SportsCenter Anchor and His Family Love The Hobby
Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kevin Negandhi was a big fan of the Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia 76ers, and Philadelphia Eagles.
Of course, he collected cards of his favorite players, including Mike Schmidt and Reggie White.
The longtime ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor’s love for The Hobby resurfaced about 30 years later. Now collecting has turned into a family affair for the Negandhis.
“I’ve passed on my Philadelphia fandom to my kids; now I pass on my passion for collecting cards,” Negandhi said. “I have them all involved. I love it.”
Negandhi has three kids with his wife, Monica. Brandon, 12, and 10-year-old Noah both enjoy collecting cards of Dodgers great Shohei Ohtani. Each son has their favorite go-to players: 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey and the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts. Bryce Harper is also a household favorite.
Then there’s Negandhi’s 7-year-old daughter, Mckenna. “Believe or not, she is into breaking and ripping packs with us,” Negandhi said. “She likes to just rip it, and then see us go crazy if she finds a card. She gives it to me, and then I get to give it to whichever one’s been nice to her that day.”
It’s that bond within The Hobby that brings the Negandhi family closer together.
“The cool part is having it come full circle and doing it now with my kids,” Negandhi said. “We rip together. My wife gets into it. We’ll buy a box and we’ll each pick a certain pack. ‘I want pack one. I want pack four.’ We go around and everybody opens theirs. Each person opens one, and we wait. We see the big reveal. I just love that.”
Monica Negandhi rekindled her husband’s love affair with collecting.
A Target run about five years ago turned into the Negandhi kids asking their mom if they could purchase some basketball cards. Inside the packs were rookie cards of Luka Doncic and Trey Young. That got the boys hooked on collecting. A short time later when the pandemic hit, Negandhi unearthed the cards from his childhood.
“We got back into it, and I remember like, ‘Oh, shoot. This is a Bo Jackson. I’ve got to go get this graded by PSA,’” Negandhi said. “Then I started collecting again some of those Topps cards from the late ’80s and early ’90s. I was kind of saying, ‘I now have the money to buy these. I can satisfy that 14- and 15-year-old that was searching for some of these stars.’”
Collecting Baseball, Football
Negandhi wasn’t — and still isn’t — solely a collector of Philly athletes.
“It was a collection of everything,” Negandhi said. “You’re hunting for the rookies, but at the same time, you’re also collecting some of the great stars. Back then I also was a huge — I still am — football card fan. Football was often overlooked. Topps was the only brand that was coming out with football back in the mid-’80s. I was looking for a Jerry Rice or a Reggie White or a Randall Cunningham, Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Barry Sanders. I remember the rookie class in ’89. Those are the guys I just fondly recall.”
When Negandhi got back into collecting, he was captured by nostalgia. He picked up a lot of cards that he loved as a teenager.
“I love the Rickey Henderson rookie,” said the 49-year-old. “I love the Walter Payton rookie card, and what those cards look like back in the day. It takes me back to that time and how cool it was when you would find a box and you sort through it, and be like, ‘Oh, yeah. I forgot about this. Oh, I forgot about that.’”
Negandhi still has the Payton rookie card from his childhood; he made sure to purchase rookie cards of some of his young quarterback idols, Dan Marino and John Elway.
There are a number of sets that really have stuck with Negandhi since his early collecting days. The 1989 Topps Traded Football with the two Sanders’, Barry and Deion, is one highlight.
“The ’86 Topps Football set, with the green background, featured the Jerry Rice rookie,” Negandhi said. “And the Montana rookie in ’81. I think the ’83 Topps Baseball where they had the action shot of the player and then the facial picture in a circle — it had the Tony Gwynn rookie. Those are some of my favorite Topps cards.”
Repping The Hobby
Flip on the 6 p.m. EST “SportsCenter” edition on a weekday evening, and you might hear Negandhi repping The Hobby.
Negandhi — who became the first anchor of Indian-American descent to be on a national sports network in American television history — likes to embed phrases into his highlights when it’s warranted.
“It started out with Mbappe, ‘Poppin’ like a PSA 10,’” Negandhi said. “It’s cool when you can drop that. I don’t use it all the time. But when I do use it, the pop that I get on social media after using it — it’s seeing if your audience is really paying attention. I love that it generates some buzz.”
Negandhi will also sometimes drop the word “refractor” into highlights. “I don’t go overboard. … I think just being smart about when you’re going to use it,” he said. “Making sure you’re still having the integrity of a card collector as well as the audience.”
Negandhi might be breaking down a highlight on air or reading a full-screen graphic about an athlete that’s playing well, and he’ll realize it would be good to collect that player.
“You’ll do a highlight and you’re like, ‘Man, this guy’s been hot lately. Let me check the market right now. What’s it look like?’” Negandhi joked.
Getting His Own Card
Negandhi has always been a big fan of Topps’ Allen & Ginter product. The 2021 set gave him just more validation.
Negandhi was one of the non-baseball people featured in the release. He had card variations that include base, relics, and autographs.
“To be a part of it, it’s a dream come true,” Negandhi said. “As a kid who wasn’t athletic enough to make it, but to still do what he loves passionately through sports and have your own baseball card, I don’t think there’s anything that can touch that.”
When asked how many of his own cards he has amassed, Negandhi lets out a boisterous, infectious laugh.
“I get a lot through the mail that are sent to me in the office,” Negandhi said. “Of course, it’s cool to see people all over the country are sending me stuff to sign and send back. I’ve made sure to keep some. There’s probably seven in my house, and three of them are in my kids’ rooms.”
Sometimes a friend of one of Negandhi’s kids will ask for one of his cards or autograph. Negandhi happily obliges.
The cards Negandhi has collected of himself are raw and not slabbed. Well, not yet.
“One day, I will,” Negandhi said. “We’ll sit down and we’ll send in an order to PSA.”
That PSA order will inevitably include cards submitted by the entire Negandhi family. After all, collecting is an activity enjoyed by everyone one in the house. “It’s just carrying on a tradition with my family,” Negandhi said.
