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DarkSide830
Posts: 213
Joined: Sep 2015
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| Friday, August 4, 2023 12:25 PM | |
Agreed, if anyone is at fault, it's the leagues. But even then, I'm not sure if an exclusive agreement is illegal. Would Panini be suing if Fanatics only had control over two leagues? The way I see it, they are different products, and Panini complaining about an exclusive deal is pretty darn hypocritical.
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suomibear8
Posts: 782
Joined: Nov 2009
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| Friday, August 4, 2023 2:55 PM | |
I actually love Panini stuff....lol
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~Aaron~ Please check "My Finnish Flash Collection" to see which cards I am looking for with my PC - willing to trade or buy anything I need. 2,140 unique Teemu cards....and counting (Last updated 30 October 2023) 821+ different Brett cards....and counting
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Dodgydave
Posts: 817
Joined: Apr 2019
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| Friday, August 4, 2023 3:01 PM | |
I'm not sure on US law but here in New Zealand being a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself.
They tend to be discouraged and are monitored for monopolistic behaviour and anti competitive actions. (Usually pricing to take too much advantage of their monopoly or throwing up unnatural barriers to entry to potential competitors.) These behaviours can also be seen in sectors which don't have a strict monopoly but a few large dominant entities, see petrol stations or supermarkets.
I doubt an exclusive agreement would be evidence of this. These agreements exist everywhere. (Heck, we had one with Cressi when we were importing dive gear and no one was complaining!) The agreement may make your product more desirable but it doesn't stop other people producing sports trading cards in this case.
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cynicalbuddha
Posts: 529
Joined: Aug 2009
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| Friday, August 4, 2023 4:09 PM | |
Just to be clear Fanatics gaining exclusive league rights to produce their trading cards is not a monopoly. A monopoly would be if Fanatics was the only company that could produce or did produce trading cards, the fact that they have exclusive rights to the content on those cards does not make it a monopoly. Panini and Upper Deck, hell anyone can still produce trading cards on other topics. The leagues and the affiliated teams are private businesses and can enter into exclusive merchandising deals if they so choose. One would argue that putting all your eggs in one basket is a terrible business idea, it is at least to me as a collector, but I'm no lawyer. We do however have a ton of lawyers as TCDb memebers so please correct me if I'm wrong.
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Thunderfoot
Posts: 88
Joined: Aug 2016
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| Saturday, August 5, 2023 4:11 PM | |
this hobby has been stuck in monopoly hell soon as the first exclusivity contract was signed
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Statsnerd
Posts: 970
Joined: Feb 2022
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B Carlson
Posts: 16
Joined: May 2019
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| Monday, August 7, 2023 1:04 PM | |
I don't have a link as proof, but it is on several websites, fanatics is countersuing panini. It just happened today.
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DaClyde
Posts: 1,249
Joined: Sep 2008
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| Monday, August 7, 2023 1:23 PM | |
I'm baffled why someone felt the need to run Panini America so completely different from all the other country divisions of Panini. It is sad how they have so completely sidetracked what was a perfectly good sticker company and made it into a bad parody of Topps or Upper Deck.
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Fido
Posts: 67
Joined: Dec 2013
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| Monday, August 7, 2023 1:23 PM | |
I don't have a problem with Panini (other than not filling redemptions that are still valid). I really don't know that Fanatics will be any better. I just collect basketball so don't have experience with their offerings. But having a single company doing all the sports cards feels like a great way to artificially raising prices and twist distributors' arms to push their stuff. I guess we'll see how it works out.
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walkingshadow
Posts: 46
Joined: Oct 2021
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| Monday, August 7, 2023 1:37 PM | |
Fully agree. Panini can't compete because they have no license, their designs are dull and they have WAY too many inserts, parallels and parallel inserts. The cards are all repetitive and stupid because of the ways the players have to be standing just right to obscure their hat and uniform team names.
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