Football Cards for Arena Heroes - Donruss Style
Matthew Pickut
Thursday February 13, 2003
In its growing trend of partnering with media outlets, the Arena Football League announced that Donruss/Play-off Trading cards would be producing AFL trading cards for the 2003 season. While rumors and hopes of AFL cards in the past have proved fruitless, the unique nature of this deal (much like the NBC network deal) may prove that the time is right to see AFL stars like Hunkie Cooper, Eddie Brown, and Aaron Garcia immortalized on cardboard.
 Donruss football card featuring Damion Porter Image courtesy of Donruss |
“One of the most alluring things about this,” said Tracy Hacker, Communications Manager for the trading card magnet, “is that teams can decide 5x7’s, standard size cards, 10 card sets, and even game-used memorabilia are available.”
The cards themselves will feature action shots of the players chosen by teams on one side, and a stat-driven section on the reverse with player information and career highlights much like other sports cards familiar to collectors. The main difference will be in the area of distribution and set configuration, which will both be controlled by individual teams.
“The teams will be given an opportunity to buy about six different varieties of the cards,” said Art Young, director of promotions for Donruss promotions group. “This is a joint venture with the league where the product is specifically designed for the team. So the team will be able to pick which configuration of the cards and what players they want within a window of opportunity and then we will produce them for sale at arenas and the teams’ websites.”
 The cards will be available to teams in a variety of styles and sizes Image courtesy of Donruss |
This partnership, according to Young, will benefit the league by helping the league to further expose the consumer to their product and cement an already solid base of fans. “Given the network affiliation and the blue-ribbon clients that they’ve got from a sponsorship standpoint it just made sense for us to come back and say, ‘Trading cards are a really good way to build the brand equity of Arena Football, build the awareness of the game and the awareness of the players.’ We presented the idea to the AFL licensing committee and they said, ‘It’s funny you should mention that, we are interested in that category.’”
Young sees this type of partnership as something that will change the way trading cards are marketed and sold. “Honestly I think that it’s the way of the future,” Young said. “If they get a good entertainment product on the field, which I think they have, and they get some exposure with NBC, which they will be getting this year, and continue to build a brand then I think AFL football is dynamite entertainment.”
Aside from the business aspect of the deal, the Donruss/AFL partnership, whose target release date is late March/early April, will provide collectors with a challenge unlike other trading cards. “In the first year we’ll go team by team, but there is a real possibility that in the play-offs the league is thinking about doing some kind of all-star set that would be available,” said Young. “But for this first year fans will probably have to get on-line and go team by team [to get a full set].”
While this may present certain challenges to the collector, in the end it will increase the scarcity and value of the cards and allow Donruss to side step what has become an industry wide concern. “Part of the challenge of the trading card industry, if you look at it as a business, is that in a traditional licensing environment you are forced to put out a great deal of numbers of product, and we really didn’t want to do that with this. We want all the cards to have a home. We wanted everyone who was interested in Arena Football to be able to get a commemorative of the game.” Young added, “It allows us to not have to be forcing a lot of product out. The paradox is that the cards, while the players may not be as well known as baseball or other football players, is that there will be so few of them that they will probably be very valuable.”
“We’re in the business of building heroes and these guys are heroes -- some of them are great role models,” said Young, whose enthusiasm for the product was evident. “ . . .We crafted a partnership rather than just another licensing relationship – our deal with them is very much a partnership between the league the teams and Donruss, so we are very excited about it.”
Matthew Pickut is a pastor in northern Indiana and a long time AFL fan. He also writes for his own website: The Brown Paper Blog. He graduated from Taylor University in Upland Indiana (class of `96) with degrees in Biblical Literature and Sociology as well as a healthy respect for the medicinal properties of coffee.
