Upper Deck have “settled” the lawsuit with the MLB… but only if you think settled means being publicly spanked, conceding just about every point your opponents have AND agreeing to pay not only last years disputed amounts but also an undisclosed amount for this years fiasco… oh and agreeing to detailed stipulations that essentially mean you can never make another baseball card…
In what can only be described as a MAJOR LEAGUE climb down these things have been agreed:
Upper Deck will pay MLB Properties more than $2.4 million (the entire amount in dispute) for Upper Deck’s 2009 debts.
Upper Deck will pay MLB Properties a substantial sum of money for the unlicensed cards it sold in 2010. The specific sum of that payment is confidential.
Upper Deck has agreed not to issue any additional releases of infringing cards. Last year it issued 15 baseball card releases and there are currently only three infringing releases that are in distribution in 2010.
Upper Deck agreed it will not make any new sets of cards using MLB logos, uniforms, trade dress, or Club color combinations.
Upper Deck also agreed it will not airbrush, alter or block MLB marks in future products.
Upper Deck must receive approval from MLB for the use of baseball jerseys, pants, jackets, caps, helmets or catcher’s equipment in future products featuring players.
That’s a big change in attitude from just one month ago when Upper Deck kept stating they were in the right. Upper Deck are in real trouble, they are hemorrhaging licenses and have been ripped apart with lawsuits… This is just weeks after Blizzard announced an end to the World of Warcraft agreement. Upper Deck true to form blamed poor sales and attempted to say THEY had decided not to renew which is far from the reality, my understanding is that Blizzard puled the plug for a number of reasons, the counterfeit YuGiOh case playing a major part in the decision.
Again Upper Deck made a laughable attempt to spin the outcome of that settlement as well. It seems Upper Deck subscribe to the idea that if you SAY you won people might believe it even when all the evidence is to the contrary. Without Yu-Gi-Oh and World of Warcraft Upper Deck have very little to offer game card enthusiasts. They have Huntik which is a weaker seller than World of Warcraft (WoW), and the Marvel Card Game rights… which is also not a great seller. As far as market penetration is concerned these brands really have very little to offer thus far. You will not find Hutnik in your local convenience store and the Marvel Vs. System isn’t popping up in many mainstream retail outlets.
This lack of penetration is going to hurt the bottom line for Upper Deck, as customers fail to find products at retail. At the same time they are paying people off left and right, while pulling out of expensive promotions. They had signed up to give away thousands of packs of the Marvel Vs. card game in tandem with the annual free comic book day event around the world, along with a “National Pack Time Promotion” which would have seen hobby shops handing out free packs of Baseball cards to visitors on the 6th of March. Both of these promotions would have cost Upper Deck a substantial amount of money, which it is now not going to spend.
The YuGiOh suit ended with an undisclosed finical settlement, what we do know however is that Upper Deck have already made the first of the two agreed payments, and the second is to follow in the next few months. These payments and the dates they must be made within are very strict indeed. The MLB will be paid the outstanding $2.4Mil. they are owed and an undisclosed sum for the three sets that breached it’s trademarks, all of this together leads to speculation of finical trouble within Upper Deck.
If you settle out of court at least you may recover something, in court of the company is forced into bankruptcy the reality is creditors will receive very little, so from that standpoint the last two cases have been wisely dealt with. Upper Deck have said they will carry on with baseball cards, but it is difficult to see how they can, and who would be interested in a set that have no team names, or statistics, or in fact any players in uniform… It’s extremely unlikely to happen.
They still have some strong sports licenses and they still have a lot going on with the Marvel rights they hold, but the last 6 months have clearly hurt them and if some insiders are to be believed taken them to the financial brink. Of course a lot of people will say (myself included) that they brought these troubles upon themselves through years of dishonesty and deception, and in many respects they are lucky to still be in business at all. The real question is will they still be around next year?
You can read more about this from the great folks at the Blowout forum
I use to work at UD and everything you have stated is absolutely true. The problem comes from the top down. The owner is at best a corrupt, self-serving weasel and the leadership underneath him are mere yes men.
I’ve been doing freelance since leaving for about eight years now for UD and they still owe me around $10K dollars for work I created, that they used and sold but have never paid me for. I’m not the only one however.
When I worked at UD there was about 550 employees, it’s now down to under 50 and that will drop lower soon. I give them about two months before they shut down completely.