[packs]

Originally Posted by BobC

I'm thinking in terms of the sports leagues owning Fanatics and then giving the licensing contracts basically to themselves, with apparently no one else even having a chance to bid, and summarily putting the licensing for all three major US sports in the hands of a single company virtually overnight.

Don't forget that Topps did lose exclusivity rights in the courts back in 1980, which is what allowed Fleer and Donruss to start issuing baseball cards in 1981. But the court cases and appeals continued and went back and forth for years after. And these cases revolved around contract definitions and interpretations,not just anti-trust issues. It will be interesting to see if Topps can find some way around the exclusivity of these new licensing agreements to try and still create BB cards going forward, but likely not because in 1980 when Fleer initially won the right to sell BB cards, they did so with the licensing coming through from the MLBPA since Topps exclusive contracts back then were with the individual players. Now though, the MLBPA is also part owner of the Fanatics entity granted exclusive licensing of MLB player rights going forward. So it is highly unlikely they (MLBPA) will grant Topps any licensing rights like they did with Fleer back in 1981.

So the playing field is quite a bit different now that MLB and the MLBPA both own interests in Fanatics. I can see Topps possibly trying to raise some type of anti-trust argument in the courts, especially since they weren't even afforded a chance to compete and bid on the new licensing agreements.

So with this joint colloboration between the three major US sports leagues and their respective players associations, if the combined effort to control licensing works out and and they prevail against any potential legal challenges, do they go ahead and form their own exclusive TV/cable network next and do away with anyone else ever airing any MLB, NFL, or NBA games ever again? Might not be as easy as the TV contracts aren't handled the same in all three sports, but the lure of money could lead to a lot of compromises among the various leagues and teams. Time will tell.

Where did you read that this a no-bid decision? The articles I read said that Fantatics outbid Topps 10 to 1 for the rights.

This article says Fanatics paid 10 times more than Topps ever paid but I guess it's not clear if it was a bid or not: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...nsee-mlb-cards