General Forum

With their loss of Baseball, Football and Basketball licenses, and now with the Hockey Lockout, can Upper Deck stay in business ?  I know I need them, do you ?

I believe they have just done or are just about to do a set from Marvel.  Maybe non-sports will keep their heads above water.

While I've never been a really big fan of UD, I'm surprised to see that they have lost the licenses for baseball and football. I knew they lost the NBA license when Stern gave it all to Panini...a big mistake, as having only a single company leads to nothing good...a look at NASCAR cards over the past decade shows how badly it can be when one company is the only one doing the cards. They did a subset on the driver's "star signs" even! But, I'm off on a tangent.

I think they will survive, but they may have to drastically change their operating procedures. I have heard that they are doing a great job on the Marvel cards...I have not collected them since circa 1994 so I do not know from first hand experence, however. It seems like non-sports would be something they should look in to focusing on for a while...that aspect of the hobby is in a "boom" stage right now with a lot of interesting sets being released.

They still have a college football license. They need to start putting out college football sets. I'm not talking about draft editions or all-time greats compilations. I'm talking about a full-fledged college football set based on the season that's going on right now with all the major schools and players.  Why isn't anyone doing this?  Are they not allowed to?  If EA Sports can put out a college football game, I don't see how they wouldn't be able to do cards. 

Upper Deck got in trouble for not paying the athletes for their autographs. So I am not sure that Upper Deck will ever get another chance to get back into the NFL, MLB or NBA game again. I enjoyed the early Upper Deck sets in the early 90's and I also enjoyed the sets at the end of the 2000's like Upper Deck Artifacts and Upper Deck Icons. In a way I kinda hope that Upper Deck gets back in the game but I am not putting too much stock into that ever happening.

I remember when UD first came out back in the olden days and the Griffey Jr. rookie was SOOOO hot!! They had a slick card compared to the plain cardboard Topps, along with Score and Pro Set giving Topps a run for their money. But then they (and every other card company!) started producing cards for just about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING! I gave up trying to buy or complete sets and concentrated on fave players.