Weekly Market Report - April 5, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Remember a few weeks ago when I questioned Topps for commemorating Barry Bonds' "historic" home run chase? Well, I've changed my mind. This week, Topps embarked on arguably the greatest sports marketing campaign ever. On April 1st, Topps secretly bought a billboard outside of AT&T Ballpark in San Francisco that simply said "Trade Barry". After the billboard caused a ton of controversy in the sports community, Topps revealed yesterday that they were the ones to purchase the billboard. The billboard now reads "TRADE BARRY'S CARDS WITH TOPPS - The Exclusive Home of Barry’s Home Run Chase".

Seriously, this is freaking awesome. Discussion about the billboard had been all over TV and sports radio the past few days. Everyone wanted to know who in the Bay Area hated Barry enough to take out a billboard? Come to find out, it was Topps encouraging people to TRADE Barry cards. Unbelievable. How insanely creative is that? ''Together with Barry, we decided to have some fun with everything that's going on in the game today,'' said Warren Friss, VP/General Manager, Topps Sports. Good for Topps. Great idea. All hail Topps. You rule. [read release]

The Topps Company and 2K Sports, a sports video game manufacturer and exclusive third-party producer of MLB® video games, have announced a marketing alliance to increase the overall awareness of baseball card collecting among video game users. The ground-breaking promotion exposes Major League Baseball® 2K6's gamers to Topps Baseball trading cards, while consumers of Topps Baseball cards will find 2K6 "game cheats" randomly inserted into this year's Topps packs.

I think that this is a phenomenal idea. Being a collector and a gamer, I think that there is a huge opportunity to recruit more collectors through gaming. Topps is tapping into a market that collecting has previously ignored. For years companies ranging from Nike to Old Spice (Red Zone Advertisements when you are in the "red zone" in Madden) have utilized video games for targeted, cost-effective advertising. Glad to see collectibles catching up. Topps might be the first, but I'm sure others will follow suit. [read release]

The New York Yankees are partnering with McFarlane Toys for their third McFarlane giveaway. Fans attending the September 30th game vs. the Toronto Blue Jays will receive a 3-inch figure of left-fielder Hideki Matusi in his pinstriped uniform. "It is a wonderful opportunity to continue to build our 3-inch collector series," says Deborah Tymon, senior vice president of marketing for the Yankees.

OK, that quote is a bit confusing. Why does the senior VP for the YANKEES care about building McFarlane's 3-inch series? I didn't know the Yankees organization had stock in McFarlane. Disregarding that, does anyone know if people actually buy the 3-inch figures? I know that there is an abundance of them available for next to nothing on eBay. I'm sure most fans would rather see a 6-inch figure for the give away. Not to mention, if you are McFarlane, wouldn't you rather have new collectors collect 6-inch figures as opposed to the 3-inch? I've heard before that they want young kids to collect the 3-inch (which are cheap and easy to find) and then transition to the 6-inch as they get older. I can understand that, but the 6-inch figures really aren't THAT expensive. I'm pretty sure kids who are really into it can handle the $7.99 retail price for a much better figure...but that's just my opinion. [read release]