ongoing legal battle<\/a> with rival card manufacturer Panini.<\/p>\nPanini started producing NFL licensed cards in 2009 and took the exclusive NFL license in 2016. Fanatics landed the exclusive NFL and NFLPA trading card licenses in 2021 and purchased Topps shortly thereafter, Topps inched its way back into producing football cards with non-licensed cards in 2024 and 2025 (which included player images but not league or team marks) before the league license took effect this month. In the meantime, Fanatics also scored the NBA license for trading cards after Panini held it since 2009. Topps began printing NBA licensed cards once again in October 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re ecstatic. That old friend (Topps) has a whole new infrastructure, and I think that\u2019s what we\u2019re excited about,\u201d\u2029 said Casey Collins, NFL senior vice president of consumer products and licensing. \u201cFirst and foremost, Panini\u2019s done a really great job, and they\u2019ve been a great partner. \u2026 We looked at the future and we wanted to make sure that we were doing the right thing by the fans and the right thing by the league and the right thing by a partner.\u2029 The more we really kind of understood what Fanatics was doing with MLB, we really believed they were going to be best in class for us going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think that what we\u2019ve seen once Fanatics took over Topps with MLB, what we\u2019ve seen they\u2019ve done with the NBA transition this past season, that\u2019s really got us excited. \u2029\u2026 We want to really modernize and innovate this category, and we think that Topps give us by far the best chance to do that. I think another important initiative for the league is to reach a broader, younger audience. We think that Fanatics can help us really bring in new fans into the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins, who started with the NFL in October 2025, has spent the past 30 years involved in licensing for such companies as Lucasfilm (Star Wars), WWE and Hasbro. He admits even the NFL has been taken aback by the growth in sports cards the past few years and believes the league\u2019s deal with Topps will only increase the popularity and demand for football cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I could say we weren\u2019t surprised. I think everyone\u2019s been surprised by (the growth),\u201d Collins said. \u201d I think what we\u2019ve really been pleasantly surprised by is, it wasn\u2019t a COVID bubble that kind of hit and came down. \u2029Quite frankly, I think that the COVID part of it was able to really help us for the long term. We had kids coming into this, they were bringing their parents back into this. They collected when they were kids. We have this cross- generational appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you went to the National (Sports Collectors Convention) five years ago versus the National now, you\u2019ll see the demographics are completely different. You\u2019ve got five (year olds) to 95, and they\u2019re all enjoying this and engaging in different ways. It\u2019s really looked at by different people. \u2026 And I think the older audience is looking at this as kind of a commodity stock market, right? How do I invest in this? This is a different way for me to invest in a passion I have, but at the same time, it looks like an investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh will serve as a grand re-introduction of sorts for Topps and the NFL. There will be a multi-faceted interactive celebration of football card collecting in Pittsburgh each day of the draft, starting April 23 when there will be a dedicated space where fans can learn about the hobby, snag free packs of cards, watch live pack openings and more. This culminates with \u201cCollector Celebration Day\u201d on April 25 on the field at Acrisure Stadium, featuring special guests and athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ability to partner with (the NFL), to encourage their audience to come into the world of collecting, that is a big opportunity,\u201d Mahan said. \u201cThey have so many fans, both here and around the world, and so the fact that we get to speak to those fans with trading cards that we think enhance that fandom, enhance that connection with an athlete or a team or a moment, and really drive that relationship that a collector feels with the player, that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time Topps printed a licensed NFL card, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota headlined the set\u2019s rookie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,14305,6,12,9,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-694575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-memorabilia-collectibles","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-sports-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116337041031701527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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