As mentioned almost everywhere yesterday, the NFLPA has terminated their license with Panini three years early. We already knew the Fanatics plan for total hobby domination was going to take effect in 2026, with eventual exclusive control over NFL, NBA, MLB, WWE, F1, and other major licenses, but this was a bit of a surprise. It was the hobby equivalent of the movie scene where the hero clips the wrong wire on the ticking time bomb, and the timer drops from one minute to five seconds.

That wire that was cut is a pretty well covered wire as well, with Panini deciding to sue Fanatics for their consolidation plan in an anti-trust (monopoly) lawsuit, which promptly forced a countersuit. Because the leagues have ownership stakes in Fanatics, it was likely a contributing factor to wanting to end the Panini relationship early, although there really arent a lot of details as to how they were able to move forward with the termination in this manner. All will be revealed shortly, I would guess.

Background

Lets talk about what this means, because Im not sure people truly understand how card licensing works. To make a licensed trading card with current player likenesses, photos, logos, stadiums and everything one would need to associate with a league, a trading card manufacturer needs A MINIMUM of two licenses. First is the properties license that governs the uniforms, logos, and everything that isnt player related. Currently the MLBP license exclusive is owned by Topps, the NFLP, and NBAP exclusives are owned by Panini.

The second license they need is the player’s association license, which grants them access to all current players and their names and likenesses. Currently, Topps owns the MLBPA license, and seemingly, the NFLPA license. Panini also owns and MLBPA license, which grants them the ability to make logoless products, as well as an NBAPA license. Without an NFLPA license, Panini can make cards of legends, and team cards with lots of players on them, but they cant use current players in their sets.

What Impact Does This Have?

Let’s state the facts first – it doesnt look good for Panini overall. They poked the sleeping bear that wasnt supposed to come out of hibernation until 2026, and that was likely a survival move to begin with. The lawsuit over Fanatics’ control of the trading card industry seems to have standing, but it also isnt a slam dunk either. Right now, its going to be really hard for Panini to make football products without current players and rookies under contract to appear in their set. The PA was also one of the main bodies Panini likely used to ensure the autograph contracts the players signed actually got fulfilled.

Topps will not be able to produce fully licensed NFL products at this point. They still need an NFLP license before they can do that. Right now, that seems to be an inevitability, but it hasnt happened yet. I think the entire hobby would like exclusive licenses to go away in their entirety, but having one company with one side of the license and another company with the other side of the license isnt a good situation. It almost happened in 2015 when the NFLPA signed its exclusive deal with Panini before NFLP had a chance to decide on their exclusive rights – but eventually gave in and signed with Panini later that year.

Could Other Licenses Follow Suit?

This is the real question that everyone is asking, and I think the answer is more complicated than people imagine. There are four licenses that have future Fanatics deals in place – NBAP, NBAPA, NFLP and WWE. I think there is a significant chance that a few of them could terminate early if the precedent set by the NFLPA holds up. They are four separate organizations with four separate sets of corporate standards.

In my opinion, the outlier is WWE, which is slated to likely switch over in 2025 – a year earlier than the major sports licenses. WWE has no ownership stake in Fanatics, and this could end up being Panini’s Alamo if the tidal wave seems to go the opposite direction. Im curious if Panini could be in the middle of a Jerry Maguire moment here, where they are calling all their clients wondering who is sticking around. If they are trying to get a sense of where things stand, keeping WWE in their stead until that license ends would seem to be a major focus for their team.

The Post 2026 Landscape

Overall, we all have speculated that the Panini dream ends in the near future, which is why the monopoly focused lawsuit was not a surprise. We know that Fanatics will own the most profitable sports licenses, an auction house, a breaking platform, a vault, all the distribution, the top printer, and a number of other important hobby adjunct businesses. It was clear that Michael Rubin’s plan was to consolidate the entire landscape around a singular brand. As a result, most people in the hobby speculated that Panini would sell their trading card intellectual property to Fanatics, and ride off into the international sunset, where they could remain successful selling stickers and being a gigantic Italian company where things were in 2009.

When that deal fell through, Fanatics targeted and poached a significant number of Panini employees instead, which seemed like a coup in itself. Now it seems even more like Panini will have more struggles trying to figure out how to survive in a world without a major license that can drive profitability the same way the NFL and NBA used to.

Similarly, there seems to be much celebration around the hobby that Panini is getting what is coming to them. A few years ago, I probably would have been among that group of people. This company has notoriously had issues with customer service, redemptions, and all sorts of other things, and seeing the company squander the remaining time on their contracts has to be pretty satisfying for a number of collectors out there.

Let me say this – I dont like exclusives. I dont like monopolies. I dont like having one throat to choke in this situation. Competition is a major factor in creating great things in any marketplace, and without two companies going at it, I fear that we are setting ourselves up for a lot of new problems that most of us have never even fathomed could be possible. Because Fanatics now owns or partially owns so much of the major support mechanisms of the hobby’s landscape, there are very few reasons to continue to challenge the status quo. They will claim they can invest more into their business because their money is secure for a long period of time, but the collector is robbed of the choices they had before as a trade off.

I want to have Topps Chrome NFL and NBA back in the mix. I want to have Dynasty across more sports than just MLB. However, I also understand that also having Prizm and National Treasures is something that other collectors would like to have as well.

It used to be that trading cards were such small potatoes in the licensing game that the leagues didnt want to have to deal with more than one company. Now that trading cards are big business, the leagues realize that signing exclusives can be lucrative, especially if those exclusives are baked in with organizations they have equity stakes in.

Everyone needs to take inventory of how they feel and quickly, because this is about to get really dicey. We all think that Panini getting their comeuppance is what’s best for business, but Im not so sure they are the heel people think they are. Especially if the new overlords taking over the rest of the industry have literally no check on their power. Fanatics is more in bed with the leagues than any other company has ever been, and that could lead to some very interesting outcomes.