About Paul Hickey
A career-long habit: let the data decide.
Entrepreneur, sports card content creator and basketball coach. Founder of Data Driven Design, NoOffseason.com and Hobby Flipper.
I've never trusted a gut call I couldn't back up. I started with the Detroit Pistons and Detroit Shock in 2001 — working with Basketball Operations on scouting and draft prep, scoring games on the gamenight scorecrew that fed NBA.com and WNBA.com, and later running Shock media relations and Pistons community relations. Every fan program, sponsor and event there lived or died on what it returned. Running a fantasy football publication for nine years taught me that the people who win are the ones who read the numbers better than everyone else in the league.
When I came back to sports cards in 2020, I saw the same thing: most collectors gamble on wax and breaks, and the price guides bury them in comps without telling them what to do. So I built the tools I wished I had — NoOffseason.com's Formula Rankings and Card Analyzer, then Hobby Flipper — and ran my own buying, grading and selling through them.
Data Driven Design is where all of that comes together. We take the same approach — find the signal, make the call, design the result — and build it for card businesses, fantasy platforms and teams.
The record
25 years of decisions.
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2001
Detroit Pistons & Detroit Shock
Marketing and PR with Palace Sports & Entertainment. Worked with Basketball Operations on scouting, draft prep and daily operations, and scored games on the gamenight scorecrew feeding live data to NBA.com and WNBA.com.
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2003
Director of Media Relations, Detroit Shock
Traveled with the 2003 WNBA champions as primary media contact, then ran Shock media relations as head coach Bill Laimbeer's spokesperson — media guides, statistical notes, the team website and thousands of tickets sold through community and group sales.
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2005
Asst. Director of Community Relations, Detroit Pistons
Built the Bowling For Kids fundraiser ($100K+ a year for local schools) and managed the Pistons-Palace Foundation silent auction program ($500K+ raised), plus the Pistons and Shock web content.
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2006
NoOffseason.com — fantasy football
Built a fantasy football publication from raw HTML, then PHP and WordPress. Ran product, publishing and partnerships, and grew organic traffic and paid members year over year through 2015.
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2006 – 15
Published fantasy analyst
Featured fantasy football columnist for Athlon Sports (winner of the 2009 Athlon Fantasy Football Analyst Experts League), fantasy contributor at Fanball, and bylines at SportsIllustrated.com, Rotoworld.com, FantasyFootballChamps.com, College & Pro Football Newsweekly and the Rotoworld/Beckett Fantasy Football Preview.
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2006
BaseballGuys.com
Co-founded and ran the fantasy baseball site with Ray Flowers of Sirius/XM Fantasy Sports Radio.
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2010
IMPACT Wrestling Fantasy Game
Created and pitched a fantasy wrestling game to TNA Entertainment's leadership. 30,000 players; national media including Sirius/XM.
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2016
Data Driven Design, LLC
Founded the studio: analytics-driven marketing, digital strategy, custom software and application development. VP of Digital Strategy at SnapShot Interactive the same year.
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2019
The Voice Event
Founded Nashville's first workshop-style Voice in Business conference — Alexa Skills, Google Actions and podcasts for business.
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2020
NoOffseason.com reboots for cards
Turned the fantasy brand into a data-driven sports card company: rankings, analyzer tools, grading services and the Sports Card Strategy Show network.
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2022 – 24
Sports Card Investor & SI Collects
Contributor and behind-the-scenes strategist at Sports Card Investor; featured collectibles and card writer for Sports Illustrated's SI Collects.
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2025
Ravenwood Varsity Boys Basketball
Assistant coach, Ravenwood High School, Brentwood TN. Built the team website and season calendar, then Ravenwood Analytics: a custom platform that turns the program's Hudl stats and film into player and team action items.
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Now
Hobby Flipper
An ROI-ranked card-market decision tool built on real eBay closing data — free with NoOffseason premium.
Published in
Bylines.
- Sports IllustratedSI.com fantasy · SI Collects card & collectibles writer
- Sports Card InvestorContributor and editorial strategist
- RotoworldRotoworld.com and the Rotoworld/Beckett Fantasy Football Preview
- Athlon SportsFeatured fantasy columnist · 2009 Fantasy Analyst Experts League champion
- FanballFantasy football, basketball and baseball
- College & Pro Football NewsweeklyFantasy analysis
- FantasyFootballChamps.comFantasy analysis
Ready?
Bring us the need. We'll bring the data driven decisions.
Sports card & hobby, fantasy sports, or a basketball program that wants better results. Tell us what you're building.