Panini America Reaches Exclusive Multi-Year Trading Card Agreement with Nearly 200 Collegiate Licensing Company Schools
January 08, 2015
Panini America, the world’s largest sports and entertainment collectibles company, and the Collegiate Licensing Company, announced today an exclusive multi-year trading card agreement with Collegiate Licensing Company’s nearly 200 partner institutions, including Alabama, Florida State, Texas Christian University, The University of Michigan and Texas A&M.
“Since entering the U.S. market in 2009, Panini has quickly become a leader in the trading card category in understanding consumers and developing unique programs for its partners. Panini’s management team is committed to growing the college category and using their resources and distribution capabilities to benefit our partner institutions,” said Dave Kirkpatrick, Vice President of Non-Apparel Brand Management for Collegiate Licensing Company, the licensing affiliate of IMG College.
The news solidifies the collegiate trading card category and aligns rights with professional player associations for the first time in five years, giving schools the ability to utilize current professional players in their college uniforms on trading cards and allowing the company to use the schools’ team logos and university marks in its trading card products for college-dedicated trading card sets as well as Panini’s professionally licensed products for the NBA, NFL, NFL Players Inc. and MLBPA. The company will begin producing collegiate trading card products in the spring of 2015.
“We are excited to add CLC’s partner institutions to our collegiate trading card program. Our strong product portfolio within our professional sports programs gives us the unique opportunity to showcase professional athletes in their collegiate uniforms and will bring a wider array of product offerings on behalf of the schools and will not only benefit fans of those individual schools but college sports fans overall,” said Mark Warsop, CEO of Panini America. “We look forward to building compelling collegiate trading card products beginning in the spring of 2015.”
Panini America is the only company in the world that manufactures licensed trading cards and stickers for the NBA, NFL, NFL Players, MLBPA and FIFA World Cup. The company also has exclusive relationships with USA Baseball, USA Basketball and U.S. Soccer. In addition, Panini also has relationships with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, The Pro Football Hall of Fame and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and owns exclusive entertainment licenses with Disney and more than 600 global licenses with other sports and entertainment properties.
About the Collegiate Licensing Company
Collegiate Licensing Company is a division of global sports and entertainment company IMG. Founded in 1981, Collegiate Licensing Company is the leading collegiate trademark licensing agency in the U.S. and currently represents nearly 200 colleges, universities, bowl games, athletic conferences, The Heisman Trophy and the NCAA. The mission of Collegiate Licensing Company is to be the guiding force in collegiate trademark licensing and one of the top sports licensing firms in the country. Collegiate Licensing Company is dedicated to being a center of excellence in providing licensing services of the highest quality to its member institutions, licensees, retailers and consumers. Headquartered in Atlanta, Collegiate Licensing Company is a full-service licensing representative, which employs a staff of more than 90 licensing professionals who provide full-service capabilities in brand protection, brand management, and brand development.