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Originally Posted by BobC
... do you think it possible that this new licensing company taking over the production of sports cards from Topps and Panini, Fanatics, may just eventually cut the Breakerss out? They are already involved in their own online marketing and sales of licensed sporting apparel, so what would stop them from just expanding that to include sports cards they will also produce? Will be interesting to see if they continue with autos and game used cards and other manufactured rarities that are being produced by Topps and Panini now to mostly fuel the demand from Breakers for product to then sell to their consumers. You know the major sports leagues and the athletes see all these stories about record card prices and everything, and are then wondering why they aren't getting even more money. Now that they also have a stake in this company that will be producing all the sports cards in a few years, can only imagine what they may try to do and come up with so they can possibly make even more off the secondary card market.
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Tough to say. It's certainly plausible though. If you try to imagine them making decisions that put the most money in their pocket, you can often predict what a company might do in advance. In this industry, it seems to me that they probably can't squeeze the collectors for much more as we're already paying ridiculous prices and those prices are dictated by supply and demand. Perhaps they could increase supply and dilute the market, that's certainly what the card manufacturers are already doing now though. But another huge opportunity for them to make large chunks of money is to become a direct-to-consumer distributor (which they already specialize in). It's baffling to me how much money gets scraped out of the market just by the middlemen in this hobby. Products are literally flipped for 5x-10x straight from the manufacturers for offering almost zero additional value to the consumer. What value does a breaker provide by buying a premium Topps hobby box for $400 and then opening it for me on camera for the fee of $3000? It just makes no sense. They're probably licking their chops as they eye that segment of the market. It's where the vast majority of profits come from in this hobby. Will be interesting to see if any changes get made there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
Heck, what if they even went so far as to cut out the TPGs and encapsulate some of these manufactured raries and rookie cards themselves, straight out of the factory?
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They actually do this already. Fanatics slabs cards right now. Have you seen them? I don't think they put a number grade on their slabs, but they do slab cards as a way to authenticate autographs or memorabilia. Here's a link to one on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/293958780994