OT: Topps exclusive for 2010 MLB season

[joelsabi]

http://www.topps.com/Sports/news/top...px?news_id=286

good or bad news?

[allstarsplus]

I think good news in the short term as there was just way too many cards. For us people older than 30, 7/11 stores only sold Topps cards and Upper Deck didn't exist. There was 1 Topps card type and then maybe some stickers and then Kelloggs cereal did 3-D cards and that was it.

It just got crazy with all the different card companies and all their different sets.

[frikativ54]

http://www.topps.com/Sports/news/top...px?news_id=286

good or bad news?

Sad news. Competition is a good thing.

[CampWest]

Its all about greed of MLB. UD still has an MLBPA license, so they can print cards of the players' likeness, just without any team names or logos. Similar to what Donruss has done the last two years with Donruss Elite Extra Edition Baseball and Donruss Threads Baseball.

Short answer, it is bad. Sports are based on competition, but with licensing rights, ie EA's exclusive video game license in NFL, now the card industry. The industry has struggled mightily for a decade with getting new customers and growing the customer base. The manufacturers do not support hobby shops, they do no advertising, and their products are continually under-delivering.

Removing competition further complicates matters, because there will be little to no incentive for them to put out the best product or the best checklist. Cmon, they're loading their products with things like horse hairs, butterflies, and other worthless items. They take a couple strands of hair off of a horse's tail, which makes 500 insert cards in Allen and Ginter, and call that delivering value to the customer.

They are killing the hobby. Reducing competition just gives them more free reign to lower cost while increasing prices. I think its very bad.

Congress should prevent companies that operate under anti-trust exemptions from creating anti-trust markets through exclusive licensing deals.

I think good news in the short term as there was just way too many cards. For us people older than 30, 7/11 stores only sold Topps cards and Upper Deck didn't exist. There was 1 Topps card type and then maybe some stickers and then Kelloggs cereal did 3-D cards and that was it.

It just got crazy with all the different card companies and all their different sets.

[frikativ54]

Removing competition further complicates matters, because there will be little to no incentive for them to put out the best product or the best checklist. Cmon, they're loading their products with things like horse hairs, butterflies, and other worthless items. They take a couple strands of hair off of a horse's tail, which makes 500 insert cards in Allen and Ginter, and call that delivering value to the customer.

They are killing the hobby. Reducing competition just gives them more free reign to lower cost while increasing prices. I think its very bad.

Congress should prevent companies that operate under anti-trust exemptions from creating anti-trust markets through exclusive licensing deals.

Great post. I couldn't agree more, especially about the anti-trust exemption.

[skinsfan0521]

I personally think that this will be a good thing.

Now, I'm not over 30 (25), but I remember when I started collecting cards there were like 3 brands and it wasn't so overcomplicated with the companies putting out 15 different sets and 10 subsets of each product.

My biggest collecting interest is still cards (I'm just getting into GU stuff) and I think that this will definitely be a good thing for the industry. To be honest...it can't really get worse. The situation that the industry is in now is terrible and something's gotta change.

Just my .02

-Brian

[CampWest]

Yes, he did his best to run Disney into the ground.

one thing i notice on the release was that Michael Eisner is owner of Topps, which I did not know. Wasn't he the Disney executive?

[CampWest]

Come on. Thats not accurate at all. Simplicity is not always superior.

1986 - 1992, Donruss, Fleer, Topps (with some upper deck in there). Those years are worthless. They had little selection, just their base set plus a traded set. They produced millions of each card, and now their only value is as kindling.

The introduction of more products allowed production quantities of each individual card to be held down, but total production volume to increase. So while more cards are being produced, its more variety which allows for cards to maintain their value and/or appreciate.

I disagree with the complexity argument. When is having a choice a bad thing? Nobody said you have to collect every set or every card. If you are a team or player collector, you have more cards of your team to choose from. If you are a general collector, you can have a wide variety.

Nobody said you have to have every complete set from every year. Choose the card styles you like and collect those.

Overproduction is the hobby's biggest hurdle to deal with. Managing supply and demand is the toughest challenge. And that can only be done by a wide variety of products of low print quantities.

I personally think that this will be a good thing.

Now, I'm not over 30 (25), but I remember when I started collecting cards there were like 3 brands and it wasn't so overcomplicated with the companies putting out 15 different sets and 10 subsets of each product.

My biggest collecting interest is still cards (I'm just getting into GU stuff) and I think that this will definitely be a good thing for the industry. To be honest...it can't really get worse. The situation that the industry is in now is terrible and something's gotta change.

Just my .02

-Brian

[skinsfan0521]

Come on. Thats not accurate at all. Simplicity is not always superior.

1986 - 1992, Donruss, Fleer, Topps (with some upper deck in there). Those years are worthless. They had little selection, just their base set plus a traded set. They produced millions of each card, and now their only value is as kindling.

The introduction of more products allowed production quantities of each individual card to be held down, but total production volume to increase. So while more cards are being produced, its more variety which allows for cards to maintain their value and/or appreciate.

I disagree with the complexity argument. When is having a choice a bad thing? Nobody said you have to collect every set or every card. If you are a team or player collector, you have more cards of your team to choose from. If you are a general collector, you can have a wide variety.

Nobody said you have to have every complete set from every year. Choose the card styles you like and collect those.

Overproduction is the hobby's biggest hurdle to deal with. Managing supply and demand is the toughest challenge. And that can only be done by a wide variety of products of low print quantities.

I think the problem with the complexity and overproduction is that the card companies feel the need to be gimmicky with their products and don't focus on what collectors are really looking for.

Instead of (as somebody said earlier), putting pieces of hair in cards, focus your attention on making a great looking and very collectible set. What about a hair or dinosaur bone (another A&G insert) makes any sense in a baseball card set??? Nothing.

I completely agree that the cards from the early - mid 90's are pretty much worthless and it is because of their overproduction. What's changed with the base sets from then and the base sets now?? Nothing. The base cards are still worthless and overproduced and nobody wants them. I've got thousands of cards that I literally can't GIVE away.

So, in my opinion, the solution is going in this direction. Allow one company to produce cards and that will stop the "watering-down" of all the crap that is out there today. You look at any product (like 2009 Topps FB for example) that offers a few hits (autos & gu) per box and you'll find that 90%+ of those "hits" are complete crap. They're of nobody's or unheard of rookies that nobody wants.

So, instead of creating 20 different products that get released every year to compete with UD every time they come out with a new one, maybe they'll focus on making their product better and put out less sets. Maybe they'll only have 10 baseball products this year, but the hope is that they'll be of much higher quality and collectibility than the crap that has been released over the past 5 years or so. Personally, I'd rather get a serial numbered base card of a semi-star than an autograph of a 4th round draft pick that may or may not even make the roster.

Now, I'm not saying that this is what WILL happen...I'm saying that I think (and really hope) that this is the direction that things will go with an exclusive supplier.

Again, just my .02... but, I really enjoy hearing other's opinions on the topic.

-Brian

P.S. - After reading over what I wrote, I realized that most of what I'm talking about is the football cards, not baseball (which is what this agreement is), but that's just because it's my main collecting focus. All the same principles apply to baseball and basketball (who also has an exclusive supplier... Panini).

[skinsfan0521]

Also, one point that I may not have made completely clear is that I'm saying that I'd rather have them have limited production run sets and serial number them all.... even if that serial number is #1/800,000. At least then I know what the production run is... not like those cards from the early-mid 90's where there were literally millions and millions of them produced and now nobody cares about them.

Just wanted to clear that up

-Brian