see a Dolphins fan, I feel like we’re family because we’ve been through things together,” he said.

It was a particularly fitting sentiment at an event built around memories. Some of the adults approaching Williams’ table weren’t merely meeting a former football player. They were meeting someone whose career was intertwined with years of their own Sundays.

Williams was equally reflective about the personal journey that unfolded behind all of those rushing yards. He described reaching a point where his outward success didn’t match what was happening internally.

“I was successful externally, but I was miserable on the inside,” Williams said. “I just did the math.”

His time away from football ultimately forced him to discover an identity beyond sports after playing football since age 13 and participating in athletics since he was 7.

Ricky Williams at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

“I needed to find something more authentic in which to root my identity,” Williams said.

Perhaps the most revealing lesson from that journey was also the simplest. Asked what he would tell his younger self during the most difficult period of his life, Williams didn’t talk about football.

“Trust yourself,” he said. “Believe in yourself, trust yourself and don’t view sensitivity as a weakness.”

Willis McGahee Is Still Home

If Williams’ relationship with South Florida evolved over time, Willis McGahee’s never really went anywhere.

“Oh, yeah. I never left,” McGahee said when asked whether South Florida still felt like home. “I was born and raised here, and I always come back. It’s always about The U, man.”

The former Miami Hurricanes standout proudly described himself as both a Floridian and “a Miami kid,” pointing to his roots at Miami Central.

“I left to go to work,” McGahee joked, “but I always came back home when work was over.”

Willis McGahee at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

That hometown connection made McGahee another natural fit for the show’s South Florida-heavy autograph lineup, particularly alongside fellow Hurricanes running backs Frank Gore, Clinton Portis and Najeh Davenport.

And don’t expect retirement to have softened the old competitive streak.

Asked about his relationship with the other great Miami running backs, McGahee described it as a brotherhood. Asked whether there was still some competition over who was the best, his answer came considerably faster.

“I’m better than them,” McGahee said. “There’s no comparison.”

Some things apparently survive retirement just fine.

The laughs, however, came alongside a much more serious acknowledgement of the toll football can take. McGahee said he experiences ups and downs stemming from the trauma of playing the sport.

“It looks good on the outside,” he said, “but sometimes it’s a little messed up on the inside.”

His greatest career highlight wasn’t a touchdown or individual game. McGahee pointed instead to being drafted after suffering the devastating knee injury that ended his Miami career.

“I was hurt and was still the No. 1 running back taken in the draft,” he said. “That was the biggest highlight.”

His message to anyone facing their own difficult recovery was similarly straightforward.

“Work hard. Don’t give up. Believe in yourself,” McGahee said. “Everything in life is going to be a grind. It was me versus me.”

Heavyweight Memories

The football stars weren’t alone in bringing decades of sports history into the ballroom.

Former heavyweight champions Larry Holmes, Michael Moorer and Ray “Merciless” Mercer gave boxing fans the chance to meet fighters from an era when heavyweight bouts routinely became major cultural events.

Larry Holmes at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

Moorer, however, wasn’t particularly interested in the grandiose introduction.

“I’m here with the legendary Michael Moorer,” came the introduction.

“I don’t know about ‘legendary,'” Moorer quickly countered. “Just Double M, Michael Moorer.”

Michael Moorer at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

It was an amusingly understated introduction for a man who defeated Evander Holyfield and became a heavyweight champion.

Moorer remained equally matter-of-fact when reflecting upon his career.

“I’m just a regular guy,” he said. “I do my thing, try to be smart and box.”

His approach to setbacks was similarly cerebral.

“I’m a very mental guy,” Moorer said. “If I put my mind toward doing something, I’m going to try to do it. It’s part of everyday life.”

Moorer also had little interest in complaining about today’s generation of fighters or even the celebrity-boxing phenomenon. While he said social media has “no business in boxing,” he acknowledged that the sport still features plenty of talented fighters and refused to simply declare his generation superior.

“Every era throughout life gets better,” Moorer said. “It’s a new generation.”

As for celebrity fighters generating enormous paydays?

“If you’re a smart man or woman who knows how to generate revenue by making yourself available, I’m all for it,” Moorer said.

Mercer wasn’t quite as diplomatic about the evolution of the heavyweight division.

