What Is a Fanatics Card?

Fanatics is the sports merchandise company that bought Topps's trading card business in January 2022 and, over the years that followed, took over the exclusive card license for the NBA (October 2025), the NFL (2026), and MLB (2026) -- becoming the first company in the hobby's history to control every major North American team sport's licensed trading cards simultaneously. Most of that output still ships under the Topps name rather than a "Fanatics" wrapper, but a smaller run of interim and memorabilia-linked cards released directly under the Fanatics brand before its league licenses officially started.

Fanatics started as an online sports merchandise retailer and spent the 2010s buying up licensed-apparel contracts the way it would later buy up card licenses. In 2021 it launched Fanatics Trading Cards after signing long-term exclusive deals with MLB and the MLBPA, the NBA and NBPA, and the NFLPA -- all set to begin only after the leagues' existing manufacturer contracts expired. To actually print and distribute cards under those future licenses, Fanatics needed a card manufacturer, so on January 4, 2022 it paid roughly $500 million for Topps's trading card and entertainment division. That deal kept the Topps brand name and production infrastructure intact while putting Fanatics in ownership -- the cards still said "Topps," but Fanatics now controlled the company making them.

• NBA -- exclusive since October 2025. Topps, under Fanatics, became the NBA's exclusive card licensee in October 2025, ending Panini's run as the league's sole manufacturer since it took the license from Topps back in 2009.
• NFL -- exclusive since 2026.Fanatics signed its NFL and NFLPA licensing deal in 2023 for a 20-year term; Panini's exclusive NFL license -- which it had held since 2016 -- officially expired at the end of March 2026, at which point Topps became the league's exclusive card maker for the first time since 2016.
• MLB -- exclusive since the 2026 season.Topps had already held MLB's exclusive license from 2010 through 2025 as an independent company. Fanatics's separate deal with MLB and the MLBPA renewed and extended that exclusivity under Fanatics ownership starting with the 2026 season -- see What Is a Topps Card? for that side of the handoff.
• One company, three leagues. As of April 1, 2026, Fanatics -- through Topps -- held exclusive, long-term licensing rights to MLB, the NBA, and the NFL at the same time, a first for the trading card industry and a level of consolidation that has drawn antitrust scrutiny from regulators and competitors.

Most cards produced under Fanatics ownership still carry a legacy manufacturer name -- Topps for baseball, basketball, and football -- because that brand equity is worth more to collectors than a Fanatics logo. The cards that say "Fanatics" directly on the front are mostly the interim releases Fanatics issued between 2021 and 2023, before its league licenses officially started: sets built around individual athletes who had signed marketing deals with Fanatics, without team logos or league marks, since Fanatics didn't yet hold the underlying license. Fanatics also co-brands some memorabilia-redemption and autograph-signing products through its Fanatics Authentic and Fanatics Collect divisions, which sit alongside the Topps-branded card business rather than inside it.

• Ownership changed; the brand mostly didn't. A 2024 Topps Series 1 baseball card and a 2019 Topps Series 1 baseball card look and say the same thing on the front even though only the earlier one predates Fanatics ownership -- checking the copyright line on the back is the reliable way to tell which era a card comes from.
• New sports, same production model.Fanatics didn't build new NBA or NFL card lines from scratch -- it extended the same Topps Chrome, Topps Series, and insert-driven product structure baseball collectors already knew into basketball and football once those licenses took effect.
• Panini is still in the hobby, just not as a licensee here. Panini continues to produce international soccer, motorsport, and other non-exclusive-league products; it simply no longer holds the U.S. NBA or NFL trading card license it once had.

• Confirm which era a card is from.A licensed NBA or NFL Topps card only exists starting with the manufacturer's license start date for that sport -- an older-looking "Topps" basketball card almost certainly predates the Fanatics era and came from Topps's pre-2009 run instead.
• Don't assume a Fanatics-logo card is licensed. Cards branded directly as "Fanatics" from the 2021-2023 interim period generally lack team logos and league marks -- they're player-only releases, not the same thing as a fully licensed Topps card of the same athlete.
• Watch for licensing-driven checklist gaps. Handoff years between manufacturers can mean thinner rookie classes or delayed releases for a sport -- see How Sports Card Manufacturer Licensing Works for how exclusivity windows generally affect checklists and pricing.

Confirm the exact card with Identify & Research — free-path first (on-device OCR, catalog match, and fingerprints). For the parent company itself — what else Fanatics owns and how its collectibles brands fit together — see What Is Fanatics? For the manufacturer Fanatics bought to get into the card business, see What Is a Topps Card? For how exclusive league licenses shape checklists and pricing across the hobby generally, see How Sports Card Manufacturer Licensing Works, or open the full guides library.