I understand that, but the maths of mass-production for a tiny market doesn't seem sustainable to me? They can say that their stock is selling out until the cows come home, but it appears that very little of it is getting bought and busted, at least by entrenched, regular collectors. How many #001's are going to stay unbusted in this and future Traders releases? Will they renew their licence if there is no (or a heavily eroding) future profit margin? If not will a new company take the reigns with the NRL's lofty minimum guarantee...Select didn't seem interested.
I know these issues have been created by the NRL not TLA and I'm not trying to rag on them or anybody, I'm just struggling to see how the market is viable at the moment and in the future and that has me concerned. But then I'm over here in rural NZ and not in Sydney newsagents to see the physical stock disappear off the shelves so I wouldn't know. I'm probably looking at it too simplistically. For all I know trading cards are just a very small part of a contract TLA has with the NRL.
...And for the record, I hope that I am misunderstanding the way that the market is working, because I love collecting footy cards. And the production quality of the cards is increasing every year under TLA. This Traders set is no exception.
Anyway I didn't mean to derail another great review from Brendan. I'm a high school philosophy teacher and sometimes I wake up the next day after visiting OZCT to find my overactive imagination has blurted across poor defenseless forum pages...
There is still a market there and I would expect TLA (ESP) will have the licence for some time to come.
A couple of big issues for them (not of their doing) is that the NRL Minimum Guarantee is huge.
For them to make money, they need volume of product and hope it sells. I never fall for the its sold out routine...sold out by them means that its off their books and the re-sellers are stuck with the product.
My gut feel is that Traders, Xtreme (improved out of site this year) and Elite will continue, however you will see more "Niche" products that don't cost a lot to make, but have potential to sell out via re-sellers.
Think along the lines of the Sharks Premiership set, limited but expensive to buy.
One point here - Extreme needs to have a game site that is mobile compatible. That's something they need to have to ensure that products success.....
There are other challenges they are facing as well..... distribution is one, Gordon & Gotch who do it now for Australia are nowhere near as effective as network Services were in getting product to stores and replenishment.
On top of that, you have the main retail distribution point (Newsagents) struggling to survive.......if they didn't have lotteries to prop them up, I think newsagents would be a thing of the past.
Papers and Magazines are struggling big time and people aren't going into the newsagents.....if they don't go in there, they aren't going to buy trading cards on impulse.
I think there is still a market there.....I just think is has become smaller and we will see different distribution models happening in future.
Cheers
Matt
