Weekly Market Report - January 4, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Last week McFarlane revealed it's NHL Series 12 Sports Picks that will be released this summer. It is essentially an "update" series where McFarlane simply put new uniforms on existing figures of players that switched teams in the off season. Unless you are a hardcore collector, the only cool thing in this series is the debut of Sidney Crosby. In addition to those 5 players with new uni's, McFarlane decided to add some flare to the series by including the first figure for the Pittsburgh Penguin rookie phenom. I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. It's cheesy to just rush out a series with existing figures in new uniforms, but the addition of Crosby not only makes the series interesting, it makes it one of the more anticipated releases of 2006. [read official release]

Beckett.com cites a Street & Smith's article as saying that the NHL, NHLPA, and Upper Deck have struck an exclusive deal for Upper Deck to make NHL and NHLPA licensed cards. In The Game president Brian Price is quoted as saying that the lack of a license means that his company will "likely go out of business." I am not a huge fan of the "exclusive license" thing. Just like EA Sports and the NFL, Upper Deck and the NHL keep the money with the big companies and prevent a true free market. It limits consumer choice and forces them to buy whatever product is put out, regardless of the quality. Choices are always good for consumers. That is what our country is built on. Imagine if there were exclusive licenses on the content online. What if you could only get sports information from Google? The competition between Google, MSN, and Yahoo! ultimately results in great products being released for consumers...and the best one usually wins. Ok, I think I made my point. That is it for your weekly economics lesson. [read article]

After I mentioned the Upper Deck "Where's Sidney?" campaign a few weeks back, I sort of forgot about it. That is, until I went to Upper Deck's website today and saw a little Sidney Crosby on the bottom. At that moment, I realized that I had found a Sidney icon. This is so cool. Now, I probably won't spend any time scouring the web and packs of cards for more icons, but what a great idea by UD. Hockey fans and card fans alike should have fun with this. [Upper Deck Home Page]