Emma Roberts is turning a highly visible enthusiasm for trading cards into a regular live-breaking venture. The actor announced that she and her husband will launch Summer Breaks, a Fanatics Live channel scheduled to begin on November 4.
Roberts revealed the project during an October 28 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where the announcement came with an appropriately hands-on demonstration: she and Kimmel opened packs from a box of 1986 Fleer baseball cards. Their search included several stars associated with the era, and the segment eventually produced a Darryl Strawberry card.
Summer Breaks is set to operate seven days a week. Roberts is expected to appear as many as five times per month, especially around major product releases. The programming will include both sports and entertainment cards, while celebrity guests may periodically join the streams.
“My husband and I are starting a channel on Fanatics Live called Summer Breaks,” Roberts said during the appearance. “You can hang out with us, you can break with us, you can win prizes.”
What a card break is, and what Summer Breaks is offering
In trading-card language, a break is the opening of sealed card products in a shared live setting. The excitement is built around the uncertainty of what is inside each pack or box: a familiar base card, a favorite player, an autograph, a serial-numbered parallel, or something far harder to find.
That uncertainty is central to why a live break can be entertaining even for viewers who are not focused entirely on card values. The opening itself creates a collective reveal, while chat, guests and the host can turn a single box into a social event. Roberts’ description of the channel emphasizes that communal side of the format: viewers will be able to spend time with the hosts, participate in breaks and have opportunities to win prizes.
The planned mix of sports and entertainment cards also matters. Sports cards can center on individual athletes, rookie cards, autographs and current releases. Entertainment cards can draw interest from film, television and other pop-culture audiences. That broader slate fits Roberts’ public profile as an actor and as a collector who has already appeared in hobby spaces.
Summer Breaks will enter a platform that already has nearly 100 active shops. It will join other celebrity-connected operations, including Tom Brady’s CardVault Breaks and New York Knicks player Karl-Anthony Towns’ Big Bodegas Breaks. The arrival of a channel attached to a recognizable collector does not change the basic appeal of breaking, but it gives viewers a host whose interest in the hobby has been visible well before this launch.
Related coverage includes Emma Roberts Launches Summer Breaks on Fanatics Live After Kimmel Card Rip.
Roberts’ collecting history goes beyond the announcement
Roberts has repeatedly taken part in card openings, hobby events and card-related promotional work. In January 2025, she pulled a one-of-one Jackson Holliday Topps Chrome card, which she called her most sought-after one-of-one.
A one-of-one, often written as 1/1, is a card issued with a print run of one. It is distinct from a card merely being difficult to pull: the numbering indicates that only one copy exists within that specific version or parallel. That scarcity can make the moment of finding one memorable, though the appeal to a collector can be personal as well as financial.
Later in 2025, Roberts opened 2018 Topps Archives baseball packs with young collectors at Fanatics Fest. One of the children pulled a Shohei Ohtani rookie card. She also appeared in a Topps advertisement for the Bowman Red Rookie Redemption program alongside Lorraine Bracco, who returned to her Dr. Jennifer Melfi role from The Sopranos for the spot. The commercial played on a collector’s familiar dilemma: whether a desirable card should be redeemed or kept.
She has additionally participated in Fanatics Live breaks, including one conducted around the 2025 Super Bowl red carpet, and she opened cards with guests during her wedding weekend. That history makes Summer Breaks less of a celebrity branding detour and more of an expansion from occasional collecting appearances to a recurring channel.
Her Super Bowl connection also includes a personal Brady card story. Roberts said she and her husband have another Tom Brady autograph that Brady signed for them at this year’s game. The Super Bowl remains a place where sports, entertainment and celebrity culture overlap, including in the separate conversation around a future halftime booking.
The Tom Brady chase has an unusual baseball-card twist
Among the cards Roberts and her husband are pursuing is a particularly unusual Brady issue: a 2023 Bowman Draft Tom Brady autograph numbered 12/50. The card includes the inscription, “If baseball doesn’t work out, there’s always football.”
The joke is rooted in the card’s baseball framing and Brady’s actual status as a seven-time Super Bowl champion. Its limited numbering means 50 copies of that particular card exist, with this one designated 12/50. A serial number is simply a number printed on a card to identify its place within a stated production run; it is not the same thing as a one-of-one.
The Brady autograph Roberts discussed had not been pulled at the time it was previously covered among Brady’s favorite cards, and Brady himself has expressed interest in acquiring it. Roberts said she and her husband have not found it. That unresolved chase is a useful reminder that even established collectors with access to breaks can have a very specific card remain out of reach.
It also shows how collecting motivation can be layered. A card may be attractive because of the athlete, the autograph, the low print run, an inscription, a humorous concept, or the story of trying to locate it. The most meaningful item in a collection is not always the one with the highest presumed market value.
1986 Fleer break brought the focus back to personal connection
The vintage 1986 Fleer opening with Kimmel put that last point into practice. The pair went into the packs hoping to uncover Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez. They found cards of Ozzie Smith, Carter and Lee Smith before Kimmel finally pulled Strawberry.
The segment was not presented as a technical appraisal or a price guide. It instead leaned on baseball memories, player recognition and the small rituals that make opening older wax feel different from simply looking up a card online.
One exchange captured that approach especially clearly. When Kimmel wrote off a card as having little monetary worth, Roberts asked to keep it because her husband is a San Francisco Giants fan. Kimmel then acknowledged that cards can have sentimental value independent of their resale potential.
That distinction is easy to lose in a hobby where rare pulls and auction results attract attention. A collector may choose a card because it represents a favorite team, a childhood player, a shared memory, a particular design or the fun of finding it in a pack. In Roberts’ case, the late-night break connected a new business venture to that more personal reason for holding onto cards.
Why the channel’s timing and format stand out
Summer Breaks is launching with a clear schedule rather than as a one-off celebrity appearance. A seven-day operation, with Roberts expected around significant releases, suggests the channel will balance a continuing live presence with her own on-camera participation. The prospect of celebrity friends joining provides an additional event element, but the core proposition remains the cards and the act of opening them together.
For prospective viewers, the practical expectation should be a live environment built around sealed products and unpredictable outcomes. A headline card can be part of the appeal, yet neither a high-value hit nor a particular player can be assumed from any unopened product. The 1986 Fleer segment illustrated both halves of that reality: several notable cards appeared, the targeted Strawberry card eventually surfaced, and an otherwise overlooked Giants card still had a reason to stay in the collection.
Roberts also mentioned an aspirational job within the hobby that is separate from breaking: selecting the photographs used on cards. Her observation that some players need better card photos speaks to another understated part of card collecting. The image, pose and visual design can affect how a card is remembered, even when the player and statistical information are unchanged.
Beginning November 4, Summer Breaks will offer Roberts and her husband a more permanent way to share those collector instincts—whether the pull is a limited autograph, a vintage star, an entertainment-card surprise or simply a card that means something to the person keeping it.
