Five Reasons to Love and Hate 2014 Flawless Football

With the pending release of Flawless Football, I feel torn between to very different feelings of sentiment surrounding the product given its history. As much as I want to hate this stuff, there are a number of reasons why it deserves some of the hype it is getting. In basketball, it made an indelible mark with the highest price tag for a licensed product, albeit not really doing much in terms of special content. In football, its doing the same thing, but in a league where rules may hamper its ability to be a sustainable product. Here are my reasons to love and hate Flawless.

1. You Should Love the On Card Content

In football, we have become accustomed to sticker based autograph content. Its literally a part of every product except Five Star. Panini is one of the worst offenders, but some how got their shit together enough to make flawless happen. There will no doubt be redemptions, but you have to give them credit for making this work as early as they have. They have had the foresight to add more non-rookie on card assets to National Treasures, but nothing like this has been done by Panini. Although it doesnt make up for the tidal wave of stickers they have unleashed on the hobby, it is definitely a reason to love the product.

2. You Should Hate the Checklist

If there is one reason that Flawless is destined to be an unsustainable format at the price it is at, the checklist is one of the reasons. In fact, checklist quality has always been an issue with high end Panini products. They have gotten a lot of big names with hard signed cards in the boxes, but they also have a shit storm of autographs that most collectors will be hard pressed to know who they are. Add this in with autographs from ALL 40 rookies at the premiere, including guys like Devonta Freeman and potentially Connor Shaw, and all of a sudden it becomes quite the uphill battle. In Basketball, they were not required to have a certain percentage of rookie content the way they are in the NFL, and the impact will be palpable when you see the checklist.

Here are just some of the low tier names on this checklist: Danny Amendola, Torrey Smith, Fred Jackson, CJ Spiller, Michael Floyd, Paul Warfield, Doug Martin, Zach Ertz, Carl Eller, Jan Stenerud, Greg Jennings, Dwayne Bowe, Cordarrelle Patterson, DeAndre Hopkins.

Hell, that is just from one preview. I didnt even go back through!

3. You Should Hate the Cost of the Boxes

Basketball is a sport that thrives in a super high end market. International collectors increases demand for nice cards, which means that the market can withhold a lot of the pressure a high end product creates. In football, there is an ever dwindling pool of collectors, and many of them have been conditioned to give up on a box after a week. Dealers got to buy in on Flawless football at 800 bucks. Add in the normal 16% markup that Panini MAPP requires, and you get 928 bucks a box. Lets call it 950 for the sake of argument. Although that price is still off the charts, its not even close to 1350, which is the price dealers arbitrarily put on this release.

Additionally, the rookie class’ big names are playing mediocre at best, with the exception of Sammy Watkins, who is not a QB. Unless the Browns make some uncharacteristic type of move, the box price will be a joke. Even if Manziel was playing well, it would still be a joke. Football is not basketball.

4. You Should Love the Design

Flawless has looked good in Basketball for a few years, and football is no different. I mean, its not hard to copy and paste, and that’s exactly what happened. If this had been left to the current design team to come up with all on their own, I know it would have been as bad as the other crap from early this year. I think there are a few dogs in the set in terms of the design, but many of the cards look quite impressive.

The fact that Panini has not used A) Any foil board stock, B) goofy studio pictures, and C) horrrendously busy designs show that they are invested in this product. I cant say the same for their other “attempts” at designing good looking cards.

5. You Should Hate What This Does to the Market

Exquisite started in Basketball in 03-04 and was the perfect set for the perfect rookie class at the time. To this day it remains one of the most sought after products in Basketball history. Upper Deck ported it over to football in 2005 with minor initial success, mainly due to the class of rookies at the time and Football collectors willingness to accept a high end product that cost that much. However, it did have Upper Deck’s brand, which to this day remains the best in all of sports cards. Panini has none of that, but they do have a mediocre class that could end up being great in the long run. Flawless is swimming in a sea of products that will be diluted as the year moves on, and we should not be excited for what precedent may be set by this release. There just isnt room for a product who’s content doesnt offer something that isnt available in Five Star or National Treasures. If Panini thinks they can ramrod this through, they might have to learn the hard way. Not a good thing considering their exclusive will kick in come 2016.

Flawless is shaping up to be a great singles product in a buyers market. Never a good thing for sales prospects of the boxes which cost about 400 dollars more than they should.

7 thoughts on “Five Reasons to Love and Hate 2014 Flawless Football

  1. I have a saying when it comes to Panini products.
    “If it ain’t white, it ain’t right”

    Meaning that the only products, for the most part, that are nice are the ones with the white cards. And to me they all look the same.
    -National Treasures
    -Flawless
    -Immaculate
    -Dominion
    -Prime

    They all use the same white design with fancy lettering just in different layouts.

    I mean they don’t even change the designs much year after year.
    If they spent as much time on design and quality as they did on social media, over hyping their products, then Topps and Upper Deck would be screwed. Thank god they haven’t figured out design yet.

