The chief executive of the company that makes Magic: The Gathering told Wall Street on Oct. 20 that trading cards are now the biggest thing in toys. "Trading cards, you know, over the last year have emerged as the number 1 category in toys and games," Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said on the company's third-quarter earnings call. "I think they are actually bigger than building blocks now. And we see that as a generational structural shift and not just as kind of like a 1-time thing."

He said it while reporting the best quarter Magic has ever had. The same call carried a second set of numbers, from the store counter instead of the loading dock, and those grew more slowly.

The Quarter

Hasbro's third-quarter net revenue was $1.6 billion, up 15%, chief financial officer Gina Goetter said. Wizards of the Coast, the division that publishes Magic, grew 31% to $747 million. Magic itself brought in $616 million, up 34%. Cocks called it the first quarter in which Magic's revenue topped $600 million, and said it beat the record set the quarter before.

The Hobbit set, which launched in August, is "the fourth best-selling set in Magic's history," Cocks said, and shipments of Reality Fracture, which debuted in early October, "exceeded our expectations."

Hasbro raised its full-year outlook to 7% to 9% revenue growth at constant currency, with Wizards at 16% to 18%, and doubled its share repurchase target from $200 million to $400 million.

That evening Cocks went on CNBC's "Closing Bell Overtime." The network titled the segment "Trading cards are now the biggest category in toys and games, says Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks."

Shipped Versus Sold

Hasbro's revenue is what it sells into the trade, and Cocks described how that works for Magic. "The vast, vast, vast majority of what we do is through distribution," he said, with six to eight major distributors in the U.S. Those distributors take product "anywhere from, on the low side 2 weeks, on the high side, 6 weeks" before a major release.

Goetter said the third quarter included "approximately $40 million of Magic sales that we had expected in the fourth quarter, primarily related to Reality Fracture." Cocks put it plainly: "fourth quarter magic will likely be down." Without the shifts between quarters, he said, Magic "would have had another growth quarter in the high single digits, low double digits" in the fourth.

Then Seaport Research analyst Gerrick Johnson asked for point-of-sale figures, retail sales at the register, for Magic and for consumer products. Goetter said toy and game point of sale was "up low single digits." "And the trading card would have been kinda up high single digits, low double digits numbers," she said.

Analysis: The 34% and the CFO's register range measure two different things. The first counts product Hasbro shipped to distributors in the quarter, including about $40 million pulled forward from the next one. The second counts what consumers bought at retail, and Hasbro gave it only as a range: high single digits to low double digits. Both can be true at once in a quarter when distributors were stocking up ahead of releases. But the headline growth figure is a shipment figure, and on Hasbro's own description, the register grew more slowly.

What "No. 1" Rests On

Cocks did not name a source for his ranking on the call. He gave it as his view: "I think trading cards... have emerged as the number 1 category," and "I think they are actually bigger than building blocks now."

Circana, which tracks U.S. toy sales, reported on the first half of 2026 on Aug. 12, and its release does not list trading cards as a category of their own. It sorts the industry into 11 supercategories. U.S. toy dollar sales rose 17% from January through June, Circana said, "led by high demand for trading cards, collectibles, licensed products, and fandom-driven play." Games & Puzzles grew 45% and Explorative & Other Toys 58%, growth "fueled primarily by trading cards, collectibles, and sports-related products." Building Sets grew 22%.

Analysis: In that release, trading cards drive two supercategories without forming one, and Building Sets is a supercategory of its own. So "bigger than building blocks" compares a product type against a supercategory, and Cocks did not say whose measurement put cards on top. The claim may well be right. On the record it is the CEO's, not a published ranking.

Cocks said "trading cards," in answer to a question about Magic. He did not single out sports cards, and nothing on the call separates sports cards from game cards.

Why It Matters to the Hobby

Analysis: A public company's chief executive has now told investors, on a recorded call, that the card boom is a "generational structural shift." He runs the company that sells the cardboard, so it is a forecast from an interested party, not a neutral finding. The same call shows how hard the boom is to measure from outside: one quarter's growth figure means different things depending on whether it counts what left the warehouse or what left the store.

Verdict: Hasbro's CEO calls trading cards the biggest category in toys and a structural shift, in the quarter Magic passed $600 million for the first time. The 34% growth behind that record counts shipments, including about $40 million pulled forward from the fourth quarter. Asked about the register, Hasbro's CFO put trading-card retail growth in the high single digits to low double digits.

Confidence note: Quotes and figures from Hasbro executives and the Seaport Research analyst are from The Motley Fool's transcript of Hasbro's Oct. 20, 2026 third-quarter earnings call. The CNBC segment is cited by its title on CNBC's video page only. U.S. toy-industry figures and supercategory growth rates are from Circana's Aug. 12, 2026 release on the first half of 2026. Passages labeled Analysis are this blog's interpretation, not findings in those sources.