Panini America signs licensing deal with National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

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By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

Panini America has taken the next step toward covering all of Major League Baseball on its baseball cards as it signed a multi-year licensing deal with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Terms of the deal announced Wednesday were not disclosed but it starts immediately, allowing the Texas-based company the right to show all Hall inductees, use Hall of Fame trademarks and showcase artifact images in six baseball card sets per year. The first of those will be Prime Cuts, which arrives in March.

“The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum represents the greatest players and personalities the sport has ever known and this partnership will help us bring that level of unparalleled excellence to our products,” said Panini America CEO Mark Warsop. “The trading cards we make utilizing this license will no doubt be Hall of Fame worthy.”

This is the second baseball-related deal the company has signed since unveiling its deal with the MLB Players Association in October. It’s also the third deal with a major sports hall as it has signed agreements with the basketball and football halls as well.

“We’ve been impressed with how quickly Panini America has established its leadership position in the sports collectibles arena since coming to the U.S. in 2009, and we’re thrilled with the prospects of this relationship,” said Sean Gahagan, Retail and Licensing Vice President for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “Their creativity and innovation are second to none, and we’re eager to see the new product releases for the coming year.”

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

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11 comments

  1. Anthony D'Amalio 8 February, 2012 at 11:16

    Thank you competition! Topps is getting complacent, and someone needs to wake them up. I think Panini pretty regularly puts out top notch, interesting products, and this is one company to stir things up with Topps!

  2. Fabio 8 February, 2012 at 12:12

    If you can judge the quality of the product by one card, it will be totally awesome. I hope it would be affordable and I am happy we have a new major player in the hobby.

  3. Hscshooter 8 February, 2012 at 12:55

    Prime Cuts was what a lot of people looked forward to when Donruss was around. A great product, albeit with high risk accompanying it. I must say some of the hits were awesome. Let’s hope Panini does a good enough job without too many redemptions. On a side note, why is there a redemption in 90% of the Limited Football product? You have rookie shoots during camp, why not have the player sit down and sign. At least Topps does that during their rookie photo shoot.

  4. Adam Shoemaker 10 February, 2012 at 22:55

    * “The trading cards we make utilizing this license will no doubt be Hall of Fame worthy.”

    Not if they make 6 ‘different’ sets from it. Is that at all neccessary? 1 each of low-end/mid-grade/high-end sets would be more than sufficent.

    * “Their creativity and innovation are second to none, and we’re eager to see the new product releases for the coming year.”

    REALLY? Has anyone at the MLB HOF&M actually looked at recent Panini designs?!!!

    Without an actual MLB license, Panini will get no money from me for ANY Baseball products. The team names and logos are what makes them MLB cards, to me.
    I DO hope this forces Topps to do a better job with their exclusive license than they have so far, but I am not holding my breath waiting to see the MLB card hobby revitalized by this.

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