Fanatics to Acquire Topps
NGS428
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Not a surprise, but noteworthy nonetheless.
Edit: additional links
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/04/fanatics-acquires-topps-trading-cards.html
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
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Topps chrome football is coming back!
The only Panini brand Fanatics may want is National Treasures, Contenders, and Flawless. Maybe Optic. Hell they might as well see if Upper Deck wants to sell SP Authentic.
“ Topps chrome football is coming back!
The only Panini brand Fanatics may want is National Treasures, Contenders, and Flawless. Maybe Optic. Hell they might as well see if Upper Deck wants to sell SP Authentic.”
If they’re talking to Upper Deck about SP Authentic, Panini should try and buy the whole company so they can own their three biggest assets; theIr exclusive MJ, Lebron, and Tiger contracts.
Good point. That is probably the only value left in Upper Deck. I don’t think fanatics wants the NHL card license.
I spend a lot of time in Carlsbad. It’s sad what happened to Upper Deck.
Hopefully they issue Topps and Topps Heritage - and it is not just a purchase to get the exclusive autograph deals so Trout can sign Fanatics branded cards.
The best news about this is that Topps will not have an incentive to print 1987 type numbers since the future of the hobby is meaningless to them.
Will be interesting to see how Fanatics treats dealers and distributors - now they inherit the Topps contracts with that network for anything Topps branded.
I suspect this is good short term in that the brands people like (Chrome/Heritage etc) are likely continue and they'd be fools to throw away a household name like TOPPS. Long term is a lot murkier. I suspect they'll come after the grading business in fairly short order. They're likely to become not only a monopoly in cards themselves but in a whole vertically integrated card market. Their only competitor in the digital realm will be Dapper (NBA Top Shot and the new NFL one they have). In terms of physical cards, PSA probably has an insurmountable head start and Beckett is the one to lose biggest as Fanatics is going to look at the modern card market and think they can own the whole business. You can seen an exec saying, "why would people pay someone ELSE to grade 2023 cards when they can buy them from us and then pay us more to grade them - AND we control the quality and production amounts thus insuring our own rarity". I wouldn't be surprised if PSA's inability to keep up with demand last year nails that home.
I'd be really curious if they try to acquire someone like CGC. That'll be a huge but lesser felt domino. Those guys don't grade sports cards...yet...but could in fairly short order - since they grade non-sports. Also, CGC's comic registry is garbage compared to PSA's card registry. A smart person could see value in that missed opportunity and be in the comics game as well. It's really just a question of how much debt they're willing to take on.
My biggest problem is that Fanatics is wildly overpriced on everything they sell and since they acquired the merchandising for sports leagues, the quality of products (specifically clothes) has gone off a cliff. I'm pretty thankful to be out of the card game at this exact moment.
The problem for Upper Deck is that they'd surely love to be bought...but it'd be a true monopoly if they DID get purchased. They're just left out in the cold now to wither until they die on their own (which would have happened eventually anyway).
Just one man's opinion.
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I believe Fanatics has already said they will not be using the current distributor network. they will be selling direct.
fine with me, the current sportscard "distributor" model is more like a couple of large dealers who hold back product and raise prices on the secondary market.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
So... I guess that means 2022 Topps will be the first one as Fanatics?
Shane
Did Fanatics also get the football license? can we be expecting chrome football in the near future?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Since Fanatics is actually in business with the leagues and players, they all have every interest to keep growing their share of the hobby market. I do think we will see hobby innovations that have been lacking since Upper Deck stuck a piece of jersey in a card. I also think that the days of $100-$120 Optic Football hobby boxes will never come back. Even if they cut out the distributors, as a monopoly they can still charge whatever prices they want. As we have seen, raising prices 3-5X hasn't hurt sales.
As for grading, I think the Fanatics guys need to fly to Dallas and talk to Beckett Media about joining the band. The current owner of Beckett is in federal prison for bribery so he is probably interested in selling.
