Mint Musings: School’s Back in Session – It’s hard to believe, but college football is upon us again. With Ohio State prepared to defend their title and another year of Heisman candidates and mind-blowing upsets, the next few months are sure to be exciting. While official trading cards of current collegiate athletes don’t yet exist, Panini has taken steps to offer collectors and college fanatics alike the chance to have cards of some of their most famous athletic alumni sporting their college colors.
For a long time, Upper Deck was the main player in trading cards picturing players in their collegiate uniforms. However, Panini decided it was time to make a move into that marketplace, announcing deals with many prominent schools, including Kentucky. When asked why they decided to move forward with collegiate licensing, Panini’s Hobby Marketing Manager Tracy Hackler said it provided an opportunity for the company to strengthen their existing brands while also exploring some new products.
Panini debuted their collegiate-licensed products earlier this year with Contenders and Prizm. Hackler said response to the two products has been favorable so far, further commenting, “Being able to put rookies and current NFL players in their college uniforms through our group licensing with the NFLPA and college football’s top stars in their college uniforms on legacy brands like Contenders and Prizm was definitely the right way to announce our college presence and has been well received.”
Not just settling for broad collegiate products, Panini is also making school-specific releases, with 19 schools announced including Alabama, Michigan, USC and Florida State, just to name a few. Hackler said these wouldn’t be the only products geared specifically towards schools. He further added, “There will be school-specific releases each and every year. There are so many loyal fan bases out there that we want to be able to reach as many of them as we can.”
With a large number of talented, nationally-known collegiate athletes, one has to wonder what the market for cards and autographs of them would be like. Leaf tested these waters a few years ago when they released Johnny Manziel cut autograph cards accompanied by original artwork of “Johnny Football” while he was still enrolled at Texas A&M. Though this caused a polarizing debate in the hobby world, it was something that was legally allowed to be done. Panini doesn’t have any plans to produce any similar types of cards though.
When asked about the possibility of creating trading cards featuring college athletes still in school, Panini VP of Marketing Jason Howarth said, “As it stands right now, NCAA rules for eligibility do not allow us to do this. If NCAA rules change where that would be allowable without impacting a player’s status – we would certainly look to evaluate it.”
Myself, I’d be curious to see how the market would respond to cards of athletes while they’re still in school. While I’m not sure if they’d be accepted as a whole, I have to think that fans of the schools and in-person autograph collectors would be eager to have them for various reasons. No doubt that autographs of high-profile players would do well with the flipping mentality that has become so common in the hobby.
Either way, it will be interesting to see how the market settles in the long term for Panini’s collegiate releases. In a marketplace that is predominantly favorable towards trading cards of athletes in their professional jerseys, it will be a challenge for them to match their professional counterparts, especially as more of the releases come onto the market. If nothing else, it will certainly give collectors the chance to have different cards of their favorite players. While some people may groan at this, I’m of the mindset that a little more variety in the hobby doesn’t hurt.
Kelsey’s ability to bring hobby coverage to the mainstream sports fan as the producer of ESPN’s Mint Condition has been a true asset. GTS is happy to feature his thoughts on the hobby in Mint Musings. The opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of GTS Distribution.
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