Who should step in and buy Press Pass and it's assets?

[ranbethscards]

Think about it.. who should step in...

What about Leaf? Any and all autographs still in the vault would more than likely become "Cut Autographs" which LEAF has been producing for a while now. They have already did a few cut autographs of Dale Earnhardt Sr, taking Press Pass autographs and cutting off the top of the card. As Gomer Pyle use to say "for shame, for shame."

And what if Upper Deck was to take over and get their grimey little hands on the firesuits that are still hanging in the Press Pass closet? Would this be another Hockey Game-Used scenario? You pull a sweet 1/1 of Jeff Gordon, only to find out later that it's possible that fire suit was actually worn by Dave Blaney?

Panini seems like the best choice, but right now their hands are full with all their recent acquisitions.

...and Topps. Please, stay with baseball. 'nuff said!

Come on guys... the NASCAR season is a few weeks away... somebody step up and give us product!

 

[camaropat]

Panini would be the worst IMO. Just look at Panini Flawless, 1500 bucks a pack and they lied about the patches on Russell Wilson, and Colin Kaepernick were not game worn, or even their jerseys. AFTER they got caught they sent out a generic apology but at that point there is no apology that could fix that one. Plus if you have ever dealt with a redemption from them you would dread buying their products. I have a couple stories where I was blatantly lied to about my redemptions just to cover their butts. I would take no NASCAR over Panini taking over.

 

[Zahadum]

I agree with camaropat 100% with Panini and honestly not sure of any company that would be good with their track records. Interesting to see just what happens when the license is on the open market when Press Pass is liquidated.

 

[NattyBoo]

NASCAR needs to create a card division! They know what fans want and actually LISTEN! Screw splitting profits with some other greedy corporate entity!

 

[SHELBYSALEEN]

Beckett Radio just celebrated its first annivesary of its show. Part of the show was interviewing three company reps including, brian gray of leaf, tracy hackler from pannini and some guy from topps

Brian Gray FROM LEAF SAID THATFROM what he has heard press pass not selling compnay nor assetts. they are just closing. He said the market for nascar cards is small that most collectors prefer the jackets with home depot on them or the cars to put on the mantle. The fans dont have the trading card mentaility. He said its a boutique market [actually that is the second company rep i have heard say the same exact wording] he said leaf would only do a deal if it made sense. but the nascar market would fit his compnay better because they can do 100 - 150 case print runs where the bigger companys cant. HE SAID there is no way you can sell 300-400 cases of every nascar product. he also said that the nascar market has gotten stale and old needs to be reinvigorated. He also said they have spoken with NASCAR to see what NASCAR was wanting to do. He did say that the nascar license while not exactly neccessary would be more beneficial. He said whoever decides they want to try it again would need to do with kids gloves because if its done wrong it could be the end of it forever. Or something like that.

HE also said that the nascar market is actually smaller than the tennis market and benchwarmers market. he stressed that it was easier to sell tennis cards than it was to sell nascar cards. Also said something about profits from benchwarmers being more than nascar. i think thats what he meant.I was listening while at work


TRACY HACKLER from Pannin said he knows nothing about nascar but VP DJ has experience having been the vp at press pass for years. Hackler is also friends with nick the most recent vp of press pass. He does realize the hurdles with licensing in nascar but nothing would surprise him. He didnt sound too optimistic about it and I have actually been told that pannini out of the running for it. That they had tried to talk to NASCAR about a year ago and couldnt even get a response. Since they now have the collegiate license and over 200 colleges plus other licenses they probably do not have the time nor manpower to do anything with it.

clay laraski sp. of topps cant say yes or no if they would do nascar. He said its is an important sport and hopefully someone would do right by the nascar sports. Translation. we are losing our tail we are up for sale and our in debt as @#$$ so no sale.

I contacted upper deck and received a you never know but we havent heard anything. That came from customer service but they are up for sale also.

 

[ranbethscards]

Sad...NO NASCAR? how will we survive?

 

[CamaroDMD]

I find it really hard to believe that Press Pass will not attempt to sell their assets. It just doesn't make sense to simply close up. I could see their assets not selling...but you would think they would at least attempt to sell them...unless they have some intention of reopening in some form in the future.

 

[SHELBYSALEEN]

Upper decks chris carlin was interviewed about the nascar trading card market. The first question was was will upper deck try to get their hands on the NASCAR market.

Chris said absolutely [dont get excited] we are always looking at new potential licensing opportunities. Upper deck had NASCAR trading cards in the late 90s early 2000s but we did walk away from it at the time. PRIMARLY because everyone sees their is an opening in NASCAR must be easy and a cash cow. Not neccessarily its a tricky dynamic because there is no players association so you have to get individual deals with all the players every sponsor needs to be updated they have image approval rights it was a lot of work there were situations that required us to have a lot of redemptions in products and thats not something we want to get back into if we can make it happen where we can get autographs in product and its a great experience for collectors and fans and everything vaules out where we can come up to it with a deal that makes sense to get the value in it that collectors expect and desire then absolutely.

Derek finished it off with

It something i didnt really know and understand with the whole nascar licensing that there is so much more that goes into it and thats why its such a harder makert to grasp and be successfull at. because i was wondering nascar is up for grabs someone has to take it its going to be a lot but in talking to other people and hearing other sides of the sotry i hear its more difficult like you said. so it will be interseting to see what happens with the future of that market

 

[ranbethscards]

Thanks for sharing that Michael!

 

[Zahadum]

Press Pass might have a plan to restructure or something and come back so they are not making any moves with the license or assets.
Does their license expire or does it just exist until they sell it?

So I don't see any new Nascar cards coming anytime soon.