Sports Media Report
The Topps Company today announced that their fast-growing on-demand platform TOPPS NOW™ has surpassed 300,000 cards sold thus far, exceeding the expectations of the program and helping to re-engage thousands of fans, especially millennials, with the TOPPS brand and the joys of collecting now in an on-demand environment for the first time. Fans can order an unlimited amount of cards in 24 hours, which TOPPS can produce on demand. The cards are then delivered in a few days, where in past years fans had to wait until the next year’s set to collect the images.
“We have been able to use TOPPS NOW™ to provide fans with a great emotional keepsake while the memory is top of mind in a long baseball season,” said Jeff Heckman, Director, New Product Development & eCommerce Marketplace, TOPPS . “By furnishing fans with a real-time, state of the art platform for actual cards, we have been able to both create a new market without alienating the traditional collector. The best thing is we have just scratched the surface with this technology, and have even more unique things planned for the playoffs and World Series, when fandom is at its highest.”
To date almost 500 moments have been highlighted with cards, ranging from Ichiro Suzuki’s 3,000th hit, to rookie appearances, no-hitters, amazing catches and dramatic battles on the diamond, all of which are available same day for fans and are delivered via mail in 3-5 business days. All 30 teams have received more than one card, with the Chicago Cubs (38 cards), Boston Red Sox (36), and the New York Yankees (28) having the most. The top players have been David Ortiz with eight cards, and Ichiro and Chicago’s Kris Bryant with six each. TOPPS has also sold over 1,000 sets of Chicago Cubs postseason sets on preorder, without a game being played yet.
Eleven of the cards have also featured autographs or game used memorabilia on a limited basis.
Ichiro’s 3,000th hit holds the one day sales record of over 11,550 cards sold, with the New York Mets’ Bartolo Colon second with over 8,000 cards delivered following the All-Star pitcher’s unbelievably glorious home run against the San Diego Padres in May.
Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin from the New York Yankees have the 3rd most cards sold at over 5,000 when they hit back-to-back home runs in their first MLB plate appearances. The first TOPPS NOW commemorative relic card offer which featured All-Star Game MVP Eric Hosmer of the Kansas City Royals sold out in just 20 minutes.
The platform has also been launched with TOPPS partners like the UFC, Major League Soccer, and WWE and those will also be expanded in the coming months.
