Cooper Flagg bobbleheads bring a crowd to the Sea Dogs game
Michael Kumin, 16, left, of South Berwick, Ethan Clarke, 11, center, of Windham and Mason Kumin, 15, of South Berwick play with their Cooper Flagg bobbleheads while they wait for the start of the Portland Sea Dogs game on Wednesday. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
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Eighteen minutes, 45.71 seconds.
That’s how long it took for the 1,000 Cooper Flagg bobbleheads the Portland Sea Dogs gave out to fans entering Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field before Wednesday’s game against the Binghamton Rumble Ponies to be snapped up.
If you got in line an hour before the ballpark gates opened at 4:30 p.m., you were too late. By 3:30, the line went up Park Avenue, past the ballpark, and snaked around the Expo and into the Fitzpatrick Stadium parking lot.
Some fans started queuing up around 8:30 a.m. Courtney McDermott was at the front of the middle row with her sons, Stephen, 12, and Easton, 10. They arrived at 10:45.
“They wanted to spend the night here last night,” she said, nodding to her boys. “We vetoed that. Then they wanted to be here at 6:30.”
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Right behind the McDermotts were Kelly Harrington and her 11-year-old son, Leo. They drove up from Arlington, Massachusetts, and Leo quickly became friends with the McDermott brothers. Kelly played softball at the University of Maine in the 1990s.
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“I think she’s a bigger fan of Cooper than me,” said Leo, wearing a Flagg Duke jersey.
A little farther back in line, Jonathan Mikkelsen of Portland wore a Flagg Dallas Mavericks jersey.
“I’m just a die-hard fan. He’s the Maine Event. He’s repping us,” Mikkelsen said.
Directly in front of Mikkelsen, Dan Hager of Gorham sat in a lawn chair. Flagg made it possible for Maine kids to dream big, Hager said.
“He literally changed the way kids think of growing up in Maine,” he said.
The Flagg memorabilia market is cruising right now. A one-of-a-kind trading card, signed by Flagg and featuring the patch he wore on his jersey in his NBA debut, was discovered in Rhode Island earlier this week and could fetch millions. Another Flagg card sold at auction in March for $366,000.
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One would think that as the memorabilia market surrounding Flagg continues to grow, he and his agents would exercise caution when picking projects to green light. Flagg’s name carries more cache by the day. We don’t know for sure, though, because Ashley Feagan, one of Flagg’s agents with Creative Artists Agency, declined comment through an email.
Within an hour or so of the ballpark gates opening, a handful of the bobbleheads were available on eBay. Asking prices mostly ranged from $249.95 (or best offer, always in fine print) to $1,000. One seller was asking a ridiculous $30,000.
“New in box,” the sellers wrote. “Only 1,000. RARE.”
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One of Wednesday’s bobbleheads actually was sold on eBay for the low, low price of $119.95 on Tuesday by a gutsy entrepreneur, or maybe one of Flagg’s friends or family. The Maine-born NBA star was given two cases of bobbleheads by the team, 48 in all, said Chris Cameron, the Sea Dogs vice president of communications and fan experience.
It’s a promotion that almost didn’t happen at all.
For a while now, the Sea Dogs have been giving out bobbleheads honoring famous Mainers. They’ve done Mackenzie Holmes, the basketball standout from Gorham. There have been bobbleheads for NESN’s Tom Caron and actor Patrick Dempsey. Senator Margaret Chase Smith has a Sea Dogs bobblehead. So does astronaut Chris Cassidy. When the front office started brainstorming names for the 2026 season last September, of course Flagg’s was at the top of the list.
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The Sea Dogs reached out to the firm that holds the bobblehead license with the NBA and were told it was possible. Let them check with the Mavericks and Flagg’s camp, and we’ll get back to you.
“And we waited, and waited, and waited, and never heard anything,” Cameron said.
The Sea Dogs reached out directly to Flagg’s agents, who agreed to the promotion. They requested that the bobblehead feature Flagg representing either the Sea Dogs or the state of Maine rather than the Mavs. They suggested his old Maine United jersey, and the Sea Dogs thought that was perfect.
It took numerous revisions to get the bobblehead’s likeness to Flagg’s approval, then there was another snag. The initial promotion sponsor, Bangor Savings Bank, a former partner of Flagg and his twin brother, Ace, was a conflict for Chime, a bank that now has a deal with Flagg. Delta Dental became the new sponsor. Everything was a go in March, and the bobbleheads arrived in Portland a couple weeks ago.
Which led to here on Wednesday, with a line that at its longest reached Deering Oaks Park, with the Sea Dogs enjoying the most successful promotion they’ve had yet, and with some fans looking to make a quick buck off the Cooper Flagg memorabilia mania.
Despite the best wishes of pretty much everyone in line, Flagg was not in attendance. That didn’t matter to the McDermott brothers, the Harringtons, Mikkelsen or Hager. Each said they plan to hold on to their bobblehead.
“This is a keepsake,” Mikkelsen said. “This ain’t going nowhere.”
But if you have $30,000 burning a hole in your pocket, have I got an investment for you.
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Tagged: cooper flagg, Sports Columns, travis lazarczyk
Travis Lazarczyk has covered sports for the Portland Press Herald since 2021. A Vermont native, he graduated from the University of Maine in 1995 with a BA in English. After a few years working as a sports. More by Travis Lazarczyk
