Pokémon: The Logan Paul Effect

It goes without saying that Logan Paul is a polarising and controversial figure. He first began building an audience on Vine as a teenager and has since moved on to several different pursuits such as his YouTube channel, an acting career that includes an episode of Law & Order SVU, and even high-profile boxing matches like his most recent exhibition against Floyd Mayweather. It was in that match against Mayweather that many in the public learned of Paul’s passion for Pokémon cards, turning him into an unlikely market mover of Pokémon cards at the most unconventional time. But while it took that massive of a moment for the masses to appreciate Paul’s love for the pocket monsters, the influencer has been applying pressure in the Pokémon community for years.

Paul showed up to his June 2021 Mayweather fight donning a 1999 Base Set 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard BGS 10 card around his neck on a gold chain. After the fight, Paul was eager to talk about the rare Charizard card, which is only one of three in the world that is graded a BGS 10. During the post-fight interview, Paul even self-appraised his prized possession at $1 Million, which is unlikely but not impossible. While Logan Paul may have been using the very public moment to help inflate the price of his own collection, there is no doubt that his Charizard chain carries a large price tag, and that he has a very real influence over the Pokémon card hobby. In fact, three events tied to Paul over the last 12 months have caused major surges in prices and demand of Pokémon cards. 

The first of these events came on October 9, 2020, when Paul opened a sealed Pokémon 1st Edition Base Set Booster Box that he purchased for $200,000, a record-high price at the time that has since been surpassed as the same box sold for $408,000 in January 2021. Each Pokémon 1st Edition Base Set Booster Box contains 36 packs of cards, with 12 of the packs holding holographic cards. Paul sold each pack in the box break for $11,111.

Throughout the stream, Paul talked about his love for Pokémon that dates back to his childhood, and how he had recently gotten back into the Pokémon card hobby through buying high-value graded Pokémon cards such as the 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard, which was the crown jewel of the box that he was opening. Paul pulled several big holographic cards during the break including Mewtwo (est. $25K), Chansey (est. $30K), Blastoise (est. $30K), Venusaur (est. $30K), and even the 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard (est. $65-85K). 300,000 viewers tuned in to the live stream, and since that time the video has over 12 million views on YouTube. 

In the weeks immediately following Logan Paul’s first public box break, StockX saw an incredible 300% increase in Pokémon card trades. Of course, it was interest in Charizard that was really leading the way. Prior to this Logan Paul Box break, the average price of a Charizard Base Set Unlimited Print PSA 9 was $470, but in the month following the break the average sale price jumped to an insane $4,366. This surge in price may have also been helped by rapper Logic, who purchased a 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard PSA 10 for $226,000 the day after the Logan Paul Break. Since the immediate aftermath, the market has corrected itself and the Charizard Base Set Unlimited Print is trading for an average price of $2,284, which is still a 386% increase over the price from before Paul’s box break. 

Logan Paul remained relatively quiet in the Pokémon world for a while, but captured global attention again in February 2021 just before the Pokémon Shining Fates set released. On February 3rd, Paul announced that since his first box break in October he had purchased six more Pokémon 1st Edition Base Set Booster Boxes spending more than $2,000,000 in the process, and he was once again going to break one of the boxes. This time the box break event would be held on February 27th, which happened to be Pokémon Day, the anniversary of the franchise’s original debut. In the announcement video, Paul reported that he would once again auction off all 36 packs with the starting bid for each pack set at $10,000. The day of this announcement video, StockX saw an 80% boost in Pokémon trades. 

This brings us to the most recent Logan Paul Pokémon moment to go viral, his boxing exhibition against Floyd Mayweather. The extremely uneventful fight was, without question, overshadowed by Paul’s Charizard bling that he wore upon entering the arena and during the post-fight interviews. In the 24 hours following the fight, searches for “Charizard” increased by 150% on StockX.

With 23.2 Million subscribers on his YouTube channel, there is no questioning the reach that Logan Paul has in the Pokémon hobby and beyond. In just 10 months he has helped to generate interest and global headlines regarding Pokémon cards that the hobby has not seen since it hit North America in 1999, with Target and Walmart even pulling Pokémon cards from their shelves because fights were breaking out over them. While Logan Paul was not directly involved in these incidents, his influence seems to have played a direct role. There’s no way to know what Logan Paul will do next in the Pokémon world, but we do know he has at least five more 1st Edition Base Set Booster Boxes to break.