Earlier today, I posted a press release from the IFL regarding partnering with Topps to sell trading cards of the company's athletes.
this article but there's more as
this article suggests Upper Deck is not out of the picture to purchase the company and in another follow up article
topps now being sued by Upper DeckIt would seem that Topps is in quite a bit of turmoil. Kind of makes it a natural business partner for the strapped for cash IFL.
Yours truly has at one time collected cards from: Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey. I've also purchased my fair share of wrestling cards.
From what I've been able to gather from the brief research I've done since seeing the IFL's press release, the industry is in a world of hurt. I've not collected cards since college called my name back in 1999 but this news would hardly come as a shock to me. When I was in High-school, I remember the price of cards going up, while the number of cards per pack is going down. Lets face facts, if you're going to spend $50, will you buy trading cards that are at best something you can apraise and store somewhere, or will you buy a video game for the same sport at the same cost which you can actually use in an interactive sort of way?
If you're the International Fight League, you'd better have gotten a good price for the license to your product to begin with because you're not going to see any kind of profit off of sales. I don't really know about the state of football cards, but I know that Baseball is really hurting now and MLB is certainly more well-known among the public than the IFL. I don't think that
UFC would stand to gain much from a card deal and they're way more well-known than the IFL. Though I would admit, a 3-D card of Rashad Evans clobbering Sean Salmon would be kinda cool.
It doesn't work for wrestling either. Remember that
TNA once had a trading card deal? of course you don't and it is not your fault and not really TNA's either. Did you know that you can
buy WWE cards ironically enough made by Topps. I'm not sure how old these are, or if Topps still holds the WWE license, and I really don't care, the point is that how many wrestling fans buy these? I'm guessing not many, and you never see WWE advertise their existance.
If the IFL wants to make money off of this, they should really see if Topps will make IFL flavored gum or candy. I don't chew gum regularly but I'm far more likely to do that than buy a pack of IFL cards.
Each team could have their own flavor or something...and of course there's always power-Palaszewski gum as a possibility. Now how cool would that be?
Now how many sites are going to come right out and tell you that this means basically nothing? We here at the times are committed to finding the truth provided it is easy to find and we're not doing something else.
Labels: Business, IFL, Mixed Martial Arts, Topps, Trading Cards
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