Sports trading cards have become an estimated $8 billion industry, and one company now controls the official cards of America’s three biggest leagues. A new legal analysis argues that Fanatics has brought back the kind of monopoly that once left collectors with years of dull, recycled cards.
The article is by Marc Edelman of Baruch College, City University of New York, Nathaniel Grow of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and John Holden of Oklahoma State University. It was published on February 15, 2025 in the University of Illinois Law Review.
From apparel seller to card kingpin
Card collecting came roaring back during the COVID pandemic, riding the same appetite for collectibles and alternative investments that lifted NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Some forecasts cited by the authors put the market above $20 billion by 2030.
Fanatics, best known for licensed apparel, moved in starting in 2021. It secured long-term exclusive rights to make cards for the National Football League, National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, along with deals with the players’ unions. It then bought Topps, one of the best-known names in the business, for a reported $500 million.
The company has also reached into the rest of the hobby. In 2023 it acquired the PWCC Marketplace auction house, launched the Fanatics Live platform for streamed “box breaks,” and told retailers it would impose conditions, including possible penalties over suggested minimum prices. Its founder is among investors who bought a card-grading company.
History repeating
The authors trace the parallel to Topps, which held a nearly 25-year uninterrupted monopoly on sports cards. The Federal Trade Commission challenged it in the 1960s without success. Without competition, they write, Topps let quality slip, with uninspired designs and the same player photos reused year after year.
Before Fanatics, each league still had a single licensee: Panini for the NFL and NBA, Topps for MLB and Upper Deck for the NHL. But those firms competed for collectors who bought across sports. With its licenses reportedly running 15 to 20 years, Fanatics faces little reason to innovate, the authors argue.
They suggest the hobby behaves like a “natural oligopoly.” It suffered under one dominant firm in the Topps era and under too many in the late 1980s and 1990s, when an overflow of sets diluted demand. A handful of competitors may be the sweet spot.
What the Panini lawsuit will not settle
In August 2023, displaced rival Panini sued Fanatics, claiming its tactics illegally shut Panini out of the business. The authors argue the case is narrow. Panini did not sue the leagues or the players’ unions, so it does not challenge the exclusive licenses Fanatics relies on.
Nor does it question apparent self-dealing: several of Fanatics’ league and union partners have invested in the company. The authors see the union deals as the most troubling, since a card can arguably be made without team logos but hardly without the players.
Their conclusion is aimed at judges: courts should take a long-overdue second look at sports leagues’ practice of granting exclusive trademark licenses, the arrangement on which Fanatics’ card empire is built.
Study Details:
- Title: The Re-Monopolization of the U.S. Sports Trading Card Industry
- Authors: Marc Edelman, Nathaniel Grow, John Holden
- Journal: University of Illinois Law Review, 2025 U. Ill. L. Rev. 63
- Publication Date: February 15, 2025
- Link: https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2025-no-1/the-re-monopolization-of-the-u-s-sports-trading-card-industry/