Breaking News: Topps Loses Players Inc License for Football

[blowoutcards]

Breaking News: Topps Loses Players Inc License


Players Inc, the marketing and licensing arm of the NFL Players Association, confirmed on Monday afternoon that it will not renew Topps’ trading card license for 2010.

The move to reduce football manufacturers has been rumored for months and will take place officially when Players Inc’s current agreements with Panini, Topps and Upper Deck expire at the end of February.

Multiple attempts to contact NFL Properties regarding its plans for 2010 and beyond have so far been unsuccessful.

Players Inc’s decision to move forward with just Panini and Upper Deck comes after months of thorough investigation and evaluation of a current football card marketplace still reeling from the troubled economy. The move also represents the latest bombshell in a continued streamlining of the overall sports collectibles industry that has seemingly seen a life’s worth of monumental licensing changes in 2009 alone.

Topps officials were not immediately available for comment. Just three months ago, Topps secured a Major League Baseball Properties exclusive beginning next season.

Stay tuned to Beckett.com for additional details on this breaking story.

– Tracy Hackler

Breaking News: Topps Loses Players Inc License « The Beckett Blog

[mwheeler27]

Topps loses NFL license

[mma138]

ouch i do not like this. i dont think i will be buying any basketball stuff...... i hate panini's designs. hoping at least upperdeck will continue to make football

[bjtheman1]

This is sad, Topps has been around forever and was one of the first to produce sports cards of any kind. The hobby is nothing like it used to be, definitely all about the money.

[solt0131]

It doesn't suck at all, with what they're doing, it's actually going to help keep the hobby card industry alive. Just think Supply and Demand.

[mwheeler27]

Originally Posted by solt0131

It doesn't suck at all, with what they're doing, it's actually going to help keep the hobby card industry alive. Just think Supply and Demand.

I agree with this and also think this hobby is headed in the right direction. I just hope everyone can stay on track.

[bjtheman1]

Originally Posted by solt0131

It doesn't suck at all, with what they're doing, it's actually going to help keep the hobby card industry alive. Just think Supply and Demand.

No more Topps, Finest, Bowman & Bowman Chrome, Etc

Some of the favored products each year, as well as better priced for consumers too.

I don't think Supply & Demand, I see it as NFL Players Association wanting more money from card companies & trying to get the best offer from the remaining ones they can.

[bjtheman1]

I'm just looking at the legacy of Topps, one of the founders of sports cards. Topps was the first product I remember collecting back when I was a kid. It's just disappointing on how the hobby has changed over the years.

[coltman18]

Originally Posted by solt0131

It doesn't suck at all, with what they're doing, it's actually going to help keep the hobby card industry alive. Just think Supply and Demand.

I disagree, let me explain, and if I am wrong, then I am wrong...

Why not keep the 3 companies and limit what they produce. Say each company can only produce 5-7 products a year? This would make the cards more valuable with limiting products. But instead they take away Topps and allow UD to make 20 products, let me restate that, allow UD to make 20 OVERPRICED products.

This move will loose more people in this hobby. Remember grandma and grandpa or mom and dad usually buy a regular Topps set for kids or grandkids for holidays, now what are they going to buy? With the state of the country right now, with out cheeper Topps products for kids to buy, the card industry will slowly start loosing collectors. How many kids can afford a $20+ pack of cards? Not many...

Just my 2 cents...

[bigboysoffootball]

I just hope that some of you are still talking about how this dose not suck when next year when there is no Topps Chrome/Bowman Chrome cards of Tim Tebow, Dez Bryant, Sam Bradford and other that will be coming out. Panini is ok in my book and we all know the problems people have with Upper Deck. It really dose hurt the hobby when you take away the staple of card collecting.

[nephinfan]

To me, it's just one more reason UD will be allowed to be sloppy & careless about the products they put out. Without Topps to take away some of their customer base, UD can run wild with missing hits, redemption replacements, bad CS, etc. You name it, they'll get away with it. Bad decision IMO. Why take away a founding company in the hobby, instead of one who's only been around for twenty years and doesn't seem to care about their customers most of the time? Just my opinion.

[mma138]

yes i agree

but you know what would truly be sad ? the day that topps loses there license to make baseball cards............. ouch that would be awful

[coltman18]

Originally Posted by mma138

yes i agree

but you know what would truly be sad ? the day that topps loses there license to make baseball cards............. ouch that would be awful

That would be the day I would leave this hobby...

[crr9381]

I know I am personally dissapointed because topps chrome is probably one of my favorite products out there and it wont be made for football or basketball now...

[solt0131]

Originally Posted by coltman18

I disagree, let me explain, and if I am wrong, then I am wrong...

Why not keep the 3 companies and limit what they produce. Say each company can only produce 5-7 products a year? This would make the cards more valuable with limiting products. But instead they take away Topps and allow UD to make 20 products, let me restate that, allow UD to make 20 OVERPRICED products.

This move will loose more people in this hobby. Remember grandma and grandpa or mom and dad usually buy a regular Topps set for kids or grandkids for holidays, now what are they going to buy? With the state of the country right now, with out cheeper Topps products for kids to buy, the card industry will slowly start loosing collectors. How many kids can afford a $20+ pack of cards? Not many...

Just my 2 cents...

If you owned a company and could make a ton of money producing and making money on 20 different products, why would you make only 10?

[coltman18]

Originally Posted by solt0131

If you owned a company and could make a ton of money producing and making money on 20 different products, why would you make only 10?

I was saying, instead of allowing only 2 companies to make FB cards, why not just limit the amount of product a company can produce. They did this with baseball what about 3 years ago and it seemed to work out...

