Topps to be replaced as the BB Card Manuracturer

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

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.

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.

[sbfinley]

Originally Posted by Snowman

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.

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.

[egri]

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.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by egri

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.

Yep.

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

[bigfanNY]

Topps not dead yet. They have a license for 4 more years and as mentioned above Brand recognition that is through the roof. Just like Bowman and leaf and Donruss too valuable to just fade away. I just hope the competition brings out some great cards.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by bigfanNY

Topps not dead yet. They have a license for 4 more years and as mentioned above Brand recognition that is through the roof. Just like Bowman and leaf and Donruss too valuable to just fade away. I just hope the competition brings out some great cards.

Topps has an MLB license for 4 more years but an MLBPA* license for only 2 more. That means 2 years of not being able to use any active players and having to do individual licenses with anybody they do want to use.

With the deal to go public going up in flames, I really see no outcome other than Fanatics buying Topps and continuing the Topps brand. I can't imagine Fanatics would turn down a chance to get Topps at a deep discount and just run cards with the Fanatics brand. Just don't see that happening.

Also, at the end of the day, Topps never had a chance anyway. There's no possible way they could top the licensing deal that the Fanatics group could offer since the leagues and players themselves own the company. They gave themselves the license. Topps can't touch that. No way.

* - what genius at Topps negotiated license deals with MLB and MLBPA that don't end at the same time?

[Mark17]

Just throwing this out there....... is there enough profit for Topps to just issue numerous non-sports sets, like they did in the 1960s (Gilligan's Island, McHale's Navy, The Beatles, The Monkeys, Hogans Heroes, Batman, Combat!) and so on?

Could they come up with something like Pokemon, Garbage Pail Kids, Harry Potter, or whatever, just to produce cards and make some dough?

In other words, can they survive without major league sports?

[brianp-beme]

"Topps to be replaced as the BB Card Manuracturer"

I didn't realize baseball cards could be converted into manure.


Brian (I read the title 7-8 times before noticing the misspelling...congrats on disguising it so well)