Well, this just came to my attention thanks to Twitter and Upper Deck. But we'll get to that in a second. First, how cool does this look?
NBA 2K11 is going to have Jordan in it. Really, it's about time. Every baseball game I've ever played has a feature that lets you play classic lineups. Why has basketball not caught on to this yet?
But my question is, why stop at Jordan? Why isn't there a Dream Team on these games? Why can't I play every USA basketball squad that's ever played in the Olympics? Why can't I put together Oscar Robertson, Dr. J, Jordan, Kobe and Lebron on the same court? It's a computer program. These things should be able to happen with the push of a button.
Granted, I owned (briefly) NBA 2K10 and I loved the feature that put Marcus Camby on the Blazer roster as soon as the trade was completed. So the games changing in real time was great, but once again, people love retro. My only hope is that they included some more players who haven't seen the court in a while.
But why Jordan now? Well, according to 2K Sports, they just completed the best basketball game they've ever produced - and they needed the best player ever to bring it out. They actually guaranteed it will be their most sold game...ever. That's a huge promise considering it doesn't come out until October. It must be good.
But to the second part of the post...Jordan sells. And fans still buy Jordan.
Simple right? Not really. Not yet.
So like I said, I only found out about the cover from UD's post on Twitter. And UD still has the rights to Jordan. And people really want to buy Jordan's product. But Upper Deck can't make basketball cards anymore. So, yeah.....
I guess what I'm saying here is, how long can basketball fans wait to get new Jordan autos and relics from the only source who's making cards anymore? I give all the kudos in the world to Panini for getting Kobe wrapped up. But let's not fool ourselves, Jordan and Lebron are still not signing for Panini. And quite frankly, I'm conflicted about how I should feel about it.
Granted, Panini has the NBA contract. The NBA decided to give the exclusive rights to Panini. I can't fault either side for doing what they felt was best for their business. It's done and in the past, let's move forward. And truthfully, Panini has done a much better job than anybody was hoping for. There have been a few duds that didn't strike a chord with collectors, but for the most part it's been fun to be a basketball collector this year. And it only looks to get better.
And we're a nation of contract law. So I can't really fault Upper Deck for holding on to the Jordan and Lebron rights for all their worth. They have the exclusive rights to two people who are more recognizable than most any world leader. That's a tough pair of aces to fold, if you get my drift.
But as fans and collectors, people are starting to look at Upper Deck as obstructionist. Forget about the press about losing the NBA license, the Yu-Gi-Oh debacle and the MLB infringement, they're still holding the keys to the greatest treasure chest in sports. And doing what with it exactly? Well, apparantly that key is in a lock box somewhere. If you look at upcoming releases, they have UD Ultimate basketball scheduled and a rookie release. So, with the Topps baseball precedent set in court, they couldn't run the risk of making a product like Ultimate with logos for basketball, could they?
And here's where good will is starting to turn against UD. We've got a couple of UD releases planned to get our Jordan and Lebron fixes, and that means fans are asking Panini to buy Jordan autos to put cut-sigs in their product. Collectors are begging for cut-autos of a living person. Does that make sense? People are clamoring for Jordan and Lebron autos - and it looks like UD is waving their finger in their faces - figuratively speaking.
I don't have the Jordan contract with Upper Deck sitting in front of me or anything - so I can't report on the details or how long the contract runs. But I can't imagine Jordan renewing a contract with Upper Deck if they're not able to actually produce cards. In the end Jordan makes more if he's on product that being sold. It's the biggest elephant in the room we've had in a while. This I do know. Jordan does sell. He sells video games, underwear, shoes, tickets, jerseys and cards. And he's sold a lot of cards.
Just as basketball video games have been incomplete in the last few years, the basketball card hobby finds itself incomplete today. No fault to Panini, but it's not quite there without the greatest basketball player ever.
When does our hobby become complete again?
2 comments:
No doubt, Jordan, LeBron and Kobe are the biggest names in the Hobby and it really doesn't make sense that the company with the NBA exclusive rights would only have one of those three giants in their fold. Fortunately for us collectors, Panini has done a better than expected job of relying on their overall product than just 2 or three players. There products have been pretty solid this year and are going to get even better with their next few releases as you mentioned. Unfortunately, many collectors buy products just for the case hits and that means that "names" can often drive product sales, and what bigger names are their than Jordan, LeBron and Kobe.
What happens with Jordan and LeBron'' rights will shape not only the basketball card/memorabilia hobby, but the entire industry as UD is relying heavily on their UD Authentic branch to get through these tough times.
I have seen some images of UD Ultimate product and Draft product. They actually look pretty decent and I think they will continue to product high quality basketball cards (UD Greats of the Game excluded). It is certainly an interesting time in the hobby.
Hey,
You're right. Panini has really leaned on their product - and they're standing on their own with some quality stuff.
But our collecting habits now are the same as they were when we were kids - we want to pull that Jordan. Granted, the chase of pulling on-card Kobe's in Panini's stuff has been a great idea on their part. But he's still not Jordan.
I'm not saying that the hobby is crippled by not having a regular Jordan and Lebron checklist every release - but it's not quite complete.
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