Agree my point is if Someone has a contract to distribute Topps baseball cards for the next decade - Fanatics may be stuck with that arrangement if they produce Topps baseball cards. This complicates things for them. They may elect to get the Fanatics brand going and then come back out with Topps sometime down the road when contracts are no longer valid. Sometimes going a single year without producing voids the contracts, sometimes a change in ownership does, sometimes either party can cancel, sometimes auto renewal happens if certain metrics are met. This gives them a great brand but could hinder some of Fanatics plans depending on The Topps contracts with dealers and distributors.
“ I'd be really curious if they try to acquire someone like CGC. That'll be a huge but lesser felt domino. Those guys don't grade sports cards...yet...but could in fairly short order - since they grade non-sports. Also, CGC's comic registry is garbage compared to PSA's card registry. A smart person could see value in that missed opportunity and be in the comics game as well. It's really just a question of how much debt they're willing to take on.”
“ As for grading, I think the Fanatics guys need to fly to Dallas and talk to Beckett Media about joining the band. The current owner of Beckett is in federal prison for bribery so he is probably interested in selling.”
Fanatics owner, Michael Rubin, already owns a grading company in CSG. Their card division employees used to work for BGS so I don’t see the need to acquire Beckett’s grading arm. The real value when it comes to Beckett is acquiring their trading card database.
https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/ccg-sale-blackstone-csg/
Does anyone collect CSG graded cards? Not grade and flip but collect? I see their offer on DACardworld at $35 for 30 days turnaround, has anyone tried that service?
CGC does grade sports cards. I've seen the slabs on eBay. CSG is CGC. Errors on the labels.
It would probably be a waste of money for fanatics to buy a grading company. It seems to be real easy to start a grading company. They have enough name recognition that they would immediately get market share. Cards coming graded from fanatics kinda makes the whole concept of grading look silly though.
OK, I understand what you were saying now. it would make things complicated if there was a contract to distribute.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Like previous post said, fanatics owner already bought CGC so I don’t think they will be using the Fanatics name for grading.
In the sports card market, Beckett is only second to PSA for modern cards. I assume that is where Fanatics will be doing most of their business.
Let’s face it, Beckett is being mismanaged by the current management. 15-20 years ago Beckett was one of most influential companies in our hobby. If there was ever a turnaround opportunity, Beckett is it. Especially with the current owner in prison.
Why would they use Beckett if they bought CGC and CSG
I agree with the sentiment that buying a card from a company....already graded by the same company....that just doesn't compute with me. It's called "third party grading" for a reason. I'm sure Fanatics would be really tough on their own cards.....eye roll emoji.
Shane
That is one huge investment (500 million) and Fanatics will want their return ASAP. I can see them grade the low parallels and rare inserts and then sell them on their website for a massive profit. Don't ever underestimate the desire the squeeze every penny out of a product. Meanwhile, increase production and cost for everything.
I don’t think the $500 M was for CSG, it was for the comic business.
The hobby has a hard enough time accepting new grading companies. I saw a lot of new branded slabs in Vegas and they was no interest in them. So I don’t see how CSG is going to get the market acceptance of BGS or even SGC.
I was looking at using them for a stack of cherry Optic Derrick Henry RCs (before he broke his foot) and even at $35, it didn’t make sense since a Gem Mint CSG was pulling in maybe 30% of PSA.
Plus those holders actually make the cards look worse encased.
I believe they bought Certified Collectibles Group. Includes CSG. And all the other divisions.
I doubt CSG is going to be the brand on the holder for graded cards purchased directly from Fanatics. Purchasing CSG makes sense for the infrastructure of grading cards. Plus, both companies are based in Florida.
Chances are the brand on the holder will be Fanatics. Beckett, SGC and CSG aren’t big enough brands that Fanatics would opt to use them over their own name. PSA is a different situation but they’re not up for sale.
To think this company began with a retail shop in the Orange Park Mall as a result of the Jacksonville Jaguars came into existence blows my mind.
Nearly 20 years later, they are at the top of the heap when it comes to anything sports related.
Only in America.......
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Yes I read that in the article. My point is the $500M was based on the comic business not sportscard grading.
I just checked the Fanatics site and they don’t even have CSG cards for sale but they do have PSA SGC and BGS.
Fanatics is an American success story. I just hope they don’t get too greedy and kill the golden goose.
