Greg Rouse grew up in the 1970s and became obsessed with collecting baseball cards.
At the time, his hometown Cincinnati Reds were a major league powerhouse, winning multiple World Series titles throughout the decade. The Reds’ on-field success helped solidify his love of collecting off the field, which he continued for decades.
Now 59, Ruth co-owns a brick-and-mortar sports card shop in Fort Mitchell with his sons Jake and Evan. The business is so thriving that the trio has built a sizable online following within the sports card industry and even has a kiosk inside Great American Ballpark, believed to be the first sports card shop inside a major league stadium.
Despite his success, Rouse never imagined opening a sports card store as a young collector. His thinking changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which sparked a resurgence of interest in trading cards.
“During the pandemic, let’s be honest, everyone in the world had two things: time and money,” Rouse told LINK nky.
People were frantically buying card packs online and at big box stores, and watching live pack openings and other online card-related content. The Ruths fell in love with pack openings and have been watching them regularly throughout the pandemic. That’s when they thought, “What if we could do that?” Ruth said.
Out of this question, Hit Seekers (a Facebook group, not a brick-and-mortar store) was born. In 2020, the Rouses created the group to buy, sell, and open sports card packs. The name Hit Seekers has a double meaning: searching for hits while playing baseball, and “hitting” valuable cards when opening packs.
The Facebook group quickly became popular, and many of its members began requesting to open packs more frequently. The influx of requests sparked the trio’s entrepreneurial spirit.
“We started thinking about expanding it into a real business,” Rouse said.
Undaunted, the Ruths bought Planet Collectables, a sports memorabilia store in Florence, with the goal of creating space to grow the Hit Seekers’ burgeoning online streaming business, which Ruth said now accounts for about 80 percent of annual revenue.
“What we really wanted to do was see if we could leverage that space to grow our online streaming business,” Rouse said.
Rouse hired two streamers to open packs on the air for five-hour shifts each day. He said he’s “never had anything harder” in his business career than finding streamers. He looked for two things: a passion for any sport and an understanding of the online streaming business.
“Sometimes you’re on a mic talking on a phone, sometimes you’re talking to yourself on stream, and you’ve got to be able to do that,” Rouse says. “You’ve got to entertain, right? Anyone can sit down and open a box of cards in front of a camera, but you’ve got to entertain. You’ve got to have passion, you’ve got to show your enthusiasm. You’ve got to make the viewer want to see more, and that’s a hard thing to find.”
Matt Stevens fits Rouse’s description perfectly. He’s been collecting sports cards since he was a kid, and the pandemic has helped him rediscover his love for the hobby. Even better, Stevens was a professional wrestler for 10 years and knew how to entertain an audience. A chance encounter with Rouse led to him being hired as a streamer for Hit Seekers.
“Then COVID happened and I had no way to entertain people,” Stevens said. “I was able to take the entertainment part and combine my love of sports cards with what I’ve learned about entertainment over the last decade and do something that I really enjoy.”
Stevens likened streaming to working as a baseball announcer, saying that instead of reacting to the game or the crowd, he’s responding to the words on the screen.
Roos now employs Lupe and several other Steamers who open packs on Fanatics Live, streaming 12 to 16 hours a day, every day of the year, Roos said.
Still, to really have a presence in the industry, Luce said, Hit Seekers needed a brick-and-mortar store, so when a space became available at 2501 Dixie Hwy in Fort Mitchell, they jumped on it.
Hit Seekers officially opened with a big celebration in June 2022. Rouse’s main focus was to run a “modern card” shop. Essentially, he wanted the store to be organized and accessible, have knowledgeable employees, and sell the best card boxes.
Upon entering Hit Seekers, customers will see multiple card cases along the left and right walls. The cases are divided into different sports such as basketball, baseball, football, etc. Each case prominently displays several rare and valuable sports cards for interested customers.
At the back of the store there is a U-shaped desk where employees serve customers. To the left of the table is a magnifying glass for grading cards, a piece of equipment similar to the kind you might find in a jewelry store.
Since opening, the store has been an immediate success, garnering recognition from local and national collectors, and is especially popular with younger customers and families.
Customer Carson Grizovich told LINK nky that he enjoys the community aspect of Hit Seekers and, as a novice collector, appreciates the helpful staff.
“This place is amazing,” Grizovic says. “I’ve been coming here for probably two or three weeks straight and I always leave with something really good.”
Regardless of the level of success, Ruth said what he likes most about the business is introducing younger people to the joys of collecting while also reintroducing older people to the joys of collecting – or, in his words, rekindling the flame of collecting.
The “Hit Seekers” kiosk at Great American Ballpark gives Ruth the opportunity to speak to a variety of potential collectors, young and old.
“I love the diversity of the people I meet there and the stories I hear there are just amazing,” Rouse said.
One of his personal passion projects has been establishing trading card clubs in three local schools, where Rouse said kids could get immersed in the joys of collecting while also cultivating proper etiquette and respect for the hobby.
“One of the things we’ve done that I’m most proud of is creating trading clubs within schools,” Ruth says. “Basically, we’ve developed relationships with liaisons with parents from schools that want to do this, and I manage the club from the Hit Seekers side and they manage the parents. That’s probably been the coolest thing we’ve done since we opened Hit Seekers.”
Hit Seekers will celebrate its second anniversary with a bang at its flagship store in Fort Mitchell on Saturday, June 22. The event will begin at 9 a.m. and run until 5 p.m. Visitors will have the opportunity to take part in doorbuster sales, hourly giveaways including Reds tickets and collectibles, PSA grading and a chance to win a limited edition Hit Seekers 2.and Anniversary T-shirt.
Additionally, Reds centerfielder TJ Friedl will be on hand from 9-10 a.m. to sign free autographs for the first 100 attendees along with one of the Reds’ three mascots. RSVP is required to secure autograph-signing seating. Visit www.hitseekerscardbreaks.com for registration information.