Are you telling me that you want more product with contents like SP Signature, SPX or SP Threads...

I know you can not make money on everything you open and dont expect that, but open a case of any UD product and open a case of a Topps product and see what percent you get back on each. I would venture to say that your % of money back would be greater with any Topps product, the only "decent" product UD makes for FB is SP Authentic, and that is hit or miss...

[FINS4LIFE]

I wonder what they will be doing with all the sticker auto and jersey's?

[Wiscollector]

On the positive side, I imagine Topps will be making a few more loaded products to finish off the year in order to unload autographs and jerseys still in their inventory. A lot like Donruss Champions in 05.

[topherkris1]

Originally Posted by solt0131

If you owned a company and could make a ton of money producing and making money on 20 different products, why would you make only 10?

I'm quoting this for simplicity, but that approach is a big #@#@#@#@ing problem for the card companies. They're actually taking that approach without thinking past the simple #@#@#@#@ing math entailed.

First off, the collectors as a whole must be separated into two markets -- case buyers (hobby shops/internet retails/flippers) and box buyers (collectors). Each of these groups have a pretty hard limit on how much money they'll invest, based on past returns and future profit margins. A caveat, of course, is that the limit may be fluid in terms of impulse buys, but the market will always correct for such purchases with adverse effects that greatly outweight the original impulse buy, ie. 10 cases of signature series this year, results in 2 cases next year, as opposed to 4 each year.

With that in mind, the cost associated with more product is fairly large when you're dealing with percentages. Additional design, packaging, shipping, will put an unneeded burden on the books without bringing in additional profit.

Thus, you get companies trying to massively cut costs to keep up such a intensive release schedule. Enter shitting designs, crappy checklists, and product delays, which raise the adverse effects on almost every product.

This puts us where we're at right now, with companies releasing umpteen products per year.

I can only assume that companies are paying for a blanket license, rather than a per product license or, at the very least, they're getting discounted licensing fees on subsequent products.

Stretching the cost of the license across many products is the only place where companies are saving money, which isn't exactly directly tied to making money, obviously.

It comes down to a massive lack of foresight on the part of the card companies, which almost directly reflects the problems encountered by the North American auto industry. Sure, it's nice to give the consumer choice, but the cost of doing so often leads to far inferior products that'll have profitable years in terms of raw sales in maybe the first year, maybe two.

However, when the novelty wears off, you're left with net losses across the board. The car and card companies assumed the answer to this problem was to create a "new novelty" and repeat the cycle.

The cycle isn't sustainable however, and it may well keep the company viable and barely treading water year in and year out, it'll eventually catch up to them. Sooner or later, the BRAND, which has been built up over many years with many millions of dollars, begins to suffer rather than just the MODEL (or product).

Hobby Shops and Case Breakers (or car dealerships in this analogy,) eventually end up abandoning all of the newer, untested models, in favour of tried and tested basic models. The car dealerships that tried to market the entire chevrolet line, eventually just went out of business. The ones that stuck to the top-3 selling Chevy models are probably still barely floating. Now, the only time the Car companies throw out a new model is if it's drastically different from everything else they produce; otherwise, the dealerships just won't carry it.

This is where we're eventually heading to with the Trading Card industry, and it's pretty unfortunate that people in charge are #@#@#@#@ing idiots.

Unless they plan on suffering the fate of the auto industry, they've got to clean up their act. Seriously, the Asian Auto Makers laid down a picture perfect #@#@#@#@ing game-plan for you:

Instead of More Products, Make BETTER products at a *CHEAPER PRICE.

This has nothing do with acquiring exclusive licenses, but the premise itself sort of guides the concept in a direction favorable to the market, but not the individual company: It's a forced specialization, rather than the rational act of specializing to increase products and associated revenue. Quite frankly, it's ass-backwards. You can rant and rave about scarcity power all that you want, but the cost is an unneeded burden for companies that're barely afloat.

So there, that's why companies should be putting out 10 products instead of 20 -- Because it'll make 'em money in the long run, not just keep them afloat in the short run.


*It's completely possible, and it has very little to do with "outsourcing" or "cheap labour," even though I'm fairly sure that the people clipping jerseys aren't making much more than joe smchoe in Korea.

[Vintage Collector]

they could still use their college images and make them a first bowman chrome card like in baseball, correct?

[topherkris1]

UD purchased NCAA license, I believe.

[wee111]

I don't care about football, but if topps lost it's baseball liscence, I would stop collecting. Topps was the original baseball card company. yes, i know, there was tabacoo and 2 years of bowman, but topps is the real one(slogan ftw!) And upperdeck can suck it.

[CaptainBOHICA]

Originally Posted by wee111

I don't care about football, but if topps lost it's baseball liscence, I would stop collecting. Topps was the original baseball card company. yes, i know, there was tabacoo and 2 years of bowman, but topps is the real one(slogan ftw!) And upperdeck can suck it.

word, adam weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[wee111]

baseball cards were the first and are best collectible card, and topps made and makes the best baseball cards.

[mike barnes]

now we have

Donruss playoff for bkb only (done with that sport)

DP and UD for football (don't think ud is safe yet)

UD for Hockey (done with that as well)

topps and ud for baseball

im down to baseball and ??? old bkb and football, we need 2 companies at the least in every sport to drive innovation or stagnation will occur, not good, donruss and topps and ud fighting for all our cash drove great innovation now i think we are ganna get pannini with the same designs every year ugg and overprice UD crap that they never redeem GOD help me time to get our me thinks