Earlier, I spent a long time writing about how trading card licenses are the next true battleground for all interested entities that want to cash in on the recent boom. It was inevitable and obvious considering the cutthroat competition that has become commonplace each time a license came up for renewal. Yesterday, we might have seen what the endgame looks like, as the entire landscape of the industry shifted in the course of a few hours.

To put this in a TL;DR fashion – come 2026, the three biggest sports cards licensing brands will all be controlled by Fanatics, leaving Panini and Topps on the outside looking in for the first time, well, ever.

Lets take a step back to better understand why everything led to the news that came down yesterday. For a long time, trading cards didnt matter. They were a small piece of licensing that seemed big to the people in the mix, but tiny in the overall scope of things. With changes to the way brands worked with card companies finally taking shape in the mid 80s, it became very difficult to be a major player in the small niche card industry without a license from the leagues.

To break this down, any card company needs two licenses to operate freely in the major sports. First is the properties license that grants access to use team names, logos, stadiums, and events all covered by that body. The second is the player’s association license that grants access to current player likenesses and names. Theoretically, there are ways to get around the lack of both licenses, but the cost becomes exponentially higher, politics with the leagues get complicated, and product sizes and profits shrink. Without both licenses, one can make cards, but not at a scale that presents a grandly profuse amount of power or money.

Being that Fanatics, according the WSJ, has exclusives in place with the NFLPA, MLBPA, MLBP, and NBAPA, its inevitable that they will get the other two licenses needed to complete their trifecta. Its not just inevitable, its basically assured to happen quickly.

Most of this situation came to a head in 2007 when everything in the licensing game got inexplicably more complicated. At the time, there were three major players, which consisted of Topps, DLP (Donruss, Leaf, Playoff), and Upper Deck. This was following the collapse of previous powerhouse Fleer to bankruptcy and Pacific to similar circumstances. Unfortunately, cards werent as popular overall, so each company was doing what they could to scrape by.

For all intents and purposes, Upper Deck and their investment in super premium products put them at the forefront of the three major sports, with Topps’ history giving them a close second. DLP was on the outs, having lost their baseball license in 2005. Enter, the Panini Group, based out of Italy.

With a group of people left over from the Fleer days and strategic people from DLP, Panini decided to buy directly into the slumping US card market from their roots in sticker albums, looking to stoke a flame where they saw potential. Panini America was created, and within 2 years had ripped away the one license that made Upper Deck a powerhouse. For the first time in the industry, an exclusive license was granted, locking out other companies from producing cards in that sport. Panini took Upper Deck’s history of shady business practices and declining finances to shore up both the properties and player’s association license from the NBA, and start their path in the hobby.

Unbeknownst to almost every collector, this license would start an era of competition in trading cards that would change everything about the way people collected. Arguably, the first player exclusives signed by Upper Deck with Michael Jordan and LeBron James could be considered the XRC to this RC, but its semantics overall. From that point forward, every league saw the ease and benefit of investing in a single company, and by 2015, every league had an exclusive. It took 6 years for the entire licensing platform to change, and another 6 years before it would shift again.

As a result of the exclusive licenses being signed, the competition for those licenses and licenses of every potential licensing property became the goods by which industry manufacturers bought and sold. To be fair, it was this competition that led to a surge back to stability prior to the pandemic boom, but from a collector perspective, it was akin to losing children. Brands that people loved in multiple sports rarely crossed barriers, and some were lost forever. It was a time where hobby titans found their place in line moved up or moved back, and this giant period of flux was unlike anything we had ever seen, until yesterday.

Yesterday, multiple reports surfaced that upstart card company and global merchandising mammoth Fanatics will be taking over in 2026 for the MLB license owned exclusively by Topps for decades. Beyond that, they have also secured player’s association license exclusives with NBA and NFL beginning in 2023, which effectively means that the properties licenses for those leagues wont be far behind. Come 2026, its likely that Fanatics will be the sole provider of trading cards in the entire marketplace, leveling the incredible progress made by Topps and Panini over the last 20 years.

This is where the speculation takes center stage, as we saw a planned public merger for Topps to go public be terminated a day later. Basically, this removes a considerable part of the valuation for both companies, likely relegating both to a secondary position after a decade in power, which also included the biggest hobby boom in the history of cards.