The Olympic gold medalist and former heavyweight champion fought Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and Tommy Morrison during his boxing career before eventually experimenting with kickboxing and mixed martial arts.

Mercer pointed to his fights against Lewis and Morrison when asked which performances best represented him in his prime.

And if anyone wondered what it felt like absorbing Lewis’ power, Mercer offered a description considerably more vivid than anything found on a boxing stat sheet.

Ray Mercer at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

“When he hit you, it felt like you got hit by a car,” Mercer said.

Mercer also fondly remembered an era before every fight, training session and opinion could instantly circulate online.

“I’m sort of glad we came through without social media because people had to actually come out and see it,” Mercer said. “I think they appreciated it more.”

Yet beneath all the war stories was a lesson that sounded remarkably similar to the ones offered by the football players sitting elsewhere in the show.

“Everybody who makes it goes through something,” Mercer said. “You just have to believe.”

Three Generations Later, Squints Still Has It

Then there was Chauncey Leopardi, forever known as Michael “Squints” Palledorous from The Sandlot.

If there was one guest whose presence perfectly mirrored the generations walking around The Hobby Card Show, it may have been Squints.

Released in 1993, The Sandlot has somehow continued finding children who weren’t even remotely close to being born when Squints famously hatched his plan to steal a kiss from lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn.

“It’s a blessing to see that it’s working on three generations now,” Leopardi said. “People continue showing it to their kids, and the kids actually still like it.”

Those generations are doing more than watching.

Cast of the movie The Sandlot at The Hobby Card Show ©South Florida Insider

Leopardi said fans routinely arrive dressed as the movie’s characters and bring custom memorabilia for the cast to sign. Even at The Hobby Card Show, he encountered something new: a custom guitar made by a Christian rock station involved with the event.

“We always see custom pieces and things people have made,” he said. “That was really cool.”

Asked whether fans ever attempt to recreate a certain famous lifeguard scene, Leopardi laughed off the possibility.

“No, no, no,” he said. “We keep it pretty PG. It’s a very heartfelt, family-oriented show.”

More than three decades later, the guys from the sandlot apparently haven’t lost all their athletic ability either. Leopardi said members of the cast recently played at Dodger Stadium.

“We’ve still got it,” he said. “I can still throw the ball and hit a little bit.”

Even the famous pool sequence came with a behind-the-scenes story. Leopardi recalled filming after an exceptionally hot summer, only for temperatures to suddenly plummet on the day they needed to spend hours in the water. Worse yet, the pool had only been filled the previous day.

“We were all in the pool with our teeth chattering,” he recalled. “We pulled ourselves together and ended up knocking it out.”

The nostalgia isn’t stopping with autograph appearances either. Leopardi said members of the original cast will appear in Dugout Dads, an original comedy centered around dads and coaches involved in youth sports.

For a movie built around kids falling in love with baseball, seeing its cast return decades later as sports dads feels almost too perfect.

More Than Cardboard

Perhaps that’s ultimately what makes the collecting hobby so difficult to explain to anyone who only sees the price tags.

Yes, there is money involved. Sometimes serious money.

But walk around The Hobby Card Show long enough and another currency becomes obvious: nostalgia.

One table can transport somebody back to watching Dan Marino on a Sunday afternoon. Another can summon memories of opening packs at a convenience store and hoping the next card was Michael Jordan. A Pokémon card can connect one generation to its childhood while a parent standing beside them searches for something from theirs.

Then, a few steps away, Ricky Williams is talking about why Dolphins fans feel like family. Willis McGahee is still declaring himself the best of Miami’s running backs. Ray Mercer is remembering what it felt like to get hit by Lennox Lewis. Michael Moorer is brushing off being called a legend. And Squints is still laughing about The Sandlot more than three decades after jumping into that swimming pool.

Suddenly those cards, photographs, helmets and other collectibles aren’t merely objects.

They’re bookmarks.

And perhaps the best evidence that the hobby isn’t going anywhere could be found walking those aisles: adults reliving pieces of their childhood while an entirely new generation was busy creating its own version of the same memories.

The collectibles change.

The feeling really doesn’t.

And for one weekend in Fort Lauderdale, hundreds of tables filled with pieces of those memories were waiting for someone to recognize one as their own.