Fanatics New Rules for Hobby Shops

[mindcycle]

Since this topic is obviously a little late to the game I wanted to post a good discussion Kyle had with Evan @geechquestcards on the most recent Wax Museum Podcast.



Here's a good video from Dan the Card Man discussing this topic as well.



I've heard pros and cons about these rules. It's fairly obvious Fanatics is taking steps to have their hands in all aspects of the hobby, from controlling breaks to the social media content from your local LCS. Will this help clean up the hobby or take all the fun out of it?

What do you all think?

[Deadshot]

Thanks for posting the convo I had with Evan. Here are the Terms in full if anyone is interested:

[FrankAZHP]

I'm concerned as most collectors are.

I'd say 98% of my collection is Topps. Although I always appreciated other brands, my collection has always been focused on Topps and Topps Chrome.

Here's a TCDB breakdown of brands I have cards of (not 100% accurate and doesn't include my raw basketball as I haven't inventoried it yet)


When Panini got the exclusive license for basketball, I stopped collecting new basketball (except for a few Majerle auto singles purchases from eBay in early 2010s), when Panini got the exclusive license for football I stopped collecting new football.
This was my protest towards a monopoly. To this day I still have not purchased an unopened Panini product. I FINALLY started picking up Donruss Optic as a Chrome replacement in roughly January of this year. Still never bought a new Panini product, it's been all singles off eBay or at shows. A lot of people talk, and a lot of people complain, but I have actually put my money where my mouth is.

So basically for an entire decade in basketball and 7 or so years in football I took the opportunity to collect singles of cards I always wanted. Whether vintage or modern, it's been a blessing as far as I'm concerned. But to be clear, it's not because I'm "loyal" to Topps. I'm not loyal to any company (including sports teams).

People who know me and have seen my collection or preferences in some form whether at shows or via social media ask me what I think about Topps now that it's Fanatics and they've asked me if I'm excited for the future to get my Topps Chrome basketball and football back.

My answer is: Kinda.....

I may love Topps designs and the heritage of the company and it's impact on the history of the hobby, but I hate monopolies (no matter what brand has it) and am not loyal to them. Fanatics is profit motivated. Which is not inherently wrong in itself. A business exists to make money. But when the business has no competition and can manipulate the market with no regard for it's consumers or the heritage of their brand, that's a big problem for the consumer and I won't turn a blind eye to that.

These new rules for hobby shops are absolute garbage and a pure cash grab. (Sorry just now getting specific to topic lol). I am not optimistic in any shape or form. I'm also not afraid to vocalize it to Fanatics/Topps unlike others:


Policing the hobby shop hours, requiring forward of point of sale/customer information, limiting options on who can be sold product, requiring a specific Topps section, and making shops purchase product they don't want are all BIG issues and I hate them for it. It's essentially the anti-right to repair movement pushed by Apple/JohnDeere/Tesla/etc, but with cardboard instead of electronics and vehicles.

These rules will ruin the LCS which is awful, but if we love the hobby, and we want to collect, there is still nothing we can do about it except complain and spend our money responsibly.

Also, this isn't the first time we'll have seen a Topps monopoly. See the 1970s. The real question is once we hit 2026 or 2027 or so, will Topps have lawsuits and antitrust suits filed? And if so, how will it be dealt with?
We don't see an antitrust going to the NFL and EA with Madden. Why would we see it now? Current US economics is late state capitalism at it's worst (see Walmart/Amazon), and I don't see it changing until the US government steps in which who knows how long that will take considering the number of uneducated consumers who get on their knees to suck off monopolies and billion dollar organizations while voting for politicians who promote trickle down economics.

Sorry for long rant. Kinda turned into an anti-monopoly post not covering many specifics of the LCS issues.

[mindcycle]

When Panini got the exclusive license for basketball, I stopped collecting new basketball (except for a few Majerle auto singles purchases from eBay in early 2010s), when Panini got the exclusive license for football I stopped collecting new football.
This was my protest towards a monopoly. To this day I still have not purchased an unopened Panini product. I FINALLY started picking up Donruss Optic as a Chrome replacement in roughly January of this year. Still never bought a new Panini product, it's been all singles off eBay or at shows. A lot of people talk, and a lot of people complain, but I have actually put my money where my mouth is.

Cool to hear man. My “excuse” is that I got back into the hobby right around the time Panini took over. And while I still go after releases like Prizm, Optic, etc.. over time I’ve found myself moving away from Panini for a lot of my pickups. Nowadays, outside of Gary Harris, Gallinari, or some of my Nuggets team sets, the majority of what I grab is pre-panini like Topps; Chrome, Finest, Stadium Club, the mid to late 90’s Fleer releases, or UD stuff from the 2000’s. Partially for nostalgia sake, but also because Panini products started getting a bit stale imo.

The issue imo, is they’ve gotten complacent and more or less lazy over the years. They were coming out with some innovative products for awhile, but then around 2017 / 2018 we started seeing way too many rehashed designs and way way too many parallels per product. I feel they came to the realization that they didn’t really need to try very hard and stuff still sold. This was especially true during the pandemic. It’s also a big worry I have with Fantics.

These new rules for hobby shops are absolute garbage and a pure cash grab. (Sorry just now getting specific to topic lol). I am not optimistic in any shape or form. I'm also not afraid to vocalize it to Fanatics/Topps unlike others:

Policing the hobby shop hours, requiring forward of point of sale/customer information, limiting options on who can be sold product, requiring a specific Topps section, and making shops purchase product they don't want are all BIG issues and I hate them for it. It's essentially the anti-right to repair movement pushed by Apple/JohnDeere/Tesla/etc, but with cardboard instead of electronics and vehicles.

Agreed. They also want to review, and essentially control the social media content of these LCS’s. That’s a scary prospect imo. You say something they don’t like and you’re potentially cut off. I can tell you one thing, I sure wouldn’t want to own an LCS in the current climate..

[AbraCalabro]

sounds like fanatics is the fourth reich of the sports card hobby, holy crap, talk about taking all the creativity and fun out of a hobby and turning into fast food

I suspect we're going to get a bunch of stale, shitty designs, much like panini repeating successes and saturating things with what is essentially the same design over and over again

[FrankAZHP]

sounds like fanatics is the fourth reich of the sports card hobby, holy crap, talk about taking all the creativity and fun out of a hobby and turning into fast food

I suspect we're going to get a bunch of stale, shitty designs, much like panini repeating successes and saturating things with what is essentially the same design over and over again

I disagree with that suspicion. I think "Topps" will continue to do well on the design front like they always have. They'll make quality base card designs, they'll make nice inserts, and they'll reuse classic designs we're all fond of. The problem won't be with the quality of the designs, but we may see a quality in printing go down (like we saw with Panini) if Fanatics tries to cheap out on printing and quality control. I think the business decisions that Fanatics will make for Topps will be the issue (including price manipulation).

Time will tell. We can only hope for the best.

[AbraCalabro]

I listened to about 75% of the Wax Museum Podcast with Geech and from what they were talking it seems like Fanatics really wants to control every single aspect of the hobby. That alone is awful. As for Topps and their designs, I'm 50/50 on Topps in general, but some of my all time favorites are from earlier 90s Topps, so we'll see on that front.