Let's imagine for a moment that all of the major sports trading card companies decided to collaborate for one unique product. This product would have equal contributions from every license holder; instead of one uniform card design the set would look like a quilt of contributions from all parties.
If such a collaboration occurred in 2023-24, it would look like this:
Hooray for monopolies! Thank your corporate overlords, kids.
Okay, that's not entirely true. For many collectors Fanatics owns every card company they care about. But, as spotlighted in a four-part series here on this blog, Upper Deck is still alive and well.
The Upper Deck company was active in all four major North American pro sports when multiple card companies collaborated on a single semi-major release in the 1990s - yet UD did not participate.
Upper Deck did take part in a promotional product called National Packtime in 1995. Designed to get kids(and adults) back into card collecting after the devastating players' strike of 1994-95, this 18-card set features a 3-card contribution from each of the license holders at the time. It's easy to picture representatives from Donruss, Fleer, Pacific, Pinnacle, Topps, and Upper Deck sitting at a table and 'drafting' which players they would produce for the promotion.
Regardless of how the players were divvied up among the six companies, the set checklist is alphabetical:
1 - Frank Thomas
7 - Barry Bonds
13 - Will Clark
Fleer
2 - Matt Williams
8 - Tim Salmon
14 - Fred McGriff
Pacific
3 - Juan Gonzalez
9 - Jose Canseco
15 - Tony Gwynn
4 - Bob Hamelin
10 - Cal Ripken
16 - Kenny Lofton
5 - Mike Piazza
11 - Raul Mondesi
17 - Deion Sanders
6 - Ken Griffey, Jr.
12 - Alex Rodriguez
18 - Jeff Bagwell
UD definitely didn't pick last with that trifecta
This is a fascinating concept to me. Yet, for all the recycled ideas and designs, the cross-company collab has rarely happened since and has never truly reached its full potential. Obviously the brands we grew up with were too busy devouring each other to work together, but there have been a couple other attempts.
Each of the surviving card companies has had their own Trading Card Day promotions in recent years. Some are multi-sport, some are single sport, all are individually released. The only one I could find that was a true collaborative effort was 2004 - when Donruss/Playoff, Fleer, Topps, and Upper Deck joined forces.
Now we're cookin! A multi-sport, multi-company set with no uniform design. Donruss/Playoff actually contributed two different types of cards - Donruss style baseball cards and Playoff-style football cards.
Six different sports are included in this 54 card set: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, auto racing, and golf. While I certainly wouldn't expect equal representation among those sports (to UD's credit they included four golfers - not just Eldrick) the unequal contributions bother me more. Instead of each company releasing 9 cards + 1 header, Donruss/Playoff got just 6 cards while Upper Deck had 15.
This was the last year that Topps had an NHL trading card license. Fleer soon dissolved into Upper Deck's portfolio. Donruss/Playoff would get bought out by Panini a few years later.
There are pieces of a great idea here: National Packtime got the player distribution part right. 2004 NTCD added more sports and a bigger checklist. But it wasn't a large enough checklist to be packed out and completed as a regulation-sized set.
Matt at Cards Over Coffee often asks questions using the red pill/blue pill so I won't steal his idea here.... but..
If you could choose a theme for this multi-brand collaboration, would you go with a multi-sport checklist -- Goodwin Champions with licensing -- or a one-sport focused set?
If your chose option 'b' then I have a set for you: 1996-97 Fleer/Topps Picks, the inspiration for this post.
These look like separate releases, and they are -- kind of. The Fleer packs have base cards and inserts unique to them, while the Topps box has the same. But the checklist is the collaboration here: a single 180 card set. Topps got the odd numbers, Fleer got the even numbers. How did they decide which players would be on which side? It's in the name -- each card company made their Picks draft style.
Topps ended up with stars like Mario Lemieux, Martin Brodeur, and Patrick Roy while Fleer selected Wayne Gretzky, Joe Sakic, and Eric Lindros. It got me thinking about how such a set could work if the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB still allowed competition for trading card licenses. A sample checklist:
Collectors are increasingly interested in superstars from other sports, so here's another five rounds:
What are your thoughts on the concept of a multi-brand (and/or multi-sport) collaborative set?
Thanks for reading!
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It's a cool concept, but I wouldn't be interested in a multi-sport set because some sports I don't care about. The National Pack-Time set (which I have) would be more my speed, and I'd love to see some Fleer-inspired designs revived.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't really collect non-baseball, although the idea of, say, a Naomi Osaka card in a baseball set (maybe Ginter) is appealing.
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty inevitable that Fanatics/Topps develops at least one multi-sport set. But think of the opportunities for multi--player autos! How mad would New York fans go for an Aaron Judge/Saquon Barkley/Julius Randle triple auto? Or, for that matter, say, Dwight Gooden/Phil Simms/Patrick Ewing? Lots of possibilities.
I think it's a good idea as theres probably a market for it, but personally I'm not a multi-sport collector. Hard enough spending money on baseball packs when I can find them.
ReplyDeleteI forgot all about the Topps/Fleer Picks - memory lane
ReplyDeleteWhen the manufacturers had all 4 or at least three major sports - I always wanted to see a products where I could get a football, baseball, basketball, hockey cards in a pack.
I love it when card companies get together and produce a set. I just opened up my office and started sorting cards over the weekend... and found a mid 90's Santa Claus set that had cards from Pacific, Topps, Upper Deck, Classic, Collector's Edge, and Pinnacle (maybe more). Anyways... getting back to your question, I'd be okay with it being multi-sport... although I'd be interested in a single sport like baseball just as much.
ReplyDeleteIf they have lots of SiCk HiTz, people will buy it.
ReplyDeleteHaven't heard of that hockey release. A set like this these days would really only work as an A&G type where the companies can contribute their star players for the set.
ReplyDelete