Multiple employees have left their positions inside the trading card operations of Panini America this week, SC Daily has learned.
Four members of the company’s product development team resigned abruptly on Tuesday, followed by half of the company’s Acquisitions department. We’re told by a reliable industry source that the employees resigned and were not terminated.
The moves come during the same time frame in which it was reported by Shams Charania of The Athletic that Fanatics would be utilizing the Topps name to produce basketball cards during the 2023-24 NBA season.
Fanatics has been looking to fill numerous job openings on the trading card side of its collectibles business including brand managers, graphic designers, assistant project managers and planning analysts on its autograph and relic acquisition side. Industry personnel from Fanatics and Panini were together in the same room last week at the MINT Collective in Las Vegas.
The Panini departures fuel a belief by some in the industry that Fanatics may be working to acquire the licenses needed to produce cards earlier than their schedule expiration dates. Fanatics purchased Topps 15 months ago after forging deals with MLB, the NFL and NBA as well as the players associations.
Panini’s NBA license had been scheduled to expire in 2026. The Fanatics card deal with the NBA and its players for future years was hammered out in the summer of 2021.
Panini began its run as the NBA’s exclusive trading card partner more than a dozen years ago. That license has been renewed multiple times since then. However, Fanatics’ shocking 2021 move to acquire future league and player licensing across MLB, the NBA and NFL led to speculation that those licenses would shift to them before they would expire. Topps was the first domino to fall.
The leagues and the players associations are set to become long term partners in Fanatics’ trading card deals.
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