New Licensing Agreement (Upper Deck Exclusive) Discussion Thread

[the_nange]

I doubt there will be less products with this monopoly. NHL and PA are in this for money (obviously). That means they want their players and club logos on as many products as possible.

[centrehice]

You are oversimplifying this like crazy. The NHLPA doesn't simply grant a license and then give unlimited freedom to the card company. I can guarantee you that they have to have images/designs/logos all approved by the NHLPA in order to produce the cards. This isn't as simple as give us your money and freely use our likeness, as the NHL and NHLPA have to protect their image.

Where did I say that had unlimited freedom? All I said that licensing agreements among 3 suppliers is not that problematic. Please look at my previous posts where I specified a certain number of issues.

I am very familiar with big business and what licensing entails, as that is all I did for over 20 years with trademarks and service marks among the oldest in North America, for a company about 200 times the size of Upper Deck.

[Gord93]

Thank goodness I largely got out of this business.

Upper Deck's products, especially in the last two seasons, have been uninspiring to say the least. How many more products need to come out as under-designed homages to the releases of 1999 through 2003, before Photoshop technology improved? How many more products need to come out with no real appeal beyond personal tradition of going after that set?

In just about every facet, Panini has outdone UD with an NHL license, not to mention everything ITG has done. I opened up some Totally Certified and SPX yesterday...Totally Certified was a far more fun product to open. It's far better than SPX. Same with Score and O Pee Chee, Score wins. Same with Prizm and Series 1, Prizm wins. Every interesting and unique card concept seems to come from Panini's projects, with nothing particularly added into the card market by Upper Deck lately.

Even for those that say that Panini has too many parallels, at least it's interesting. Yes, it can be a pain in the butt if you're a player collector, but it's designed to have something appealing in each version of a released product.

Counter that with Upper Deck: Beckett quotes a store manager on how UD "reinvented the Young Guns" with numbering and Canvas parallels. Really? Having a regular rookie, a slightly rarer rookie on different cardstock (no autos, jerseys, cutting, or anything that costs that much more), and some with slightly different foil is reinventing the basic rookie card concept? Come on.

This is UD throwing money to stave off better competition. The hockey card market will go down next year, and in the years to come, because we'll have the same old Upper Deck products, only now with all the old crap that got mercy-killed four years ago. Are you excited to have MVP again as a stand-alone set? It's coming back in November. Excited for the return of Victory? And Collector's Choice? Of course not. No one is.

Not to mention all of the other complaints against Upper Deck. A redemption system that's often late, on a website platform designed in 1998. A lack of player variety. A lack of creativity. Delaying every product. Delaying every product further, thanks to no official competition.

One year from now, the trading card business in hockey will be much worse off. There will be less people breaking things, less of everything, as one monopoly promptly nosedives.

[peterz17]

Interesting to say the least, sad that ITG didn't get a crack but maybe this will help the secondary market value. I wonder if this means that products like Ice and Black will make a comeback, since MVP is back to being standalone product in 14-15.

edit: I wonder what Panini will do with redemptions? I have a 11/12 Contenders Match-ups still waiting and was told that they only needed Callahan to sign. Maybe I'll get the card with only 3 auto's haha.

[centrehice]

Well said Gord !!

[egghead529]

Where did I say that had unlimited freedom? All I said that licensing agreements among 3 suppliers is not that problematic. Please look at my previous posts where I specified a certain number of issues.

I am very familiar with big business and what licensing entails, as that is all I did for over 20 years with trademarks and service marks among the oldest in North American for a company about 200 times the size of Upper Deck.

You didn't say they have unlimited freedom, I was simply trying to illustrate that having 1 licensee is easier than having multiple. I have also experience in licensing, specifically in sports with MLB, and it involved constant contact to make sure that all logos, images, etc. were used correctly.

Fact of the matter is if this is a reason that they went to an exclusive, it is a very small reason. We all know that the main reason is money.

[cardscardscards]

To me, this all looks like the NHLPA gave UD a b**ch slap a la "we can and will flush you if you don't *fill in blank*. And just to show you, we're giving you some competition this licensing period.".

