The middle part of the 1990s took a major toll on the baseball card industry. All those ambitions of striking it rich off personal collections proved to be grossly overstated. The supply got out of hand, growing too large to keep pace with the anticipated values. There was also an MLB work stoppage and a younger generation that didn’t take so fervently to the hobby, forcing companies to fold and sending the industry reeling.
Click here to read the story at espn.com.
Discussion Questions:
- What is supply and demand? How did the basic concept of supply and demand wind up being the downfall of the trading card industry in the 90s?
- What is positioning?
- Based on information from this story, how is Topps positioning its baseball trading card business?
- What is licensing?
- Why does Topps need a license to produce MLB trading cards? In that scenario, who is the licensee? Licensor?