  2. How many boxes will contain the secondary value to cover or exceed the cost of one $1,300 box? This product has some nice content, but it belongs in National Treasures, which has become a wasteland of printing plates, sticker autos and jersey cards.

    The mandated rookie-bloated checklist make a price point like this almost impossible to deliver on and then they go and add some current and former players that have not business being in here. No dual, triple, quad+ autographs and no cuts? I’d buy a case of a lot of products before touching a box of this.

    Panini marches on with its pricing experiments; i.e.,”How little can we deliver while charging an insanely high price?”

  3. 2012-13 Flawless Basketball proved that basketball collectors were ready to go to the next level. 2012-13 Flawless Basketball boxes are currently about $2500. 2013-14 Flawless Basketball was handicapped by a weak rookie class and no Lebron or Jordan autographs and prices remain steady at $1700 (Yes, well over original wholesale cost). Panini found a winning formula in Flawless for Super High-End collectors. Content, Supply, Demand and Design all superbly considered in its production.

    Panini took this winning formula and applied it to football. Ten years from now, collectors will say 2014 Flawless Football took football collecting to the next level. Readers may believe I am just a retailer who bought too much Flawless Football and am just trying to sell it. Although I bought at much as I could, Flawless Football represents less than 5% of my current inventory. I really don’t care what product you buy as long as you buy it from me. That said, here are my “Five Reasons to Love and Desire Flawless Football.”

    1. YOU SHOULD LOVE THE ON CARD CONTENT: Adam is right.

    2. YOU SHOULD LOVE THE CHECKLIST: There are football players in Flawless that most people will say, “Why?” The answer is production costs. That’s right, you have to have some low cost/low value cards in the mix of a production run of 2600 boxes where boxes cost the manufacturer over $700 per box to produce. What the box buster needs to know is what can I get (complete checklist available at Panini Website) and what is the average value of a box (Click on my name if you would like to see my analysis and estimate of “average value of a box.”).

    2014 Flawless Football singles will be a “must have” for someone’s PC. Every card is numbered to 25 or less and looks great. Whether a card is valued at $5000 or $15, every card will sell. Not many products have that result. While not many collectors can afford to bust a bunch of Flawless boxes at a time, on average, 2014 Flawless Football at $1299 a box will provide the highest payback of any football product to date.

    YOU SHOULD LOVE THE COST OF A BOX. Your cost is the result of supply and demand. With the internet, you can search for the “lowest price in the entire world.” When a product is bad, the price goes down. If you come to my store, I will be glad to point out products that I am loosing money, every box I sell. With 2013 Five Star Football I am selling boxes for $100 UNDER COST. I understand, that is just business. There are some losers, some product where I can make 16% and on the rare occasion, we see a winning product. 2014 Flawless Football is that rare product.

    Again, the box buster needs to know, “What can I get;” and, “What is the average value of a box.” Box busters soon will see, at $1299 per box, 2014 Flawless Football provides the highest payback of any football product to date.

    4. YOU SHOULD LOVE THE DESIGN: Everyone knows that.

    5. YOU SHOULD LOVE WHAT THIS DOES TO THE MARKET: 2014 Flawless Football will catch national attention. It’s press and attention will draw in new collectors, some of which have the money to buy high end singles and can afford to bust a $1300 box. These new collectors (small and big money) will look next to new products as they are released. The world will be fine, and everyone will be happy.

    If I am wrong, what is the worst that will happen? Collectors will be able to buy 2014 National Treasures at cost or a little over (Even 2013 National Treasures with the poor 2013 rookie class, still sells a little over original wholesale cost). Singles of your favorite stars will sell on eBay, so low you can afford to buy almost everything you wish you could buy. No need for collectors to be angry.

    Sorry, I don’t see the end of the world for retailers. I see a product (2014 Flawless) which makes this a better world for collectors and retailers. So admire and enjoy 2014 Flawless Football.

  4. Gellman, any idea how much turnover happened when panini took over donruss? To Steve’s point, ever since it seems the designs took a hit.

    In 2006, Prestige was a great looking set. Not white, but full bleed photos with a crisp blue banner for name. I collected that entire set twice because of the rookie class and I loved the design.

    That same year brought the first National Treasures. Again not white, but antiqued and very original.

    Now it’s all cheapened. It’s the equivalent to the similar pair of Nikes at Foot Locker and Payless. They look similar but there are small differences that cheapen the look and feel.

    Just curious of if they flushed out the Donruss team in favor of their own bench strength.

  5. It will be interesting to see where prices go on this 3+ weeks after release. Let’s say the price drops to $999/box a month after release. With today’s new-release driven market, is it even a better deal at that price when it’s a month after release and Chrome is dropping?

  6. Charlie, we get it. You are an optimist, who owns a store and wants the product to be successful.

    I think many of your assessments are far from what will actually happen. I would love to be wrong, because Football isnt in a good place right now.

    This product is going to start hot, but cool down severely once people realize what is going on. Cost being 800 and then the dealers pumping it up to 1350 isnt Panini’s fault, but it is going to make things look bad when it drops.

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