(NewsNation) — Before O.J. Simpson was found liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Mark Roesler was tasked with determining the former football star’s potential future earning power.
Roesler, the chairman and CEO of CMG Worldwide in Beverly Hills, California, testified as an expert witness in Simpson’s 1997 civil trial to determine Simpson’s future net worth. After being famously acquitted of criminal charges in the “Trial of the Century,” Simpson was later sued in civil court by the victims’ families.
Roesler set that figure at $25 million after estimating that Simpson, then 49, would live another 25 years while also considering the money he had made between his acquittal and being found liable.
Nearly 27 years after a jury awarded the victims’ families $33.5 million, Roesler believes America’s O.J. obsession could live on after Simpson died this week at the age of 76 from cancer.
But since Simpson was first accused of the murders, the pursuit and monetary value of all things O.J. — like game-worn jerseys, signed helmets and photos — have diminished significantly among many collectors.
“It dropped off a cliff, so to speak,” Roesler told NewsNation.
“When you have what you have to refer to as a very bad act of being found guilty in the wrongful death and being held liable for those murders, that certainly affects your ability to generate revenue in the future,” he said.
OJ Simpson memorabilia supply and demand
Despite remaining free, Simpson “literally had to be erased” from monetizing any memorabilia sales from the NFL and the University of Southern California, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He no longer appeared at collectibles shows and at induction ceremonies at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 1985. Still, Roesler believed the former star could still generate revenue by signing autographs.
However, sports retailers pulled Simpson-related items off the shelves, and many memorabilia collectors who once sought after Simpson-signed merchandise determined they no longer wanted those items in their collections.
Dave Amerman, the head of revenue and sales at Goldin Collectibles, told NewsNation that while many fans who watched Simpson during his USC and NFL careers still hold a place for Simpson collectibles, the allegations surrounding him changed everything.
Amerman has seen fluctuations in the value of Simpson items, which picked up traction after his acquittal in 1995 and his release from prison in 2017 after serving nine years on robbery and kidnapping charges.
But like the late New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of murder in 2015 and took his life in prison, items connected to fallen stars often go from being sold for tens of thousands of dollars to just a few hundred. Experts say it’s a matter of supply and demand and that if collectors aren’t chasing after merchandise, the value of the existing collectibles on the market isn’t likely to rise.
“O.J. unfortunately falls into a similar class to most collectors,” Amerman said.
Although signed items and jerseys have fallen off in value since the 1990s, Simpson’s Heisman, which was sold to a Nevada businessman in 2019, remains the gold standard of O.J. items.
The trophy, which was believed to have disappeared for decades before being purchased at auction for $255,000, could still fetch upwards of $500,000, collectibles experts like Michael Osacky believe.
The current owner, Rick Reviglio, told the Reno Gazette Journal he has no plans to sell the award as his way of preserving American sports history. He added that he never planned to comment on purchasing Simpson’s Heisman after issuing the statement to media outlets.
Collecting ‘murderabilia’
Adam Papagan grew up in Brentwood, the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood where Brown and Goldman were found murdered. He was 6 years old at the time of the murders, which took place only a block from where he attended elementary school.
Now 36, Papagan considers himself perhaps the king of O.J. collectors with a vast array of hundreds of items. Papagan isn’t a sports fan but says Simpson’s larger-than-life persona and personality put him on a different level.
“We all watched the car chase — he was in the car,” Papagan told NewsNation. “We all watched the glove. He was the one trying on the glove. These moments have become bigger than any person.”
Although a few sports collectibles are part of the collection, most items that were part of the O.J. Pop-up Museum that Papagan co-created in 2017 have nothing to do with Simpson’s athletic pursuits.
His collection started with a gifted “Free O.J.” T-shirt, and it’s since grown to include coloring books, O.J.-themed lottery tickets, board games and a book entitled “O.J.’s Legal Pad.”
Papagan — a fringe recall gubernatorial candidate in California in 2021 who works as an elementary school crossing guard in Glendale — admits his collection isn’t for everyone.
“Once the trial happened, there was just an explosion of tasteless memorabilia,” Papagan told NewsNation.
“I’m just collecting it and presenting it to people. These are all very odd things that exist … but they are genuine, historic artifacts from the major news story of the 1990s,” he said.
But what happened to Simpson in the years since 1994 has not kept Papagan — who once raised $8,000 on Kickstarter to purchase a 1994 white Ford Bronco to host “The O.J. Tour” — from losing interest in his collection of “murderabilia” regardless of what it may (or may not) be worth.
“Like any collectible, this probably has a shelf life,” Papagan said, “But there’s always going to be creeps who want the weirdest, most tasteless thing.”
A spike in the OJ memorabilia market?
Despite the lengthy drop in popularity and value of O.J. items since the 1990s trials, some collectibles experts believe Simpson’s death could create a temporary spike in popularity and value.
But Osacky, a Chicago collector and appraiser for Professional Sports Authenticator, envisions that the only thing that will jump will be the number of items that many collectors will flood sites like eBay with. They’ll be hoping to capitalize on the former football star’s death, expecting that his passing could generate a jump in value.
To do so, Osacky believes, is overly optimistic.
“This is a whole different entity with O.J. and his checkered past and his history, and people are going to try and sell his autograph for a lot of money,” Osacky told NewsNation. “But I don’t think there will be many takers.”
That hasn’t kept people from calling. Tyler Feldman, CEO of Inscriptagraphs Memorabilia, told NewsNation affiliate KLAS that since the announcement of Simpson’s death, he has fielded dozens of requests for signed jerseys, rookie cards and helmets. But not everyone who has called followed Simpson’s football career.
“I think there’s that element of the conversation piece,” Feldman told KLAS. “I think people wanted to have that item in their collection that just sparked a little interest.”
Roesler, whose firm specializes in preserving celebrity estates, also said that despite the drop in the O.J. market, the interest in the former running back’s complicated history could have a longer shelf life than many — like the families of the victims — hope in the wake of Simpson’s death.
“(Simpson) still has a lot of fascination with the public,” Roesler said. “It’s certainly not something that is going to go away. … I think you will see continued interest and an increase in interest in O.J. Simpson.”