Topps to be replaced as the BB Card Manuracturer
 

I do realize this is primarily a PRE-WAR board but this is huge news so I do ask Leon for some forgiveness for discussing 2025 instead of 1925

https://www.actionnetwork.com/news/m...fanatics-topps

This is really unfortunate news. Sad to see the end of an era. I truly thought Topps would have the baseball card license forever because of tradition. All about the money these days.

Hi,

Since Topps has been doing cards with MLB for over 70 years this is a huge shocker in some ways.

But since it is all about the money and Fanatics beats the best deal Topps could do it is not a surprise that MLB would follow the money

Michael Rubin strikes again, probably a good time to short MUDS.

Yikes. Does that mean no more First Bowmans?

Regardless of design or player selection, I do not ever see myself getting excited to buy a pack of Fanatics.

So, no more retro-design sets or inserts, unless Topps has nothing left but to license its copyrights to Fanatics.

I think Topps has put out a decent product in recent years (some better than others) for their base sets, with some nice special issues via Heritage and Archives. I don't purchase many cards per year, but I do buy some new product and am sad to see Topps have to exit the scene.

I know fanatics sells reproductions of certain items. So modern card collecting is dead to me.

Paying that much for a license, I doubt Fanatics will doing anything to improve upon the mess that is modern cards. Too bad, getting control away from Topps could be a huge opportunity to make some great changes to the hobby.

I’m legitimately sad about this. A big part of my collecting is about the history of the game and the history of the hobby. The Topps brand is a huge part of that. Off the charts equity. Very sad day in my opinion.

I would imagine Fanatics will now attempt to acquire Topps? Seems like there would be value in maintaining the brand.

Sucks. Only positive is there’s actually a point I could call my Topps runs complete.

I hadn't bought a Topps product more recent than the 1950s in years, but I'm surprised to see this. I expect the investors in taking it public are looking for the exits right now.

What is Topps' corporate status, I didn't really follow the story about it maybe going public?

Merger deal via SPAC still isn't complete. Presumably this buries that deal.

Topps future in the baseball card business
 

So Topps is still licensed for baseball products for five years--Wonder what the future might bring for NBA and NFL licensing --Topps used to produce those products too. Panini has many baseball card product lines without team logo's-and most of Panini new basketball and football products are selling out-I guess those license will be on the chopping block someday too-- $$$

Does Fanatics currently make baseball cards?

No they specialize in very generic apparel.

Topps has history and resonates with even the older guys who collected Topps as kids just like their father did before them. I don't like this at all.

Apparently it's a much bigger company than Topps?

They're getting money from somewhere. I'm pretty sure they bought Steiner too.

They are an $18 billion company and do have PE money from Sofbank and Alibaba... I'll hold my tongue on my opinion of that...

Not happy about this. I don't think Topps is as good as it used to be, but it's still okay and I do not feel optimistic about Fanatics doing anywhere near as good of a job.:eek::confused:

Sad day for a longtime Topps collector. I guess "The Living Set" will have an ending in a few years.

Michael Rubin, Executive Chairman, Fanatics; Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO, Galaxy Digital; and Gary Vaynerchuk, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor togehter set up Candy Digital in order to secure licensing & "make the market" for sports NFT's. The licensing of baseball cards plays perfeclty into their plan.
_

If they acquire Topps and continue the brand, it may just end up being an ownership change in practice.

Whoever makes baseball cards, I hope they once again are available to the general public. My grandsons have been unable to buy a pack of cards this year at any store. Collecting cards , not cash , may be a thing of the past if kids can't buy packs in the $ 1.00 range, and cross out checklist cards.

my guess: Fanatics is going to buy both Topps and Panini, for pennies on the dollar, and then they will consolidate the products and create the best of the brands

Sad day for baseball card collectors.

I assume Topps can make cards but they cannot include team names and logos.

Not in this case, the MLBPA rights are what allows companies to use player likeness

Well one thing is for sure. If they are paying that kind of big money to take over a segment of the hobby, card prices will see a huge increase.

