Numlock News: March 9, 2026 • Trading Cards, Swig, Frankensteins

Mar 09, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Hoppers

Pixar’s Hoppers brought in $46 million domestically and another $42 million overseas to win the weekend at the box office, the first slam-dunk original-hit win for Pixar since Coco. Pixar’s hits have come predominantly from sequels since Coco, and their original fare has performed inconsistently. The other big release of the weekend, The Bride!, the latest in a run of Frankenstein-inspired cinema that included Poor Things, Lisa Frankenstein and Netflix’s Frankenstein, whiffed at the cinema. The Bride! only brought in $7.3 million domestically on a $90 million budget, even though the studio was projecting an opening of $16 million to $18 million. Following a vampire trend cycle, a zombie cycle and what now appears to be the tail end of a Frankencycle, all eyes are on whether we’re up for a Mummy cycle or if we’re going to jump to a Creature of the Black Lagoon cycle.

Rebecca Rubin, Variety

Plows

U.S. cities and states spend north of $4 billion every year on snow operations. And they’re actually getting much better at managing snow thanks to increasingly precise GPS tracking and new tech that facilitates the plow rollout. Municipalities are achieving new levels of response and saving money as a result; Syracuse, which averages 126 inches of snow per year, put GPS tracking and dashcams in its plows starting in 2021, which aids in mapping the response. New York City developed its own in-house system called BladeRunner to analyze its plow-based GPS data. Edison, New Jersey, cut spending on salt and brine by 35 percent and insurance payouts by 60 percent thanks to videos that can prove its plows aren’t usually at fault for collisions with motorists.

Jeff McMurray, Insurance Journal

Turf Wars

In the NFL, 15 teams play on natural grass while 17 play on artificial turf. New data from the NFL Players Association team-by-team scorecards reveal what’s already been generally known: the players love grass. The median grade for home fields was a B+ for grass teams and a D for turf teams. All nine of the teams that scored a B+ or higher in terms of home field game play were playingon grass. Meanwhile, 10 of the 12 teams that had a C- or lower were playing on turf. Interestingly, the Steelers — which had an F- on grass — are switching from a Kentucky bluegrass surface to Tahoma 31 bermudagrass this year.

Lev Akabas, Sportico

Victory

For the past several years, as the brand leaned more into fashion, Nike had lost some of its grip on the sports world to upstarts like Under Armour and old foes like Adidas. Since swapping in a new CEO 15 months ago, sports are once again the focus for the retail titan. While Jordans remain a massive business — responsible for about $7 billion out of around $50 billion in revenue as of 2023 — soccer teams, Olympic athletes and the rising star of Caitlin Clark (whose signature shoe is set to debut sometime this year) are increasingly crucial areas that the athletic shoe brand needs to dominate.

Kim Bhasin, The New York Times

Swig

The number of menus across the United States that offered “dirty sodas” increased by 933 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to Technomic. That’s interesting because, in general, full-sugar soda has been on the decline amid zero-calorie alternatives. Dirty sodas are beverages that start with a base of a standard soda beverage and then incorporate flavorings, creamers and even additional sugar. One restaurant boosting sales of the confection is Swig, a 16-year old company with 148 locations. The chain originated in Utah and now has locations all across the Mountain West.

Rachel Sugar, Bloomberg

NFL

The NFL made over $23 billion over the course of its most recent fiscal year, sending out $416 million to each team from the national pot. Some onlookers think that the NFL may be due for a reckoning as the league becomes too expensive for even the biggest sponsors. For instance, Verizon was one of the 54 official NFL sponsors of the season, and iSpot estimated they spent $108.4 million on commercials over the course of NFL games, good for the No. 3 spot. That said, Verizon brass recently revealed plans to cut costs across its businesses, which had some people fretting that the company may back out of those expensive sponsorships. The real money for the NFL, though, is the insurance business: insurance accounted for 15 percent of all in-game ad spend, coming in at $634 million over the regular season. The top five spenders were Geico (No. 1), Progressive (No. 2), Allstate (No. 4) and State Farm (No. 5).

Anthony Crupi, Sportico

Hobby Games

The total hobby game market came in at an estimated $3.66 billion last year, growing 32 percent year over year. Trading card games accounted for about two-thirds of that at $2.49 billion, followed by miniatures ($585 million), board and card games ($400 million) and roleplaying games ($190 million). About $1 billion of growth went to trading card games alone.

Milton Griepp, ICv2

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