This Wembanyama card Is unlicensed and you shouldn't care

The Topps Football and Basketball Era is underway and the biggest card from the initial launch has been graded.

Apr 12, 2024; San Antonio, Texas, USA; San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) and teammates react after a victory over the Denver Nuggets at Frost Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-Imagn Images | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

The card that will be synonymous with the return of Topps basketball has been pulled and graded by PSA.

𝙅𝙐𝙎𝙏 𝙂𝙍𝘼𝘿𝙀𝘿 👽✍️

And here it is.

The recently released 2023 Topps Chrome Basketball had a signature feature – the presence of Victor Wembanyama on-card autographs, headlined by this 1/1 Superfractor grail. pic.twitter.com/W7WnIBNukI

— PSAcard (@PSAcard) September 17, 2024

Although it is is an unlicensed card, Topps has shown with other unlicensed cards that they know what they are doing when it comes to the images they are using. They have the exlucisve licenses for players like Wembbanyama as show in this image above, but they also had the exlcusive licenses for Bryce Young, CJ Stroud and Will Levis.

Getting those players to sign with Topps has been on par with some of the other business moves they have made in the past, like buying the baseball license and then buying Topps after it was clear Topps wasn't going to go public.

Topps last year made a bunch of cards for those rookie quarterbacks. Their image and photoshop choices were light years away from any type of unlicensed card that Panini has recently come out with. Just look at the photo on this card, to a casual sports card fan they might not even realize this was unlicensed.

Panini has had some trouble with the unlicensed cards in sports such as baseball. A lot of the cards just don't look as good which has almost made those types of cards unbuyable to some of the industry.

With those exlucisve that Topps had some of last years biggest rookies signs, this means their wont be any Contenders autographs for the football players and no National Truesures RPAs. These are some of the biggest cards in the industry and some of the gerneraltional talent we are seeing are not going to get those cards.

FIRST LOOK: Football cards return to Topps with the release of 2023 Composite Football on 8/30.... pic.twitter.com/iBTqvGXDiI

— Topps (@Topps) August 23, 2024

We might look back in 10-15 years and if you werent in this space you might not even realize that this card wasnt licensed. They had to get all the autographs out of those rookies they signed which is why we got a football product when the new season had already started.

Should they have just ate the cost and waited to come out with a football product, maybe, but at this point there is no going back and the Topps Football and Basketball eras are underway.