As kids across the Treasure Valley hunt for this year’s must-have Bronco Nation gear, many skip past the t-shirts and reach for Boise State football trading cards instead. With each pack holding fourteen cards, collectors have fourteen shots at pulling their favorite player.
This season, Jacksons Food Stores enters its fifth consecutive year partnering with ONIT Athletic to sell Boise State football trading cards.
“What started as an exciting idea has grown into a five-year tradition that Bronco fans look forward to every football season,” Cory Jackson, president of Jacksons Food Stores, said in a press release.
Jacksons’ partnership with ONIT Athletic, a Boise-based print and marketing company, marks the longest-running full-team collegiate trading card program in the country.
“At the end of the day, we really pride ourselves on the fact that for a lot of the athletes who sign cards with us, it’s the only time they’re going to sign cards,” Chief Operating Officer Mike Walsh said. “For a lot of the athletes we even make cards for, it may be the only trading card that will ever be made of them.”
Only a few Broncos have earned a spot on multiple cards. Quarterback Maddux Madsen, edge rusher Jayden Virgin-Morgan, wide receiver Ben Ford, offensive lineman Roger Carreon, linebacker Jake Ripp and tight end Austin Terry have each appeared on all five Boise State football sets.
Each pack contains 14 cards comprising 10 base cards, one parallel card and three insert cards. On average, one in 10 packs contains an authentic player autograph, according to Boise State.
Throughout the season, fans can collect up to 116 base cards, a blue and orange checkerboard design numbered out of 50, and four new insert designs themed as General Admission, Game Day, Dynamic Shift and Hype.
This year’s collection features 114 student-athletes and two traditions cards to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of The Blue and the completion of the North End Zone Project. Six different styles of autograph cards throughout the set add varying degrees of rarity, according to Boise State.
“We pride ourselves in being locally driven and nationally relevant,” Walsh said. “We want the quality to resonate with someone who’s a collector and really loves trading cards, but we also want the team-specific, market-driven opportunity to collect your favorite team, your favorite athletes, that is going to resonate with the fan base of a given university or program.”
ONIT’s owners, Sheridan Hodson and Chad McCloud, originally began as Boise-based real-estate print marketing company before shifting towards sports collectibles in 2021.
The trading program began in 2022, when Boise State representatives contacted Jacksons with the idea to trade out Bronco bobbleheads, which had become increasingly harder to manufacture post-covid, and replace them with Bronco football trading cards.
The idea became a reality as ONIT serendipitously reached out to the athletic department with their mirrored idea.
After fate pulled the three companies together by one idea, the first set of trading cards were sold in 2022 at Jacksons retailers around the Treasure Valley.
“Everything’s taken a big step up from 2022, 2023, 2024, even 2025, ” Walsh said. “I think the 2026 set is the best one we’ve put out yet, and I’ll tell you that the 2027 set will be the best one we put out.”
Walsh noted the pride and urgency in creating each card with quality, since every kid who buys a pack of cards, or every athlete who sees their card for the first time, connects with Boise State through that one deck of fourteen cards.
“I remember walking into the locker room and all the trading cards for that season were spread out and available for the taking,” wide receiver Cam Bates said. “I looked around, saw mine, and grabbed it. I was surprised because the card featured a picture of me from my very first fall camp. It is still in my locker to this day.”
Fans can purchase the trading cards for $12.99 at most Jacksons or ExtraMile by Jacksons locations throughout the Treasure Valley.
“This partnership continues to create meaningful NIL opportunities for our student-athletes while giving our fans another way to celebrate and connect with this year’s team,” Director of Athletics Jeramiah Dickey said in a press release. “These cards have become a tradition, and we encourage every Bronco fan to stop by Jacksons, pick up a pack and be part of another exciting season.”
