Ahhhh yes. The time of year where Panini gets around to doing their spring cleaning. Having put out some of the worst performing products of the year, someone needs to to do something clear out all those shitty boxes before the real customers start getting angry. I forgot to say, if you think the people opening packs are the real customers, keep reading.

Father’s Day is upon us, a time where collectors are happy to spend their hard earned money to buy the aforementioned shitty boxes, for a pack of cards that everyone will forget about in a few months. In fact, its gotten so bad with these shitty boxes, that Panini now needs to run a giveaway style promtion 3 times every year! Father’s day, National Convention, and Black Friday. Here is the list of “products” to gorge yourself on all the Cracked Icy goodness. Wow, that’s a lot of poopy packs to open. No better way to celebrate Dad than with a box of some of the worst sets of the year! Im sure Panini can come up with a clever hashtag for that. Maybe they can put it on one of these stupid Manu-patches.

By opening those packs, here is what you can get in your free father’s day ones:

2015 Panini Father's Day Marcus Mariota Portraits Auto

2015 Panini Father's Day Odell Beckham Auto

2015 Panini Father's Day Sammie Coates Auto Jersey – What a hideous card. Gross.

2015 Panini Father's Day Brett Hundley Auto – This combine uni card makes no sense with the NCAA exclusive.

2015 Panini Father's Tom Brady Game Used Pylon Super Bowl – no mention if SB game used? Not sure here.

As I have said before, its rare that a company does a massive giveaway like this out of the goodness of their hearts. Nope, in fact, its not out of the goodness of their hearts, as this is the time where Panini makes good with all the distributors out there who have their allegedly “built for closeout” products ROTTING in their inventory.

If you arent familiar with the closeout process, im going to oversimplify it for the sake of this post. Its basically when a product cant be sold out at the factory to the distributors/online retailers who will move it to group breakers and shops around the country. At that point the manufacturer has to slash prices to move the remaining inventory. When you have popular products like Treasures or Contenders, this type of thing rarely happens. When you have a product like Totally Certified, well, that’s a very different story. Even in 2012, during one of the most profitable years in football as of late, Panini was still closing out their crap. Not shocking to me, as product quality has always been an issue with them.

In terms of this promotion, go ahead and go to your shop and ask the staff about the way they were able to get a hold of their father’s day packs. Was it because they have spent extra thousands of dollars taking on case after case of Spectra football just to get access to Immaculate Basketball? Nope that’s not it. Were they rewarded for the tens of thousands of dollars they have spent on Panini’s terrible crap all year long? Nope, not likely. Did they have to take on MULTIPLE extra cases of dogs like 2014 Prestige, 2014 Totally Certified, 2014 Absolute, and other horrendous products that they couldnt sell the first time around? Ding ding ding, WINNAH!

Because distributors have SO many cases of these turds that they cant sell, regardless of how much they mark it down below cost, Panini wants to give them a break. Distributors are the real customers that the manufacturers care about, as without their orders and relationships, their current business model wouldnt work.

Now, there are some shops that can afford to take on the extra product. They can probably ride the wave of adverblog hype to sell off some of the junk they have to buy. My shop doesnt discriminate, offering packs for any Panini product you buy – only because they are one of the only remaining shops that has the customer base to eat it up. Many of the other shops out there maybe arent doing as well, and those are the ones a promotion like this can kill. Collectors love free shit, especially when its shiny, and to hear the shop owner say that they arent participating is a great way to lose a customer.

Im not saying this promotion is all bad, especially if your shop is like mine. I am saying its good to know how the proverbial sausage is made here, because it might be something you want to voice your opinion about. Promotions like this show the true colors of the industry and how things are run, and it really doesnt look sustainable. Maybe Panini should focus on building products in a manner that doesnt need a Black Friday pack to sell the box. Maybe, just maybe, Panini should look to improve product quality instead of having lavish VIP parties and tossing around their cash like someone who just turned 18 and wants to go nuts at the strip club.

That’s on us to speak out, especially if you feel the way I do. Remember, come next year, Panini will likely be adding a very large sport to their roster of exclusives in Football. Its not because they are the best company, far from it. That should scare the bejesus out of you – especially when there are 20 more terrible products that have to be closed out. Shit, they might just run a Father’s day promotion year round!