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Matt Winkelried first walked into Bleecker Trading last year as a customer, looking to rekindle a childhood love of collecting. Now, he owns the company.
Bleecker operates two New York City collectibles retail stores with 20 total employees, one in the West Village and another on the Upper West Side, and he also has a website that gets roughly 20,000 web visits daily. It sells trading cards, including for sports of all kinds, as well as memorabilia, like a basketball signed by Victor Wembanyama that’s listed for $750.
“I immediately fell in love with the vibe,” Winkelried tells Front Office Sports. “It made me feel comfortable getting back into a hobby I hadn’t been involved in for many years.”
Winkelried, 36, who has previously invested in an array of businesses through his private family office—including Twitch, Harry’s shave company, and another card collector company, Courtyard.io—is buying Bleecker from its founder, Mark Zablow, 43.
Terms were not disclosed, but sources familiar with the deal tell FOS it is a “seven-figure” deal.
“I was not looking to sell the business,” Zablow says.
But Winkelried, who first came into the shop as a customer and later joined as a retail associate before assuming the role of head of operations last May, saw the same upside Zablow did, and had the capital to take the business further.
Zablow, who lives in Connecticut, intends to stay on in an advisory role, while Winkelried, who lives in New York City, will take over day-to-day operations.
A Hobby Reimagined
A big card collector his whole life, Zablow had noted a rising interest in the collectibles space before the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the pandemic struck in 2020, his day job running marketing agency Cogent World—which focuses on live events and counts Corona beer, Calvin Klein, and Samsung as clients—went quiet.
“Being the marketer for a beer with the same name as the virus, and your skill is live in-person events, we didn’t have a lot going on,” he tells FOS.
Zablow says he sold “all of his cards” to launch Bleecker in a retail space secured through a real estate partner looking to bring new life to a stretch of the West Village.
“The idea was, ‘Hey, if you can put some Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter photos in the storefront and brighten up this street a little bit, we’ll work with you,’” Zablow says.
His instinct was correct. In 2021, the global sports trading card market was valued at $13.9 billion, and by 2032 it’s projected to reach almost $49 billion. Bleecker says revenue has increased 300% year-to-date, but provided no further details on its financials.
More Than a Retail Shop
From the beginning, Zablow wanted Bleecker to be more than just a place to buy cards. The company focused on building a community through trade nights, athlete appearances, and drop-off services for people to get their products graded by Professional Sports Authenticator, or PSA.
Bleecker has collaborated with NFL star Micah Parsons and his Lionheart Foundation on a limited-edition hat, with the majority of proceeds donated to charity, as well as the Jonas Brothers on a pop-up event.
“We’re not a retail business first—we’re a hospitality business,” Winkelried says. “Our goal now is to elevate what’s already special. To double down on culture, community, and pride.”
The shop’s reach is split between locals and tourists, with about 60% of its customer base residing in New York and the rest made up of visitors—including 15% from overseas.
Looking Ahead
Both Winkelried and Zablow see promise in what they call the growing “collectibles district” of downtown Manhattan—Bleecker’s original shop is just a few blocks from Fanatics’s New York headquarters, and other card shops are beginning to move in.
“If you look at Fairfax [in Los Angeles], the amount of sneaker stores next to each other didn’t hurt anybody. Collectors bring collectors,” Zablow says. “We welcome more stores.”
There may eventually be plans to open new stores, but Winkelried and Zablow declined to share specifics of expansion plans. The primary point of emphasis as Winkelried takes over will be growing the business while continuing to serve its existing customers and maintaining its ethos.
“There’s something at Bleecker for everybody,” he says. “But the heart of it all is community. We’re not just a card shop—we’re a place for collectors and investors to feel at home.”
