State of the Soccer Card Union

Fanatics acquire the rights to the English Premier League, and the Soccer Card hobby flips out.

Many in our corner of the hobby treat Topps vs. Panini like iPhone vs. Android, yet most people could care less and will continue to play sports card gambling even though the odds are so low it would be illegal in Las Vegas. No matter what I write, provide math, educate people, or try to boycott certain products that Topps and Panini put out that are total shit, they will still queue up to the flashing lights like the worst slot machine at the Vegas airport. So, does it matter who’s making the crack cocaine anymore? Not really.

Brief history of soccer cards

Panini has always had a special place in our hobby for soccer card collectors, especially in Europe, making stickers since 1961 and World Cup collections since 1970. In America, A decade before Panini, Topps was the legacy brand that created the sports card hobby as we know it with baseball, followed by other American sports, and eventually got around to soccer. For many European collectors, Topps has been the “cheaper” “lower-rent” American brand compared to the Italian brand Panini, which captured the nostalgia. Ironically, the relatively newer Panini America division is pushing out the most modern soccer products for Panini.

Try, fail. Try, fail. Quit and BOOM!

When Panini acquired licenses for the NBA and NFL in 2009, Panini created a new division called Panini America to capitalize on those lucrative markets. Panini America produces a massive glut of products for the NBA (40+ SKUs in 2023) and NFL (40+ SKUs in 2023). Panini America attempted a massive push into the soccer card market following their NBA and NFL playbook. In 2016, Panini America paid Cristiano Ronaldo $170k to sign 1000 stickers, making deals similar for Lionel Messi and Neymar. Panini created versions of their NBA and NFL products for soccer, including Flawless, Select, Noir, Black Gold, Prizm, and others. From 2016 to 2018, Panini America tried making every soccer product they could, and no one (except me and maybe 500 other collectors) bought it even though the prices were under retail and margins and prices were way lower than NBA and NFL products. After the 2018 World Cup, it seemed like Panini gave up on the soccer card market, which they had tried to create too early. Those 2016-2018 products sat in warehouses for years until the pandemic changed everything. People who were strip mining soccer’s glut of products created between 2014-18, which were massively undervalued, began to see many of those product prices 22x in value. Mainstream financial media outlets named soccer cards the best investment in 2020!

Spurred by massive growth, Panini and Topps (which acquired Champions League rights just before the pandemic) fired up their printers, spitting out massive amounts of products while print runs doubled, quadrupled, and lately octupled. Then, the market crashed.

The Crash

Now you have breakers and investors who bought tons of soccer wax at the height of the market and new breakers who bought allocations to rip the latest product, often resorting to snake oil sales tactics, crazy break strategies, and anything to try to recoup their investment as the soccer card market has been cut in half. The soccer card market rose from almost nothing to 22x during the pandemic and has dropped 10x since the peak, so you have collectors who made ridiculous amounts of money, but most of the new collectors from the pandemic craze lost a lot of money. The good news is the soccer card has seemed to stabilize over the past six months.

Can a monopoly be much worse?

Back to the announcement that Fanatics (Topps’ new-ish parent company) has acquired the rights to the English Premier League. Many people on social media say that a monopoly (which this isn't in a legal sense) would be bad for the hobby. However, it's not like competition in the soccer card hobby has made Topps or Panini try any harder, make better products, or add value. Panini still has redemptions measured in years yet to be fulfilled. Panini has created WAY too many products like “Road to” products as an excuse to make multiple event products and create products WAY in advance, often missing potential rookie/1st-year player chases. Panini has also been clever in limiting their chases by having stars only available in a few parallels, making them much more challenging to hit than the filler athletes in every high-numbered parallel. Panini continues to rely heavily on sticker autos and non-associated patches, even in higher-end products, which would never be okay with NBA or NFL products or collectors. Panini often cheats by using rookie RC logos on laughable 2nd- and even 3rd-year-plus players. Panini pricing is still way too high compared to single-card values. You’d think that after Topps “stole” the NBA and NFL rights starting next year, Panini would double down on its remaining licenses and make better products, but they haven't. So, before we get too nostalgic about Panini, has Topps' competition made them any better?

The Ultra-Modern Problem

The ultra-modern problem with soccer cards is that Panini and Topps are making junk wax. They put out too many sets and make too many cards in those sets. Two companies compete to have their products on breaker tables, doubling the effect. Last year, Panini and Topps had 70 different SKUs, not counting TMall versions or sets from Futera or Leaf, compared to 40-45 SKUs for Panini Basketball or Football. Collectibility depends not only on desirability but also on rarity and scarcity. For example, the latest Panini EPL set had 84 base parallels for most collectible players on the checklist! 84! Try completing that rainbow. That's not counting autographs or inserts. A Panini Select /10 isn't a /10 anymore these days. There are three parallels of /10 in three levels, so your once rare /10 is actually a /90. After the dopamine hit of getting a gold card wears off and you list that card for sale, the market isn't there anymore.

Will Fanatics fix this problem?

Heck no. Fanatics have learned from Panini that the short-term dopamine hit from pulling a numbered card is more important than any long-term secondary market, for which they don't reap any direct monetary benefit. Fanatics/Topps jumped on the horrible “Road to…” bandwagon, making sets that aren't canonical to the event they are highlighting and even forgoing licensing the most collectible countries on the checklist. Topps are now producing paper, Chrome, and Sapphire versions of basically the same sets, relying on soccer collectors to buy buy buy. The only way new products will get better is if we hurt manufacturers when they try to underestimate us and reward them when they make something worthwhile. I haven't seen any evidence our hobby is demanding anything better, and the junk wax addiction holds us all in its grasp.