I Proclaim War on ‘The Deck’!

I don’t know if I am particularly pissed or suddenly sullen. It has come to my attention as of late that there is a matter that needs to be addressed in a public forum. This issue has been festering itself in the sports card business for years now and it’s about time we do something about it, or at least try.

It appears that there are fewer companies with the cash and/or balls to manufacture golf trading cards. In fact, as of right now, there is only one such company, Upper Deck. Upper Deck is a private company whose headquarters is located in Carlsbad, California and has been printing sports cards since 1988 and issuing golf trading cards since 2001, when they saw their next latest and greatest serving of bread and butter vis-à-vis Tiger Woods.

You see, Tiger currently has an endorsement deal with the Upper Deck company, which I imagine prohibits him from appearing on any other sports card packaging. That is all fine and dandy, but why can’t Topps, who also owns the Bowman brand, or the Donruss company, which also owns the Score and Leaf brands or any other card company for that matter cowboy up and give Upper Deck a run for its money? By the way, if you have ever heard of the brands Fleer or Skybox, they were absorbed by Upper Deck in July of 2005.

Upper Deck seems to have carte blanche when it comes to issuing Golf cards. And do you know how much the average cost is for a pack of 5 cards? About
$4.00. $4.00! I do not mean to sound cheap, but I would rather spend that four bucks at the range. The company tries to make the deal sound sweeter by telling you that there is a chance to get limited edition cards and cards with a swatch of fabric on them from your favorite players shirt. Who cares? I do not need swatch samples. I want the damn cards, and I do not want to pay an arm and a leg for them either.

I remember the good ol’ days when you could buy a pack of sports cards for 50 or 60 cents. Upper Deck has tarnished my boyhood passion with its gradual and grotesque inflation rate of the all-American hobby. Shame on you, Upper Deck. There, now I have officially turned into my grandfather.

Back in the day, meaning the 1920s through 1950s, the only golf trading cards one could get ahold of were issued by none other than the cigarette companies. These nicotine bandits of industry issued all types of card sets with a wide array of topics, from plants to dogs to movie starlets to automobiles. Chances are, for any subject matter you can think of, there was a line of cigarette cards issued in its honor. It was only a matter of time before Big Tobacco saw these cards as a marketing tool to help enhance their tobacco revenue. Golf cards were no exception. Smaller in size than today’s sports cards, the original cigarette cards were on average one by four-inch rectangles. Their primary purpose was to provide strength inside the packaging in order to prevent the cigarettes from snapping in half.

Those days have now turned into a distant memory, as card companies of the modern age have been bought and sold and picked apart. Only interested in the bottom line? Perhaps. But whom is it that really suffers? The collector, the enthusiast, the person who just wants a small piece of the game.

Deals, brokerages, contracts, these have all been and will continue to be a hinderance on professional sports. Golf is most susceptible since its competitors are individual contractors who can usually pick and choose their sponsors and what products to endorse.

I tell you what, if I was a golf ball manufacturer today, I would issue my own golf cards and put one card in each sleeve of balls I sold. The only problem is, I currently do not own a golf ball company. If someone out there does, drop me a line and we will take on The Deck mano a mano.

If you have any other ideas on how to tackle this issue, let me know. If not, we are forever doomed to pay the outrageous cost of $4.00 per pack at the hands of The Deck.