As part of the new official trading card partnership, game-worn patches will be autographed, authenticated, and placed in one-of-one Topps trading cards
After successful ideation and implementation in Major League Baseball, the NBA will introduce new jersey patches this season for players making their league debut, as well as patches for major award winners, as part of its new official trading card partnership with Topps and Fanatics, the companies announced Wednesday.
Following players’ first NBA games, highlighted by a nationally-televised battle between top two draft picks Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks against Dylan Harper and the San Antonio Spurs on Oct. 22, the game-worn patches will then be autographed, authenticated, and placed in one-of-one Topps trading cards. And throughout the season, the reigning league MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Defensive Player of the Year will rep the Gold NBA Logoman Patch, which will undergo the same removal and placement process.
“The debut and award winner patches are a brilliant way to connect fans to real moments in a player’s journey,” Matt Holt, the NBA’s Executive Vice President, Head of Merchandising Partnerships, told Boardroom. “When a fan holds a card with a patch worn during a player’s first NBA game or a milestone achievement, it creates a tangible link to history. That emotional connection is exactly what we strive for in our fan engagement strategy, and bringing that concept to the NBA felt like a natural evolution.”
The two companies had an unusually long amount of time to build out this partnership. While the Topps NBA deal went into effect on Oct. 1, Fanatics and the NBA agreed on this contract in August of 2021, months before it purchased Topps in January 2022. Since Topps hadn’t had the NBA trading card rights since the end of the 2009-10 season, the company had to spend years rebuilding this product from the ground up. That meant aligning on innovation, product quality, and global reach while ensuring the right infrastructure was in place from day one.
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Fanatics had to get all the athlete deals in place, hire roughly 50-75 new employees across product, design, and athlete partnership teams, build product and marketing plans, and obtain the game-used jerseys and autographs to get off to a running start for the 2025-26 set of Topps cards. There were also plenty of conversations with retail partners and hobby stores across Asia, Europe, and Latin America about how to build on this momentum of having the NBA business back.
“The NBA and NBPA were ready to roll, and they’ve been supportive in our new initiative and innovations,” David Leiner, Fanatics Collectibles’ President of Trading Cards, told Boardroom. “We’re going to be driving into the category, and it’s been a long time in the making.”
While Leiner was initially skeptical about whether leagues would be open to putting debut patches directly on player jerseys, he said MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark were on board right away, leading to their on-field debut for the 2023 season. Now, Topps and MLB work with equipment managers across the game to have those patches ready whenever necessary.
Paul Skenes‘ autograph debut card became one of the most sought-after collectibles the industry’s ever seen, making national news when an 11-year-old Los Angeles boy pulled the card last Christmas. Skenes’ Pittsburgh Pirates made an offer for the card that included two season tickets behind home plate for the next 30 years, which the kid’s family rejected. Skenes himself even discussed the card on a January appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Dick’s Sporting Goods purchased the card for $1.11 million at auction back in March, showcasing it as a museum piece at its Pittsburgh store and making an appearance at last summer’s Fanatics Fest in New York. Seeing this buzz, Leiner said, made this concept an easy yes for the NBA, perhaps envisioning the hype over a similar Flagg debut autograph card.
“The debut and award winner patches are a brilliant way to connect fans to real moments in a player’s journey,” Holt said. “When a fan holds a card with a patch worn during a player’s first NBA game or a milestone achievement, it creates a tangible link to history. That emotional connection is exactly what we strive for in our fan engagement strategy, and bringing that concept to the NBA felt like a natural evolution.”
The NBA and Fanatics were already partnered on verticals like apparel and e-commerce, and that synergy will allow the two sides to create unified campaigns, cross-promotions, and integrated fan experiences across physical merchandise, digital platforms, and live events, Holt added. On Oct. 23, Topps and the NBA will host a series of fan celebrations at NBA stores in New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Beijing, and London, featuring curated events that include player appearances from stars like Karl-Anthony Towns and Chris Paul, product giveaways, interactive exhibits, and collector showcases. And as the NBA’s relationship with China rekindles with preseason games recently completed in the country for the first time since 2019, Topps created a series of Match Attax cards specifically for China, introducing NBA trading cards there for the very first time, specifically timed with those Brooklyn Nets–Phoenix Suns matchups in Macao.
Over the first year of the new agreement, Leiner said Topps is taking a long-term, measured approach in not chasing metrics, trying to make big splashes, and getting the product out to as many people as possible. Holt said the NBA has both quantitative and qualitative goals in year one, tracking product adoption, app engagement, and global reach, as well as understanding how fans are connecting and engaging with the product.
“This first season is about establishing a strong foundation for long-term growth and reshaping what trading cards represent within the NBA fan experience,” Holt said.
If the NBA universe connects with the debut patch cards the way the baseball world did with the Skenes card, the long-awaited Topps-NBA partnership will have already gotten off to a running start.
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