Panini America Reaches Exclusive Multi-Year Trading Card Agreement With Nearly 200 CLC Schools

IRVING, Texas, Jan. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Panini America, (www.paniniamerica.net), the world's largest sports and entertainment collectibles company, and the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), announced today an exclusive multi-year trading card agreement with CLC's nearly 200 partner institutions, including Alabama, Florida State, Texas Christian University, The University of Michigan and Texas A&M. The news is in addition to Panini's previously announced exclusive relationships with the University of Oregon, University of Texas, Mississippi State, Baylor University, University of Georgia, University of Kentucky, University of Miami and more than 200 additional universities. 

"Since entering the U.S. market in 2009, Panini has quickly become a leader in the trading card category in understanding consumers and developing unique programs for its partners.. Panini's management team is committed to growing the college category and using their resources and distribution capabilities to benefit our partner institutions," said Dave Kirkpatrick, Vice President of Non-Apparel Brand Management for CLC, the licensing affiliate of IMG College.

The news solidifies the collegiate trading card category and aligns rights with professional player associations for the first time in five years, giving schools the ability to utilize current professional players in their college uniforms on trading cards and allowing the company to use the schools' team logos and university marks in its trading card products for college-dedicated trading card sets as well as Panini's professionally licensed products for the NBA, NFL, NFL Players Inc. and MLBPA.  The company will begin producing collegiate trading card products in the spring of 2015.

"We are excited to add the Collegiate Licensing Company's partner institutions to our collegiate trading card program.  Our strong product portfolio within our professional sports programs gives us the unique opportunity to showcase professional athletes in their collegiate uniforms and will bring a wider array of product offerings on behalf of the schools and will not only benefit fans of those individual schools but college sports fans overall," said Mark Warsop, CEO of Panini America.  "We look forward to building compelling collegiate trading card products beginning in the spring of 2015."

Panini America is the only company in the world that manufactures licensed trading cards and stickers for the NBA, NFL, NFL Players, MLBPA and FIFA World Cup. The company also has exclusive relationships with USA Baseball, USA Basketball and U.S. Soccer.  In addition, Panini also has relationships with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, The Pro Football Hall of Fame and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and owns exclusive entertainment licenses with Disney and more than 600 global licenses with other sports and entertainment properties.

ABOUT PANINI:
The Panini Group, established almost 50 years ago in Modena, Italy, has subsidiaries throughout Europe, Latin America and the United States. Panini is the world leader in officially licensed collectibles and is the most significant publisher of collectibles in the U.S., with official licenses for MLBPA, NBA, NFL, NHL, FIFA, USA Baseball, Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. and other key properties from many other licensors. Panini has distribution channels in more than 100 countries and employs a staff of over 800. For more information visit us at www.paniniamerica.net, www.paninigroup.com or www.paniniamerica.wordpress.com. You can also follow Panini America on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and on YouTube.

Media Contact:  
Tracy Hackler, Panini America
214-552-3475
[email protected]

Andrew Giangola,  IMG College
646-871-2402 
[email protected]

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SOURCE Panini America

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