The Tape
Fall auction season is in full swing and the legal weather just got a little clearer for the industry’s biggest player. Fanatics shook off a major antitrust challenge late last week, vintage headliners are changing hands at Goldin and Mile High, and PSA’s backlog keeps shrinking on schedule. Grading-side litigation grinds on in the background, but it’s procedural for now, not a verdict. Overall mood: constructive, with vintage blue-chip demand doing the heavy lifting while the platform and marketplace layer keeps consolidating around a handful of well-capitalized players.
Top Stories
Fanatics wins full dismissal of collector antitrust suit over card licensing. Chief U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain (SDNY) dismissed Jones v. Fanatics in its entirety, ruling that the 18 named plaintiffs failed to show a concrete injury to themselves, not that Fanatics’ conduct was lawful. The suit had challenged Fanatics’ exclusive MLB, NBA and NFL card licenses and its Topps and GC Packaging acquisitions as anticompetitive. The court found plaintiffs never specified what they bought, at what price or in what condition, and leaned on anecdotal sourcing (Reddit threads, a podcast) rather than concrete harm. The case was closed outright; a parallel Panini antitrust suit against Fanatics, before the same judge, is unaffected. (Sports Collectors Daily, filed Sept. 29, last updated Oct. 7)
Fall’s marquee auctions are underway. Goldin’s Fall Vintage Elite Auction closed early on October 11, led by a one-of-a-kind 1932 U.S. Caramel Babe Ruth card carrying a handwritten inscription, alongside a notable Ty Cobb Type I photograph. Mile High Card Company’s fall auction opened October 4 with more than 3,100 lots, including a 1933 Sport Kings Babe Ruth graded SGC 9 and two newly discovered Mickey Mantle promotional items; bidding runs through October 22. (Sports Collectors Daily, Oct. 4 and Oct. 11)
Arena Club locks up its fourth major pro-sports partnership of the year. The Philadelphia 76ers signed a multi-year deal naming Arena Club their “Official Trading Card Platform,” with in-arena card drops, a branded in-game feature, a player-pack-opening content series, and participation in the team’s charitable gala planned for the 2026-27 season. It follows Arena Club partnerships with the San Antonio Spurs (January), the Philadelphia Eagles (August) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (September). (Heavy.com, Oct. 8)
Movers Desk
Vintage blue chips remain the clear demand leader heading into the fall auction stretch, with headline lots at both Goldin and Mile High drawing strong interest from major names (Ruth, Cobb, Mantle). That’s consistent with the thesis CardVestr has tracked all year: condition-verified, fixed-supply vintage is holding up better than the broader modern market.
The more structural story is distribution. With four major U.S. pro franchises now running in-arena card programs through Arena Club alone, team partnerships are becoming a standard customer-acquisition channel for marketplaces, not a novelty. Watch for competitors to respond with their own stadium or arena deals in the coming months.
On the retail side, Fanatics Collectibles continues its international build-out, with a second European flagship store set to open in Paris on October 23 (its first was in London). That’s a slower-burn signal worth tracking for anyone watching Fanatics’ collectibles unit scale beyond the U.S.
Grading Desk
Backlog keeps falling. PSA’s active grading backlog stood at 8.2 million cards as of October 6, down from 9 million on September 22 and down roughly a third from the July 28 peak of 12.4 million, according to PSA’s own backlog tracker. The company has cited added capacity, including a new Plano, Texas facility, as the main driver. Collectors should watch for any signal on when PSA’s suspended lower-cost Value tier service might reopen; that’s been the main open question since the pause.
Litigation update, not resolution. PSA parent Collectors Holdings renewed its push on September 21 to send most of the pending Rasmussen v. Collectors Holdings antitrust suit to individual arbitration and dismiss the remainder, including a request for public injunctive relief that plaintiffs say could require divesting SGC or Beckett. Plaintiffs allege Collectors’ market share rose from roughly 72% to 80% after its SGC and Beckett acquisitions; Collectors disputes that characterization and points to CGC’s grading volume as a counterpoint. Both motions are set for a December 11 hearing before Judge John W. Holcomb in the Central District of California. Separately, two other suits against Collectors (alleging fraud and RICO-style claims over grading standards) remain pending with no court rulings yet. None of this has been decided on the merits; treat all allegations as unproven.
Catalyst Calendar
- October 22: Bidding closes on Mile High Card Company’s fall auction (3,100+ lots).
- October 23: Fanatics Collectibles opens its second European flagship store, in Paris.
- December 11: Federal court hearing in the Central District of California on Collectors Holdings’ motions to compel arbitration and dismiss the PSA antitrust suit.
Deal Desk
Arena Club x Philadelphia 76ers. Multi-year partnership naming Arena Club the team’s official trading card platform, with in-arena activations, giveaways, a Media Day content series, and community-gala involvement planned through the 2026-27 NBA season. Financial terms were not disclosed. This extends Arena Club’s pattern of signing team partnerships (Spurs, Eagles, Jaguars, now the 76ers) as a go-to-market strategy, rather than a one-off sponsorship.
Bottom Line
The industry got a genuine piece of good news on the legal front: a full, no-merits-needed dismissal of a major antitrust suit against its largest player removes one source of overhang, even if a parallel Panini case keeps Fanatics’ broader licensing strategy under scrutiny. On the grading side, the backlog trend remains the most important chart in the hobby, and it keeps improving, but the PSA/Collectors antitrust fight is a slow burn that won’t resolve before its December hearing at the earliest. Meanwhile, the real structural shift to watch is on distribution: arena and stadium partnerships are quietly becoming as important to customer acquisition as any single auction result. For investors and operators, that’s arguably the more durable story than any one headline sale.
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