Mickey Mantle’s Home Becomes a Collectible as Rally Enters Real Estate
Sports collectibles are getting into real estate.
Rally, a pioneer in fractional ownership of sports memorabilia, is selling shares in Mickey Mantle’s boyhood home in Commerce, Okla. It’s believed to be the first instance of real estate related to an athlete being fractionalized for sale to collectors.
More from Sportico.com
Goldin Netflix Renewal Shows Collectibles' Entertainment Potential
Fake Babe Ruth Card Leads to Extended Prison Sentence for Fraudster
Fanatics Strikes Back at Panini With Federal Trading-Card Lawsuit
“It is a piece of Americana,” Rally co-founder Rob Petrozzo said in a phone call. “If you go inside the home, it still has the look and feel of 1935—not a lot has changed.”
The Mantle family moved into the house in the mid-1930s, when Mickey was 4, and it’s the place where the Hall of Famer learned to switch hit, taking pitches from his father and grandfather. Part of Mantle’s training including being awarded base hits depending on what part of the house he hit—first floor of the home was a single, second floor a double and over the house was a home run. Mantle was discovered by the Yankees during high school in Commerce, and he made the big leagues in 1951 at the age of 19.
“We wanted to do something that could be considered collectible as well as a real estate [investment],” Petrozzo said. “Mantle is one of the most collectible names in all of sports. … We have real estate, a great home, a great area and this legend attached to it.”
Starting Oct. 27, Rally will offer 47,000 shares of the house for $7 a piece, valuing the property at $329,000. In addition to selling shares to collectors, Rally will also gift a share to each of the approximately 2,300 residents of Commerce, located in Oklahoma’s northeast corner. Rally previously has fractionalized memorabilia including sports cards, NFTs and automobiles. The company is part-owned by a series of venture capital investors including Kevin Durant and Alexis Ohanian.
The Mantle house is a 672-square foot, two-bedroom, one bath property on a fifth of an acre, with a ramshackle tin shed out back. The property was sold by the Mantle family at some point before Mantle’s death in 1995 and has been owned by a handful of others since, with the house unoccupied for much of the past 25 years. Rally acquired the house last year for $175,000. With the upcoming sale, the company will recoup the purchase price and various fees associated with the share offering, according to its prospectus filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The property will retain around $60,000 in capital, enough to cover projected maintenance costs for the next decade, according to Petrozzo.
Long-term plans for the property have yet to be determined and will be decided upon in part by shareholders. Among the possibilities include making the property a museum or offering baseball enthusiasts the opportunity to stay inside the house.
“We don’t want to do anything that isn’t additive. We’re going to make sure the town’s on board, local officials are on board and the shareholders are on board before any changes are made that can produce cash flow,” Petrozzo said.
Best of Sportico.com
