Published October 10, 2025 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

For years, collectors speculated about what the future of the hobby would look like once Fanatics secured the licenses to the three major American sports. That day has finally arrived. With Panini releasing their final licensed NBA product and Fanatics announcing the first licensed Topps NBA line (launching in just a few weeks), we are officially in a new era of the hobby.

The question is: is this a good or bad thing?

The card designs themselves are already a point of contention. Fanatics and Topps chose to mirror the aesthetic of their baseball flagship lines (Series 1, Series 2, Update, Chrome, Chrome Update, etc.) for the first NBA product. For some, this continuity feels clean and familiar. For others, it comes across as uninspired—a missed opportunity to carve out a new identity for basketball cards. Either way, it’s a sign of what’s to come: the Fanatics vision is to unify, consolidate, and brand-build across sports under one design language and one corporate umbrella.

Topps Basketball is back—this time officially licensed—and it all begins with rookie phenom Cooper Flagg leading the way. Fanatics is betting big on this launch, pushing Flagg as the face of a new era. But while the hype machine is in full swing, the question remains: are we celebrating the player, the product, or the monopoly?

By next Spring, Fanatics will also take over the NFL license. At that point, they won’t just be a dominant player—they will be the sole manufacturer holding the official licenses to MLB, NBA, and NFL. That level of consolidation is unprecedented. It means that one company will dictate what modern collecting looks like for the foreseeable future. And while Panini will likely continue to produce unlicensed product as they’ve done with baseball for years, the reality is clear: without team names, logos, and official branding, those products will feel like echoes of what once was—no longer the centerpiece of the hobby.

And yet, for all of the justified frustration collectors have had with Panini over the years—late redemptions, poor customer service, endless parallels, inconsistent and lackluster quality control—there’s something bittersweet about this transition. Panini, for all its faults and shortcomings, also delivered some of the most iconic designs and inserts in modern hobby history: Kabooms, Downtowns, Color Blasts. Prizm, Optic, Select. Flawless, National Treasures, Immaculate. These weren’t just products—they became cultural markers, instantly recognizable, chased across card shows, Instagram lives, and live break rooms around the world. For better or worse, Panini shaped an entire generation of collectors. And that legacy deserves acknowledgment as the curtain falls on their licensed era.

Love them or hate them—these inserts defined an era. Kabooms, Downtowns, Color Blasts—Panini’s fingerprints on the hobby will never fade.

But now, the reality is here: the Fanatics monopoly has begun. That word—monopoly—isn’t hyperbole. It’s a structural fact. When one company controls all of the licenses, competition disappears. And without competition, innovation tends to slow. Designs become recycled. Prices are dictated from the top. Print runs creep higher. Collector trust erodes. A monopoly doesn’t just control product—it controls narrative, distribution, and, in time, the very culture of collecting itself.

And here’s where the concern deepens: Fanatics isn’t simply a card manufacturer. They are also the operator of their own live-breaking platform, Fanatics Live. That means they don’t just make the cards—they sell them directly to consumers through their own channel, bypassing traditional distributors and local card shops. More importantly, they market this platform with casino-style promotions designed to mimic gambling incentives: “Spend $5,000, get $500 in rewards” or“We’ve missed you. Here’s $50 [to lure you into one more rip]”. To be clear, this is not neutral. It is calculated psychology—designed to hook collectors into spending more, more often, and with less thought.

This is how the largest player in the hobby is marketing its live break platform—by dangling casino-style incentives that encourage overspending. When the same company controls the licenses and runs the marketplace, promotions like this aren’t harmless perks. They normalize high-stakes ripping and blur the line between collecting and gambling. Collectors deserve better than being treated like slot machine players.

When the company that controls the licenses also owns the platform where those products are sold and promotes it with casino-like marketing, the stakes are no longer just about cardboard. They are about power, responsibility, and the health of the hobby itself.

As we tirelessly preach at Collectors MD, collectors deserve safeguards. If Fanatics is going to hold the keys to the entire industry, then Fanatics must also be held to a higher standard. Transparent odds. Spending limits. Self-exclusion tools. Consumer protections modeled after traditional gambling regulations. Independent oversight for things like repacks and chase products. These are not “nice to have” ideas—they are necessary if the hobby is going to thrive under one conglomerate’s watch.

Because here’s the truth: unchecked monopoly power rarely looks out for the little guy. And the collectors—the kids ripping packs, the parents buying boxes for family nights, the lifelong hobbyists chasing memories—are the ones who will feel the impact of whatever Fanatics chooses to prioritize.

So yes, the Fanatics era is here. And yes, it comes with excitement, with fresh possibilities, with the weight of new designs and new products to capitalize on a fresh crop of athletes. But it also comes with a responsibility that cannot be ignored. Monopoly power must be balanced by monopoly responsibility. Otherwise, the hobby risks becoming less about “collecting with intention” and more about “gambling with compulsion”.

#CollectorsMD
If Fanatics controls the future of the hobby, then Fanatics must also lead by example in protecting it—because without safeguards, a monopoly isn’t just bad for business, it’s dangerous for collectors.

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