So, what does this mean?

A few key questions need to be answered, and answered clearly for us to gauge the impact to our collecting lives. First, Fanatics is a mass market type of company, what is their vision for the trading card market segment? Are they going to continue down the trail blazed by their predecessors, or is it time to more fully integrate the mass market appeal of collectibles into the fabric of the leagues?

Unlike Topps and Panini, each of the three leagues has equity in Fanatics. Its not a small chunk either, with some investments looking to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. For all of the tenure that Panini and Topps had in cards, the league was always their licensor, not their partner. Its different here, and that’s a game changer. Because there is actual business stakes involved, the leagues have a vested interest in the success of Fanatics in this space. This will likely open doors that the other manufacturers could only dream of. Even though Trading Cards are white hot right now, they still pale in comparison to the overall sports value segment that Fanatics now has an unblocked highway to exploit.

Because cards have shifted from grocery store impulse buys at a quarter a pack, to luxury investments that cost as much as a house, the accessibility to product is something that isnt suited for the mass market. Fanatics can straddle the line, but I have a feeling they may opt for more consumers taking smaller bites than whales that bite off giant pieces. Again, all part of where they see this going.

Honestly, the trajectory of the industry seems suspect right now for the first time in years, even prior to this big news. Things are trending down, and 2-4 years is a lifetime in this industry. We could be in a completely different space in 2026 than we are now, hell it might not even be that long. Fanatics will be tasked with prolonging the sales trajectory to a favorable spot, and Im curious if the current structure is more suffocating than it is helpful.

Right now, there are 3-4 levels of people that all need to make money for the industry to remain on the track it was on 6 months ago. First, the manufacturers have to make money, selling their product, recouping budget, and licensing costs. Then the distributors have to make money, because they bring the product to the market, save a small percentage that goes direct. Then the breakers have to make money, the people who open the sealed wax and sell their results to the last level, the end user who has to make money too.

If Im Fanatics, where the manufacturer and distributor levels are easily taken care of, do the other levels make as much sense? This might be the biggest question facing the hobby, because for the first time ever, there is a manufacturer that is also a wholesale distributor, flush with partners and a giant network of retail to sell and distribute product.

This brings us to the last part of the speculation, which is what happens with other properties that are still owned by companies who sucked them up in the great consolidation era of the 2010s? I already posted news that WWE will be moving their exclusive license to Panini, who will still have NASCAR, Soccer, and a number of other properties to float their business. Topps will still have Star Wars, Disney, F1, Soccer, and a number of confectionary licenses like Ring Pop, that is nothing to scoff at. Are those companies going to continue down the path they are on, or is a sale in their future too?

There has been a ton of talk that Fanatics will be looking to buy out either one, but I think the other questions about vision need to be answered before we get to that point. The only reason to buy either company is for their brand IP, of which Topps has Bowman and Chrome, and Panini has Prizm and NT. It is yet to be seen whether or not Fanatics wants to create their own brand recognition or use another company’s.

What this does mean is that for the foreseeable future, Fanatics and their league partners are going to be peas in a pod. There is no use in competing for those licenses due to the equity based partnership Fanatics has with MLB/NFL/NBA, and that’s huge. Licensing competition drove innovation, product creation and partner engagement – none of that matters anymore, unless Fanatics kills off any momentum there already was. Dont get me wrong, that’s a huge possibility.

If Fanatics decides that a mass market vision doesnt include $27k boxes of cards, or even $5k, it could create a subculture similar to what we saw with older Upper Deck products. Mass market appeal for non-essential items at a ultra premium price point doesnt exist unless you are Apple, Tesla or Google. Its hard to see them try to continue that path. That could make older cards, vintage and previous era items even more collectible, knowing that this era of cards is relatively over.

However, if Fanatics does decide to swing the pendulum back the direction it was already going, we could see stuff unlike anything that has ever been offered. Direct access to the league’s assets means unprecedented opportunities for premium collectibles, and that could usher in a brand new crop of crazies.

Like I said, the next few years will feel like a lifetime in this hobby, but hopefully more information will be coming that provides some clues as to the direction things are headed.