Is there a reason Topps and Upper Deck are no longer producing NFL football cards?
CommemKing
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I loved Topps and Upper Deck football before they suddenly stopped producing football cards. Is there a particular reason they are no longer in the "game" so to speak? Panini seems to have a monopoly of the NFL market. They have also saturated it. They have been producing more products than one can count and their quality control (design, OFF CENTER CARDS, bad corners and edge chipping) is terrible. I'm just shaking my head wondering why they have no competition. Topps and Upper Deck had such nice football products. Why?
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Panini has an exclusive license with the NFL players association. It’s not atypical in that most major sports enter exclusivity., and I’m pretty sure NFL was the last to do so. NBA (Panini), MLB (Topps), NHL (Upper Deck) and MLS (Topps) all exclusive or recently were. There can be fluctuation when licenses expire. I assume the business reason is the bidding that comes from exclusivity puts the most money in the hands of the players whose likenesses are represented.
I thought Panini was a sticker album sort of company? Not really a trading card company. I mean I know people in 90s were complaining about their being too many card companies/sets but I don't think any problem has ever been solved by going to the opposite extreme (Topps once again having a monopoly on MLB cards).
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Panini has been around since at least the 60s. If I'm not mistaken, they started off as a sticker company, then started producing cards later.
<<< They have been producing more products than one can count and their quality control (design, OFF CENTER CARDS, bad corners and edge chipping) is terrible. >>>>
Well we all know what that means. Find a well centered, clean edge card with sharp corners, get it in a PSA 10 slab, and it should be a nice valuable card.
It is all $ - exclusivity for one company is worth something so the bids are high to the league. Same reason Sunday Ticket has always only been on one provider.
Regarding Panini & Topps competitors within sport:
Futera Unique has for a very long time been issuing top premium quality soccer card products (not MLS though) as compared with Panini. Their soccer items are fully licensed. I just noticed that they had issued a 2019 baseball set called Prospects & Legends. It has the emblems airbrushed out in the photos and lists teams by city with no reference to nickname, so unlicensed relative to MLB. Has anyone here checked these out?
Well, im not a big fan of these exclusivity deals. If they opened up their markets that would increase competition, thus forcing these companies to put out a better product. Guess they really don't care, will buy anyway.