Panini America has had an exclusive agreement with the NBA to make and sell Basketball Trading cards since 2009-10's regular season. This exclusive agreement was extended in 2012-13 through to the end of the 16-17 season.

In that time since having a monopoly on NBA products, we have seen a great number of unethical business practices employed by Panini America that have ruined the hobby for NBA collectors such as;

• Inserting redemption cards into products and then being unable to fulfill the promise of the card for that redemption. In most circumstances items cannot be redeemed after one year of production. Then when the collector is tired of waiting years for the card (as promised under contract of sale), Panini offers to exchange those cards for other cards, which only further complicates redemption's for collectors holding the redemption's for those items.
• Inserting "Rewards Points" cards into products instead of the guaranteed product autographs/jersey cards. These are used to obtain cards from the "Panini Rewards' website. However instead of being free, Panini charge additional fees for collecting the "Reward". These 'Reward' cards on the website have been held back from distribution, some of which are valuable product hits which should be inserted into product pack-out.
• Retailing products whereby the combination of production and packaging does not ensure the product is in a 'as new' condition at the time of opening. More often than not, cards from 'higher end' products are damaged upon opening to such an extent that they could not reach a expectant 'pristine' grade from leading card grading authorities such as BGS or PSA.
• Panini Quality Control is extremely lax to a point where cards are damaged by manufacturing process, or they have had an athlete use a pen that does not match the card surface and resulted in a horrible smeared and streaked autograph which holds very little appeal or value on the secondary market. Jersey relics are often inserted upside-down in the cards, or incorrect jersey for that player, or in some circumstances, not even inserted a jersey piece at all!
• Holding back highly sought after cards of certain players until a portion of the product had been sold/opened. This forces the market to purchase more product than should be necessary to obtain the cards sought.

These are just a handful of the hobby crimes that NBA collectors have been forced to endure for the past seven years at the hands of Panini. That is not to say that these business behaviors may not occur elsewhere, however the community as a whole is fed up with not having a choice of where to spend their money in their hobby pursuits.

WE the NBA Fans and the NBA Trading Card Community, the people that put millions of dollars on your bottom line, hereby DEMAND a shared license between a number of companies including but not limited to Upper Deck, Topps and Panini as we believe a shared license perpetuates healthy market competition for the consumers whilst accelerating new and exciting innovations to the hobby.

Please listen to us.

NBA Collectors United