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Originally Posted by todeen
I think we as hobbyists should consider that Fanatics could implement cultural changes and innovations that we like, in addition to our pessimism.
I'm not certain that what Fanatics is doing is as nefarious as some of the posts describe. In business terms, they are following vertical acquisition, or "they are buying companies at different stages of production." This is very different than horizontal acquisition which people tend to generally dislike because it reduces competition. Vertical acquisition has been a successful business model for 150 years. Think Rockefeller and Carnegie as examples of men who successfully implemented vertical acquisition. They accomplished great things, even though they became obscenely rich.
Most of our major banks have followed this type. However, most people like the one stop shopping that is available at banks. People generally also like the cheaper prices that this model can provide. While problems do arise occasionally, it hasn't ended these types of mergers.
I wonder if we as hobbyists dislike what's happening with Fanatics because MLB / NFL / NBA etc created their own scarce competition by monopolizing within Fanatics. This is very different than Fanatics swallowing up all of the competition.
Luckily for us, though, we buy cards on the secondary market. Perhaps if Fanatics buys ebay or COMC will we see heads starting to explode. Now envision the Mind Blown GIF. That would be further expansion on vertical acquisition, but it would then greatly impact us vintage collectors.
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But they're doing both vertical AND horizontal acquisition lol. They're gobbling up every license for every major sport possible and now control 90%+ of all cards that the hobby cares about going forward. Sure, Upper Deck still has hockey, for now, and Leaf still has street clothes Jason Giambi and Edward Snowden, but other than that, Fanatics now has a monopoly in this sector. There's effectively no more room for them to go horizontally, so now they're going vertical.