Those days are done with forever. You will never be able to buy current year products for around a dollar a pack, licensing fees prevents that.

I think I read they got basketball and football too.

So how is this going to work in 2023 to '25? There have been and continue to be plenty of cards made by companies with only an MLBPA license--but how will Topps make cards with only an MLB license? Or can they at all?

What's next?? Ford stop making cars? Levis not made in the US anymore? Chick Fil A not serving their chicken salad sammich?

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Seriously though, I feel like it's the end of an era. I don't understand why the trading card license has to be exclusive. Is there not room for multiple manufacturers? MLB does not limit manufacturing rights to jerseys, hats, t-shirts, etc to only one company.

2021 Topps chrome baseball blaster boxes sold through Walmart raised their retail price around 34 percent from 19.99 to 29.98

To answer my own question, Topps might be reduced to being what Fleer was in the 60s and 70s -- issuing cards of former players and logos without players. Would be a sad way to go out.

Me too

Levi’s outsourced most of their manufacturing in the 1990s.

Well maybe Topps will empty the vault on the way out and put out some killer sets before the sun goes down...

I had walked away from Topps flagship about a year after I re-entered the hobby and similarly left Heritage behind a year later, mainly because of Topps made scarcity a business strategy. The quote above tells me that nothing is going to change for the better. Every decision will be driven by what will maximize profits.

Now, I am an unabashed capitalist, so I get that is how companies operate and, to the extent that I am an investor, I am okay with it. But, as has been said upthread and elsewhere on this site, the profits aren't in selling packs to kids anymore. The profits are in turning the hobby into a casino and getting folks with more money than sense to chase after the 1/1 of the latest can't miss prospect. And I have to believe that isn't a sustainable business model.

This is what will happen:

Some entrepreneur with $100,000 in capital will go to amateur state championship tournaments in various states, and put together a nice 500 card set of 20 or 30 top amateur teams. They'll pay the teams a very nominal amount, plus give them free cards. No additional licenses needed.

Then they'll print the cards on standard stock and package them in wax packs for retail sale at maybe 50 cents for 10 cards.

They'll make a fortune, and collectors, especially kids, will be able to have fun playing with cards again.

1952 Andy Pafko's smile just turned to a frown.

If you break the spirit of young collectors early enough they will never come back to the hobby 30 years later when they have real money to spend. It's the difference between old school brand building and new school short sighted profit taking. The hobby will be the victim and guys like Rubin and his Cronies will suffer no consequences.

It's not just the hobby, it's the game itself that could lose some interest. I assume for most of us baseball made us want to collect cards but at the same time collecting cards to some extent kept us watching and following baseball. I'm not sure I would have been such a huge fan if I couldn't buy cards. It was all part of one big thing.

I had a great connection with collecting as a kid of 10 which brought me back as a young man at 21, silent for 21 years but still a positive feeling so I was fortunate enough to find this place and have the resources build a respectable collection. If I couldn't experience that as a 10 year old I wouldn't be here now.

To be very clear, Rubin, Goldin, and all the other "Elites" in this business don't give a shit about random 10y old kids discovering this hobby.

Yeah nothing like riding your bike to the 7 11 or walking to the variety store or marveling at the cards your friend got from his older brother to lay the foundation. I'm sure I've lost most of my purity as with age the cards inevitably become assets too, but I'd like to think I still have some of that kid's residual love.

Every once in a while I will open a box of 80s or 90s cards for just that reason. It reminds me of the fun I had collecting as a kid.

I would have to buy 60s boxes LOL.

Mark, I can see something like this happening, but with college teams, and with all the major sports, not just baseball. I think this would take much more initial capital, say $25M or more, as the NCAA would demand a huge fee for an exclusive deal and college athletes can now be compensated.

Except for Mustang, Ford stopped making cars 2 years ago, they are a truck manufacturer now.

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Topps has had the exclusive license since 2010 and there has not been one year without unlicensed logo competition. The Panini releases are always unlicensed and honestly the donruss diamond kings have consistently beat the Topps design in my mind.

