A YouTuber's Collab with Hasbro Made Big Money for Charity – and Resellers

On Black Friday of 2021, YouTuber Scott the Woz would announce through Twitter that he would be releasing a special, officially licensed version of Monopoly, themed around his channel. Profits would be donated to charity, and supplies limited to 5000 sets. Five hours later, they would all be sold out, and now resell for $100-$200, after retailing for $50.

Why is a YouTuber's Merch reselling?

Maybe you're already familiar with Scott the Woz, maybe you're not. He's a YouTuber, typically producing lighthearted content related to classic gaming, especially old-school Nintendo. With nearly 1.7 million subscribers and many uploads regularly seeing millions of views, his channel is a pretty major part of the YouTube gaming landscape. First uploading to YouTube in January of 2017, the channel grew steadily with weekly uploads, and attracting a fanbase.

In 2018, Scott would announce the release of a t-shirt with his signature "Hey all, Scott here" line that he uses to open videos. Proceeds of the shirt would be donated to charity, and with this, a new tradition would be born. Each year from mid-November to mid-December, Scott would put out a new line of merchandise for the channel, with profits all going to charity.

These would include shirts, posters, collectible physical versions of popular episodes and more. Additionally, each year would feature a major piece of merchandise, which would only be revealed and released on Black Friday.

For 2019, these would be a VHS version of one of his iconic videos: "The Internet and You". Being itself a riff on the hilariously geeky productions of early 90s video forays into the internet, the VHS version resounded with fans and sold out quickly. 2020 would see the return of these VHS tapes, as well as a special archive book, detailing the production process for videos. The 2019 and 2020 charity drives were tremendously successful, totaling hundreds of thousands raised for charity.

By the time 2021 rolled around, it was clear that Scott wanted to take things to the next level. For the weeks running up to the event, he was clear that this year's charity would be the biggest yet.

Enter: Monopoly Scott the Woz Edition.

An officially licensed version of the classic board game, Monopoly Scott the Woz Edition would be a creative reimagining of Monopoly, and a celebration of Scott's channel. As with previous charity events, the set was kept a secret up until release, and nobody knew what it was going to be until Black Friday 2021. Only 5,000 boxes were produced, retailing for $50 each, $30 of which would be donated to charity.

In just 5 hours, stock had depleted. While this had all the trappings of a great item to buy for resale, it appeared as though resellers largely missed out on it. To be fair, it is a fairly niche item, but anyone familiar with Scott the Woz's channel would have easily been able to anticipate Black Friday would see the release of something special. Additionally, it's easy to check the storefronts for the previous charity events and see that every previous release sold out quickly. The only reason a reseller wouldn't buy one is because they hadn't heard of it, or Scott's channel.

For the resellers who did manage to snag a box, they would be able to double their money quite easily. Initial sales were at the $100 mark, but as sets continue to change hands and leave boxes, the value of an unopened set will continue to rise. While it remains to be seen if Scott will choose to rerelease the set later this year, it's possible that these could resell for $200 or more in the future, especially if there is no further production.