Standfirst: Emma Roberts, the 35-year-old American Horror Story actress, is turning a longtime hobby into a new on-screen venture. She and her husband, Cody John, are launching Summer Breaks, a trading-card channel on Fanatics Live, starting November 4. The channel will operate 7 days a week, with Roberts herself set to appear up to about 5 times a month, timed around major releases.
A new channel built around a longtime hobby
Roberts announced the new project on Jimmy Kimmel Live on October 28, and followed it up with an announcement on Instagram on October 31. The channel, called Summer Breaks, will live on Fanatics Live, the live-shopping platform for trading cards and collectibles. It will run seven days a week, giving collectors a regular place to tune in, watch breaks, and follow new releases as they arrive.
Roberts will not be on the channel every day. Instead, she is set to appear up to about five times a month, with her appearances planned around major releases. That schedule keeps her at the center of the channel’s biggest moments while leaving the day-to-day shows to run on their regular weekly rhythm. For fans of both Roberts and the hobby, the setup offers a clear reason to check in: when a major release lands, there is a good chance she will be part of the show.
The project pairs Roberts with her husband, Cody John. The two are launching Summer Breaks together, making it a shared venture rather than a solo celebrity endorsement. That detail matters to collectors, because trading-card channels live or die on trust. Viewers want to know that the people opening the packs care about the cards themselves, not just the camera time. In Roberts’ case, that interest is easy to document: she is a collector herself, with tastes that run well beyond a single sport or franchise.
What Roberts collects
Roberts’ own collecting interests are broad. She collects Star Wars cards, Disney cards, and sports cards, a mix that spans entertainment and athletics and reflects how wide the modern hobby has become. Many collectors focus on one lane, whether that is a single sport, a single franchise, or a single era. Roberts collects across several, which gives Summer Breaks a natural range of topics to cover, from movie and television franchises to the sports-card releases that drive much of the market.
Her interests go beyond cards as well. She also collects first-edition books and dolls, two categories that point to a broader love of objects with stories attached to them. First-edition books carry the history of a work in its earliest published form, and dolls, like cards, have their own deep collecting traditions, complete with rare editions and devoted communities. Taken together, her collections paint a picture of someone who enjoys the hunt itself: finding a special item, learning its background, and keeping it as part of a larger set.
Roberts has already had a memorable moment of her own in the hobby. In January 2025, she pulled a one-of-one Jackson Holliday Topps Chrome card. A one-of-one card is, by definition, the only copy of its kind, which makes pulling one a rare event for any collector, famous or not. The Holliday pull gave her a story that collectors immediately recognize: the thrill of opening a pack and finding something that no one else in the world owns in that exact form. It is the kind of moment that live-breaking channels are built to chase, and it is one Roberts has now experienced firsthand.
The Kimmel appearance that introduced the channel
The announcement itself came with a demonstration. On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Roberts opened 1986 Fleer baseball cards on air, bringing the hobby directly into the late-night format. The 1986 Fleer set is a familiar name to collectors of that era, and opening vintage packs on television gave viewers an immediate sense of what a break feels like: the careful handling of the pack, the reveal of each card, and the hope that something special is waiting inside.
Kimmel joined in the moment by giving Roberts a Darryl Strawberry card. Strawberry, one of baseball’s most recognizable stars of the 1980s, is a name that resonates with collectors who grew up with cards from that decade. The exchange was light and playful, but it also showed how accessible the hobby can be. A card does not have to be a record-breaking pull to mean something; sometimes it is the player, the era, or the person who hands it to you that makes it memorable.
Announcing on a late-night show also signaled the scale of the ambition. Summer Breaks is not being launched quietly. By introducing it to a national television audience and then reinforcing the news on Instagram a few days later, Roberts and John made sure the launch date, November 4, reached both her acting fans and the collecting community at the same time. That dual audience is part of the channel’s appeal: people who know Roberts from her screen work may discover the hobby through her, while collectors may discover a new regular show to follow.
The card the couple are chasing
Every serious collector has a chase card, and Roberts and John have named theirs. The couple are chasing a 2023 Bowman Draft Tom Brady autograph numbered 12/50. The numbering matters: only 50 copies of that card exist in that form, and this particular one is number 12. Low-numbered autograph cards of a player like Brady, whose career made him one of the most collected athletes of his generation, are among the most sought-after items in the modern hobby.
The fact that the couple share the chase says something about the channel, too. Summer Breaks is a joint project, and the shared goal of landing that Brady card gives viewers a storyline to follow beyond any single show. Will it appear in a break? Will it surface in a trade? Will it remain the one that got away? In a hobby built on suspense, a named chase card turns every relevant opening into a small event.
A personal milestone behind the launch
The launch comes in a year of personal milestones for Roberts and John. The couple married on July 25, 2026, in Sun Valley, Idaho. Her 5-year-old son, Rhodes, walked her down the aisle. That detail, shared as part of the story around the couple, adds a personal dimension to a professional announcement. Summer Breaks is not just a business venture for the pair; it arrives months after a wedding in which their family was front and center.
Roberts, at 35, is best known to television audiences for her work on American Horror Story, and her move into the trading-card world shows how wide the hobby’s reach has become. Collecting is no longer a niche pastime discussed only in card shops. It has its own live platforms, its own stars, and its own crossover moments with entertainment. A well-known actress launching a channel on Fanatics Live is a sign of that growth, and it may bring new viewers into a hobby that has been expanding for years.
What to watch for after November 4
When Summer Breaks goes live on November 4, the key things to watch are the schedule and the releases. The channel will operate seven days a week, so there will be regular programming for collectors to follow. Roberts’ appearances, up to about five times a month, will cluster around major releases, which means the biggest shows are likely to coincide with the hobby’s biggest calendar moments.
Viewers will also be watching for the chase. The 2023 Bowman Draft Tom Brady autograph numbered 12/50 is now publicly attached to the couple’s story, and any progress toward it, or any near miss, is likely to become a talking point. The same goes for Roberts’ own collecting interests. A channel hosted by someone who collects Star Wars, Disney, and sports cards, as well as first-edition books and dolls, has plenty of directions it can go, and its early shows will reveal which lanes it leans into most.
For now, the facts are straightforward: a new channel, a clear launch date, a weekly rhythm, and a host who is a genuine collector. Summer Breaks begins November 4 on Fanatics Live, with Emma Roberts and Cody John at the helm. Whether it becomes a regular stop for collectors will depend on the shows themselves, but the launch has already done its first job: it has given the hobby a new story to follow, and given Roberts’ fans a new place to find her.
Sources: E! News; Sports Illustrated Collectibles; Jimmy Kimmel Live.
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