I absolutely do not understand what was so wrong with Panini that they'd get ditched after their first licensing agreement. As much as I wasn't a fan of their later products, they still did a good job.

[Dave71120]

I'm not shedding any tears over this. As a collector with limited funds more often than not, while I liked some of Panini's designs, by and large their products were aimed at the high-end market and thus priced out of reach for me. Their retail offerings this season quite simply suck, and with the exception of Certified last season wasn't all that and a bag of chips, either.

That being said, I was hoping that Panini would bring their Dufex technology back into their hockey product lineup, and they would bring prices back down to Earth and stop focusing so damn much on high-end releases. I, for one, cannot stand to see product after product from Panini come out with 4 packs and 5 cards per pack (or less). I wonder if their release of Titanium this year was the final nail in their coffin? That has to be one of the worst product releases in recent years, I saw far more people crack boxes that were a total bust than those who actually got something decent out of it.

I hope UD doesn't fall into the lazy trap like Topps with their exclusive MLB license. I also hope they improve their offerings a little and also bring prices down to a level where more people can afford stuff like SPx. I feel that the variety of inserts from UD are superior to those from Panini, and Panini also just went overboard with parallel's.

It seems like Panini's offerings were not delivering anywhere near the value in a box as compared to what the consumer would pay for it. Is UD any better? Yes and no. But I feel that UD comes in a little more on the 'delivering value' side than not.

This is just my view/opinion, and yes, I realize some of this is selfish on my part because I want to be able to afford to buy a box of something other than OPC and UD every year. YMMV. Film at 11.

[centrehice]

You didn't say they have unlimited freedom, I was simply trying to illustrate that having 1 licensee is easier than having multiple. I have also experience in licensing, specifically in sports with MLB, and it involved constant contact to make sure that all logos, images, etc. were used correctly.

Fact of the matter is if this is a reason that they went to an exclusive, it is a very small reason. We all know that the main reason is money.

I spent 15 years trying to stop local, regional and casual Sports Teams from using the Skoal Bandit Logos on all their slo-pitch uniforms without permission, as well as NASCAR, PRCA, Indy Car as it pertains to tobacco legislation, and several other sponsored Sports entities and their fans. It's easy for the NHL to protect their Logos and Trademarks via Hockey cards, it simply requires a small amount of diligence.

All about money? Yes of course it is. But nothing happens until something is sold, and the NHL has limited it's league and player likeness sales with restricting their license to one, and only one company.

[centrehice]

I'm not shedding any tears over this. As a collector with limited funds more often than not, while I liked some of Panini's designs, by and large their products were aimed at the high-end market and thus priced out of reach for me. Their retail offerings this season quite simply suck, and with the exception of Certified last season wasn't all that and a bag of chips, either.

That being said, I was hoping that Panini would bring their Dufex technology back into their hockey product lineup, and they would bring prices back down to Earth and stop focusing so damn much on high-end releases. I, for one, cannot stand to see product after product from Panini come out with 4 packs and 5 cards per pack (or less). I wonder if their release of Titanium this year was the final nail in their coffin? That has to be one of the worst product releases in recent years, I saw far more people crack boxes that were a total bust than those who actually got something decent out of it.

I hope UD doesn't fall into the lazy trap like Topps with their exclusive MLB license. I also hope they improve their offerings a little and also bring prices down to a level where more people can afford stuff like SPx. I feel that the variety of inserts from UD are superior to those from Panini, and Panini also just went overboard with parallel's.

It seems like Panini's offerings were not delivering anywhere near the value in a box as compared to what the consumer would pay for it. Is UD any better? Yes and no. But I feel that UD comes in a little more on the 'delivering value' side than not.

This is just my view/opinion, and yes, I realize some of this is selfish on my part because I want to be able to afford to buy a box of something other than OPC and UD every year. YMMV. Film at 11.

Prizm was the nicest regular set, and parallel sets issued in the past 10 years, and very affordable.