Topps was founded in 1938, as a chewing gum company. We all know what happened next: it was discovered that baseball cards were the perfect little perk to sell that gum! The rest is the history of postwar sports card collecting in the United States. But how about today? Is collecting in a healthy place, or has Topps lost its way?

Whether we vintage collectors still collect of even pay attention to modern cards at all, it is naive to pretend that the two markets are entirely unrelated. So, post-acquisition by Fanatics, what is the current state of the old standby?

Loss of a Monopoly

Licensing squabbles are as old as cards. That’s why some vintage players have relatively few Topps cards (Ted Williams and Stan Musial come top mind).

Topps’ dominance of the sports card industry was almost unrivaled until losing a landmark lawsuit in 1980. The decision paved the way for Fleer and Donruss and ushered in the Junk Wax era. Arguably, this was ultimately good for the hobby, if not in the short term. Competition usually yields innovation, price control, and other advantages for the consumer.

Blindsided by Loss of Licensing

Topps has been both a private-owned and publicly-traded company multiple times. In 2021, Topps was gearing up to go public via a merger with Mudrick Capital. You probably know what happened next: the rug was pulled out when both MLB and MLBPA declined to extend their licensing deals. Fanatics swooped in and acquired exclusive licensing, leaving Topps with an impossible void to fill. In their diminished state, they had no choice but to sell out.

Enter Fanatics

After securing exclusive licensing, Fanatics purchased a weakened Topps business for a mere $500 million. It was genius, really: without MLB licensing, Topps was left with several lesser markets, but also 80 years of exclusive images and designs; equipment and knowhow; facilities, and more. I initially had unfounded hopes that perhaps Fanatics would simplify the product line and get back to basics.

It seems the opposite has occurred, with more and more sets and seemingly endless new SKUs on the shelves. We have an Ohtani-specific set. Stadium Club, Chrome, Sapphire, Heritage . . . Five Star, Big League, Chrome, Black, Cosmic Chrome . . . Duals, Finest, Museum, Topps Now. It all seems just a little . . . much.

Add in more parallels than ever, market saturation, generally low resale prices (except for those monster hits), and generally high retail prices, and it seems like more than ever, young collectors especially are priced out of the market.

Is it Collecting, or is it Gambling?

My motivation for writing about Topps is a sudden shift I have noticed in their marketing on social media. Suddenly, it seems like their accounts are being run by 20-year-old breaker bros. Nearly every post is one of those “big hits caught on camera,” often with click-bait titles like “did he really just hit this card?” or “he hit the card of a lifetime at his birthday party!” or “first pack magic.”

There is almost no emphasis on collectors or collecting–just breaks and big hits. It strikes me as unsustainable.

To be clear, I feel this way about gambling in general. It is everywhere in every sportscast, and I think it is doing serious harm to sports, integrity, fandom, and the future. Maybe this whole post is just “Old Man Yells At Cloud!” It wouldn’t be the first time, and I’m not getting any younger. More such grumpiness will surely follow.

Implications for Vintage

I’ve written in the past about an imagined future of collecting once the Baby Boomers finally age out of the hobby. That alone doesn’t scare me, for reasons I detail here. But I’ll admit, the cultural shift away from collecting and towards a fixation on a gambling mentality and big hits has me scared for the future of sports card collecting. In order for our beloved vintage to retain value, there needs to be a next generation to take over.

Baseball is in a healthy place, and the sports card industry has never been “worth” more than it is today. And maybe tomorrow’s vintage enthusiasts aren’t today’s breaker bros anyway. But I’ll admit, my feeling that Topps is a bit lost has me concerned for the future of vintage.

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