They won’t have team logos but this is certainly not closing Topps doors, it won’t slow the release schedules at all.

Without permission to use the players' pictures, what can they do on the Major League level without being sued? Even if they could produce a set, how ugly would it be with every player wearing a generic air brushed hat and uniform?

I understand you are likely strictly a vintage collector but as was stated topps has had the exclusive license since 2010. For an example of how it can be done, just google any non-topps mlb release for the past 11 years. The mlb license is for logos not players.

http://psacard.com/cert/43030005

Understood, but this deal also includes the Players' Association.

"That longevity was threatened Thursday, as The Action Network confirmed that Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have given their exclusive licenses to Fanatics."

I've recently been turning to SGA team sets, and minor league sets. I wonder how the shakeup will affect that? Too expensive to buy modern anymore.

Also, if the card bubble bursts in 2023, wil Fanatics deal fall apart? Or will it become the new junk wax era?

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Apologies, I did not read the mlbpa note. It leaves me to wonder if they will issue multiple licenses for additional cash even as it says exclusive as they have no history of exclusive deals. If the players see additional cash not taken it could cause more problems than on the mlb side. I don’t see this working in a positive way to give exclusivity to a private company with zero production or distribution experience outside their own sites.

If the deal involves huge, guaranteed, up-front cash, I could see it.

Issuing multiple licenses seems very unlikely, since Fanatics, or whatever it is they're called, paid for an exclusive license. MLBPA would most certainly be in breach, and subject to substantial damages.

MLB and MLBPA have ownership in the new company. They gave themselves the exclusive license. The NFL and NFLPA have ownership, too. NBAPA does, too. So Panini can kiss their NFL license goodbye as well. The players from the NBA and NFL have already signed deals with the new company.

And these guys have 4 years to figure this stuff out. I expect distribution and production to be minor issues at best.

So the question becomes, does Fanatics find and hire their own, new staff and people to start to work on the upcoming design, production, and distribution of baseball and other sports cards in the coming years, or do they start to go after and poach as many Topps people as they can, or lastly, do they wait till this new licensing goes through and wipes out Topps' attempt to go public and just swoop in and buy them out for pennies on the dollar (and get all their employees that way)?

If Fanatics is smart, they'll try to acquire Topps as well. I think a Panini acquisition would be less likely though. Or perhaps they'll just enter into some sort of licensing agreement with all the card manufacturers that effectively just allows them to skim profits by being the middleman to all the players associations. To me, this looks like it's all coming from the players themselves. They see the money being thrown around in the hobby and they want more of it. Every time a modern card sells for a million dollars, they probably complain about not getting a cut of that. Card prices are probably going up. At least for the distributors and card shops that is. No more buying a case from Topps for $4,000 and reselling it for $20,000. They're going to squeeze the middlemen out and take over that role. That's my guess.

I think they would have to buy Topps to maximize profits. Topps doesn’t only trade on commodity. Topps trades on brand recognition too. Donruss and Pannini baseball cards aren’t worth anything and it’s not only because they don’t carry logos.

Agreed the Brand Recognition and value of the Topps name and intellectual properties exceeds the others and not even close

I would suggest the days of cardboard pictures of players are numbered. The Fanatics market is not for us old guys. Millennials love to gamble in all forms and I see Fantatics getting heavily into the NFT market. The commissions and fees alone would probably dwarf card sales.

I can understand the guys on Blowout being upset over this since they like to buy new product every year, but why is this a problem here?

Fanatics/Rubin are logistic experts. Rubin made his money selling a portion of his business to eBay several years ago. I assume they will open up distribution but do it better (and without) the way it has been done for years.

That would be a colossal mistake. NFTs are not the future of this hobby. I have no doubt that they will try to push it, but it won't succeed. They'll win over some crypto enthusiasts who just want to invest in what they hope is the next digital frontier, but it's a massive failure to overlook the psychological aspects of what it means to be a collector in the first place. People who collect, which are still the core of this hobby and always will be, have emotional and physical connections to their collections. You can't just separate that aspect and send them all pictures of fake cards instead. The only people who would buy NFTs are people looking to invest who don't take the time to understand the roots of this hobby that actually make the grass grow. It might survive as an adjacent or tangential product, but I just don't see it ever actually taking over as the primary sports collectors' product.

