Congratulations to our NBA Hobby Shop Makeover winner, SMP Sportscards. This shop will receive a shop makeover from celebrity designer Michael Moloney, to take place in the next 2-3 months. SMP Sportscards collected over 61,000 wrappers from opened packs of consumer's NBA trading cards, more than the other 35 participating hobby shops from around the country. Due to their participation in the promotion, the winning shop had a basketball business sales increase of 250 percent. "My business started in the back of a gas station more than 20 years ago, so winning the promotion is one of the biggest highlights of my life," said Scott Pierce, owner of SMP Sportscards. "It will be great to have a brand new shop for my customers since they were the ones that made it happen. There are bigger shops out there, but none of them have customers as great as we do." In order to drive wrapper redemptions and insure that he was positioned to win, Pierce ran a special raffle for every NBA box purchased and gave away 20 different prizes during a customer appreciation event in early April. "Remodeling a hobby shop represents a unique design opportunity for me," said Moloney. "It's important for a store to be an appealing and shop-able place for customers. I’m looking forward to working with the NBA to create such a space for SMP Sportscards."

"The promotion has generated a tremendous response from the trading card industry and has had a positive impact on sales in the hobby shops across the country," said Lisa Goldberg, NBA Senior Director, Trading Card licensing. "We are thrilled with the overall outcome and are looking forward to working with Michael Moloney to bring his design expertise to SMP Sportscards."

The NBA also named Travis Thompson of Sammamish, WA, as the winner of the consumer sweepstakes, after he applied at DJs Sports Cards in Renton, WA. Thompson won the Grand Prize that includes a trip for two to the 2007 NBA Rookie Photo Shoot, where Topps and Upper Deck, the official trading card partners of the NBA, will photograph the league's rookies for their first trading cards. Four first prize winners will receive a year’s worth of NBA trading cards, 250 second prize winners will receive NBA trading card mini-binders, and 500 third prize winners will receive an Ertl Collectibles NBA die cast vehicle.

Thirty-five shops from across the country participated in a wrapper redemption promotion that required them to collect wrappers from opened packs of consumer's NBA trading cards. The promotion officially tipped off Dec.1, 2006 and ran through Feb. 28, 2007. Participating hobby shop owners reported a 40 percent average sales increase of NBA trading cards over the previous year due to their shop's participation in the promotion.

Before photos of SMP Sportscards:

Check back in the summer to see the "After" photos of SMP Sportscards.