Editing Topps (section)

===Consolidation of a monopoly===
The next company to challenge Topps was [[Fleer]], another gum manufacturer. Fleer signed star [[Ted Williams]] to an exclusive contract in 1959 and sold a set of cards oriented around him. Williams retired the next year, so Fleer began adding around him other mostly retired players in a ''Baseball Greats'' series, which was sold with gum. Two of these sets were produced before Fleer finally tried a 67-card set of currently active players in 1963. However, Topps held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful.

Stymied, Fleer turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed by the [[Federal Trade Commission]], alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly of the baseball card market.

That same year, however, Topps faced an attempt to undermine its position from the nascent [[trade union|players' union]], the [[Major League Baseball Players Association]]. Struggling to raise funds, the MLBPA discovered that it could generate significant income by pooling the publicity rights of its members and offering companies a group [[license]] to use their images on various products. After putting players on [[Coca-Cola]] [[bottlecap]]s for $120,000,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/editors-blog-how-marvin-miller-changed-the-baseball-card-game/|title=How Marvin Miller Changed the Baseball Card Game |last=Mueller |first=Rich| website=Sports Collectors Daily |date=November 27, 2012 |access-date=March 3, 2025}}</ref> the union concluded that the Topps contracts did not pay players adequately for their rights.

MLBPA executive director [[Marvin Miller]] then approached Joel Shorin, the president of Topps, about renegotiating these contracts. At this time, Topps had every [[Major League Baseball|major league]] player under contract, generally for five years plus renewal options, so Shorin declined. After continued discussions went nowhere, the union before the 1968 season asked its members to stop signing renewals on these contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players (with gum) starting in 1973. Although Fleer declined the proposal, by the end of the year Topps had agreed to double its payments to each player from $125 to $250, and also to begin paying players a percentage of Topps's overall sales.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mullin |first1=Bernard James |last2=Hardy |first2=Stephen |last3=Sutton |first3=William Anthony |title=Sport Marketing |year=2007 |edition=3rd |publisher=Human Kinetics |location=Champaign, Illinois |isbn=9780736060523 |page=197 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Lo5EFcres4C&q=marvin+miller+coca+cola+120%2C000&pg=PA197 |access-date=15 January 2020 |oclc=74941202}}</ref> The figure for individual player contracts has since increased to $500.

As a byproduct of this history, Topps continues to use individual player contracts as the basis for its baseball card sets today. This contrasts with other manufacturers, who all obtain group licenses from the MLBPA. The difference has occasionally affected whether specific players are included in particular sets. Players who decline to sign individual contracts will not have Topps cards even when the group licensing system allows other manufacturers to produce cards of the player, as happened with [[Alex Rodriguez]] early in his career. On the other hand, if a player opts out of group licensing, as [[Barry Bonds]] did in 2004, then manufacturers who depend on the MLBPA system will have no way of including him. Topps, however, can negotiate individually and was belatedly able to create a 2004 card of Bonds. In addition, Topps is the only manufacturer able to produce cards of players who worked as replacement players during the [[1994 Major League Baseball strike|1994 baseball strike]], since they are barred from union membership and participation in the group licensing program.