They're already there, fanatics owns a majority stake of Candy Digital.

Nobody wants baseball card NFTs. Topps Bunt is not a hot product and none of their other digital releases seem to be catching fire.

Since the dawn of time, man has collected random stupid stuff. I can't remember how old it is, but they found a connection of shiny rocks in a human cave in Europe. This is the first evidence of humans hoarding useless junk merely for the pleasure of looking at it. I'll try to find the article..... not exactly the article I was looking for, but close enough. This is about a cool looking rock. The article I remember was about agates/shale/etc.

NFTs are not fulfilling man's material instincts!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...cks-180961865/

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I will admit I am a vintage card guy but still have room for the shiny stuff on occasion. When I heard that Topps was losing it’s license, I do have to say there was a great deal of sadness that came with this news. I was raised on Topps being THE card company because it was the ONLY card company. Even when Fleer and Donruss came along in 1981, I collected those cards but Topps was still the top dog. Sure, being a vintage guy, I love Bowman, had Play Ball and Diamond Star cards in my collection and even added some Fleer to the mix but the affinity was always for the Topps brand. And since we cannot ignore the elephant in the room, Topps almost always had that value above most other brands in the business for the most part.

I like many others here on the Net54 boards am probably a dinosaur in the collecting card business in that I have stuck with my vintage sets and really have no need or desire to dive heavily into anything new. If I was being honest, I just don’t have interest in today’s players and certainly will not be shelling out large amounts of money for cards of guys I just really do not care for. For guys like me, the loss of the Topps license likely will not effect us very much but the reality is that likely Topps exiting the sports card business is much like the loss of a family friend. Someone who has been there one’s whole life and now will be summarily dismissed much like those family friends who have grown old beyond their years and everyone wonders whatever happened to them.

I am going to miss Topps but not for the fact I will no longer be able to purchase memories in packs of cards but for the fact a company that was there for me as a nine year old kid, a company who’s products helped me to learn to read and understand statistics and showed me what my childhood heroes really looked like is being dismissed. Is this Topps fault? Sure, they need to share the blame as they failed to change with the times but the real culprit is what is killing sports in general. The culprit is greed and the need to capitalize on an investment and make money for the stockholders while making the collectors pockets as light as possible. I understand it all but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with this process or be happy with it.

As for me, I am going back to my Sibby Sisti, Oscar Zamora and Fergie Jenkins cards while trying to finish my 1975 and '65 Topps set for the third time.

At least I still have these memories.

NPR called me last night to get my take. We talked for a good 20 minutes, so I was a bit disappointed to see how little made it into the article, but I suppose the laymen just need a bird’s eye view.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/20/10295...facturer-topps

FYI, it was just announced that the group buying and taking Topps public has backed out. I would be stunned if this new Fanatics group doesn't now swoop in and buy Topps and their production and thus continuing the Topps name.

It does seem like the obvious play here. It's also probably the best outcome for the hobby.

I’m a gigantic crypto enthusiast. I’ve been in ETH since the pre-mine ICO. I’ve given two presentations to my company’s board about allocating a percentage of our treasury or quarterly TCI into crypto. I guided my CFO through her first personal crypto purchase. That being said - NFTs (As they are popular now) are the absolute dumbest thing I have seen and it baffles me. People irrationally dropping $10k on digital 8-bit images then losing almost that much in gas fees because they don’t take five minutes to check network congestion. It’s idiotic. But the again I collect pictures of dudes playing sports so to each their own.

Thinking about it a bit more, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Allen & Ginter, the American Tobacco Company, Goudey, Bowman, Leaf and others have all fallen by the wayside for one reason or other, Topps just hung around longer than they did.

So there you have it , a beginning, a middle and an end..The circle is complete!!

Yep.

It's a sad day for Topps and it's own fans, but life goes on.