I agree that 25 feels like the best number. I went ahead and set the sign up for 25 for now, but we can adjust as-needed of course.
And as you also mentioned, we were around $70 per slot for our last break, which brings us to $1,750. If that's our budget, we're looking something like:
1 case of Stadium Club
1 case of Topps Archives
1.5 cases 2023 Topps Series 1
1 case Topps Finest
I assume Triple Threads is out of the budget, unless we want to rip only like four boxes. Same for Bowman Chrome which would be around six boxes. Even if we up the budget, we don't change a whole lot, correct? $100 per is $2500, but is that enough to warrant the price change?
Just for a taste of what Stadium Club would look like if we did that (I don't have a stance, I just know there's a lot of love for Stadium Club here and I agree with it even if this year's Hobby experience was mixed). Assuming adding $5 for shipping and let's just say the breaker's compensation is their slot comped (not forcing that one anyone, I thought it was a nice touch for the work last time, obviously if the breaker pays drop all of these down a few bucks)
30 Entries (29 paid) - $64 to $71 a slot depending on the range of the case, each person gets one team
25 Entries (24 paid) - $76 to $84 a slot depending on the range on the case. The "bottom" five entries get two teams.
20 entries (19 paid) - $95 to $105 a slot depending on the range on the case. The "bottom" ten entries get two teams.
A single eBay auction is not necessarily representative of a fair comp, but I went through the last paid case break on eBay and took their sold prices just as a market determination, below is what the split would look like. This auction had an unusually high price for Baltimore and a couple other teams so thas skews it a bit. A draft solves valuation but takes time, I thought it was fun last time at least to do it that way.
25 entries
STL (19)
CHC (20)
SF/MIA (21/30)
ARZ/WAS (22/29)
OAK/CWS (23/28)
MIL/TEX (24/27)
CLE/COL (25/26)
20 entries
NYM (8)
DET (9)
LAA w/o Ohtani for some reason...normally LAA is higher with him (10)
SD/MIA (11/30)
CIN/WAS (12/29)
PHI/CWS (13/28)
BOS/TEX (14/27)
LAD/COL (15/26)
TOR/CLE (16/25)
BAL/MIL (17/24)
MIN/OAK (18/23)
STL/ARZ (19/22)
CHC/SF (20/21)
I personally like 25 as a nice midground - if other 2022 and 2023 products follow that it at least gives some more hope to folks (as someone who got the lowest ranked team in the Bowman Chrome break we did that would've been nice). I think I got 19th last time we did SC and I at least got to go KeBryan Hayes chasing (and failed). Decent value for that area.
I don't think this changes
too much for other products either to be honest, though the 2023 checklist in Topps will 100% shake up those "rankings".
Triple Threads and Chrome seems prohibitive - even at 9 TT boxes at 36 slots (let's say a hit per slot so everyone gets something), we're talking $100 a slot for one "hit" and maybe some base/parallels, likewise with Bowman Chrome $100+ a slot and there's some hopeless teams in there.
The value isn't there if you're looking to hit something that'll pay out like crazy in the future, but if we wanted to do a prospect product I feel like Pro Debut might be more fun and financially sane (where you can spend $1400 and get both a hobby case (48 autos) and a jumbo case (24 autos, some chrome cards) with a pretty solid prospect checklist - albeit stickers everywhere.) A pro debut case and 2023 Topps Case is about priced near our mid-tier for instance.
Edit: For reference, my preferred breaker has a Finest break up with teams in their "default" drafted order. The bottom ten that got paired would be COL/ARZ, CHC/SFG, MIA/BAL, OAK/CLE, MIL/TEX with the Twins being the last "solo" team. Still feels like 25 is the right point to me if other sets follow a similar valuation.