The cards currently on Fanatics website are being offered by a drop-shipper most likely. It’s the model the two big players in licensed sports products online have used for two plus decades; Michael Ruben with GSI Commerce and Kevin Bates with Fansedge. Those two individuals after a myriad of business transactions now work together at Fanatics (originally called Sports Fanatics which was the entity that used to manage the Jaguars team store).
The bigger name, Michael Rubin, had his company GSI Commerce purchased by eBay for their back end infrastructure and warehousing as well as the relationships with non-sports licensed retailers commonly found in malls and big box stores and was re-branded by eBay “eBay Enterprise” in an attempt to compete with Amazon.com (that’s obviously not doing too well). As part of the deal, Rubin was able to retain the sports and league licensed relationships and venture out on his own. One of the first things he did was purchase Sports Fanatics to recreate the GSI Commerce model he sold to eBay.
Kevin Bates, on the other hand, started FansEdge and eventually purchased ProSportsMemorabilia.com. His companies were major players during the 2000’s in buying search engine ad space well before anyone else in the collectibles category. His company was purchased by Dreams Inc. which had become very familiar with the drop ship model because their in house memorabilia brand, Mounted Memories, sold a lot of products on the FansEdge and GSI Commerce platforms.
Ten years ago, Fanatics purchased Dreams Inc. As a result, all the Business and IT knowledge was under one roof. Dreams Inc., had one unattractive asset, the Corporate owned Field of Dreams stores and they sold those to Tri Star Productions. They replaced the Mounted Memories brand with Fanatics Authentic. Three years ago, they bought out the Steiner Sports memorabilia brand which was also a major player in internet drop-shipping from Omnicom (not to be confused with the COVID virus) to become the major player in the licensed signed memorabilia category to compliment their purchases of Majestic Athletic and New Era in the licensed sports memorabilia category.
With that said, when the Fanatics all in one trading card business model launches, the one Josh Luber has discussed, where a collector can purchase a brand new box on their site and/or participate in one of their group breaks, the collector will also have the option to get the card graded by Fanatics, held in a Fanatics vault and if desired auctioned off or sold on Fanatics online sites, streamlining brands will make the most sense.
Keeping Topps (even Upper Deck if that acquisition were to happen) makes sense as those brands are bigger than Fanatics but CSG clearly isn’t and the same goes for SGC and Beckett (which is why purchasing CSG for the experienced graders (that are former Beckett employees makes more sense than purchasing Beckett which likely requires also acquiring their baggage (publication business, online marketplace) for a much higher price in order to get a brand name that isn’t even close to the category leader (PSA).
This is where I see the best opportunity. There will be a bigger divide between modern and vintage and you will see the modern go away from PSA, unless PSA improves the turnaround and gets the price point to the average Joe. I’m doubtful the recent $100/per has gained many additional modern hits since it’s all a flip business to the majority of that generation.
At the current PSA price point, you won’t see too many collectors starting a new Mike Schmidt or George Brett registry set. The registry is one big advantage PSA has on the others. If I’m purchasing Beckett and own CSG, I would create a registry that allowed for multiple 3rd party slabs.
Thanks,
David (LD_Ferg)
1985 Topps Football (starting in psa 8) - #9 - started 05/21/06
David,
I would participate in a registry that has multiple 3rd party slabs. The HOF sets I am working on and my Banks run have some SGC or some SGC and BVG. While the vast majority of cards are PSA. I have no interest in paying to get my SGC cards or BVG (mostly old holders with sub grades when they were stricter) cards into a PSA holder. For '55 Bowman for instance (which I am down to my final 3 cards for the set) I have 3 SGC cards. To try to get them in PSA holders would cost me the same as 2 of the final three cards I need (when I find them). Would much rather put the money into the cards. Bought the Mays in 2015 and at the time an 8 in any holder of any company had not been for sale for over two years. When complete, my set would be the #2 set on the registry if those three cards crossed and #3 if the Mays was bumped down a grade. To me it is a very solid 8 but who knows what PSA would say. Bet there are a lot of top sets that mix and match as many buy the card and not the holder.