Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the broadcast booth — because after a decade away, Topps is back in football, and the hobby is losing its mind. Grab a pack of your favorite rip-and-sip snack, because this one's been building for years, and the opening kickoff just happened.
The Switch: What Actually Went Down
Let's set the scene. Panini had the exclusive NFL trading card license from 2016 all the way through 2025 — nearly a full decade of Prizm, Donruss, and National Treasures. For a lot of collectors, that was just football cards. Panini was football.
Then Fanatics, which had already acquired Topps in 2022 for $500 million, started making moves. They locked down the MLB license in 2021 and added the NBA in 2025. The NFL was the last piece of the puzzle, and in early April 2026, Fanatics Collectibles, the NFL, and the NFLPA made it official: Topps is the new exclusive licensed partner for NFL trading cards, and it's a multi-year deal.
Panini didn't go quietly — there's an ongoing antitrust lawsuit over the transition — but the cards are already printing. For collectors, the legal drama is background noise. What matters is what's hitting shelves.
What's Coming: The 2025 Topps Football Lineup
Topps isn't treating this like a soft launch. They've confirmed a full slate of products for the 2025 season, bringing back some of the most beloved football card brands ever made. Here's the lineup to put on your radar:
2025 Topps Chrome Football — The flagship. The big one. The product that started the whole conversation. Chrome drops April 15 with a 400-card base set, massive refractor rainbow, and two signature innovations that are already getting hobby heads fired up (more on those in a minute).
2025 Topps Finest Football — The '90s nostalgia machine is back. Finest left football in 2015 when Panini took over. It's returning with vibrant tiered designs, a 300-card base set, and a checklist that includes names like Jerry Rice, Eli Manning, Eric Dickerson, Josh Allen, Cam Ward, and Jaxson Dart. Landmark Metal inserts, Centurion chases, and Nightmare Fuel cards are all on the way.
2025 Topps Chrome Black Football — The ultra-premium dark horse of the lineup. Chrome Black has built a serious following in baseball, and bringing it to football signals that Topps is going all-in on the high-end market.
Cosmic Chrome Football — The fan-favorite galaxy-themed brand makes its gridiron debut after a successful run in baseball.
Signature Class Football — A brand-new entry built around the idea that great rookies deserve their own stage. Expect this one to lean heavily into autograph content and first-year talent.
Resurgence Football — Another new entry built for this comeback era. The name alone basically says it all.
Six sets. One year. Not a soft launch — a full-court press.
Why Topps Chrome Football Is the Real Story
If you only have budget for one product this year — and honestly, most of us do — Chrome is the answer, and here's why the hobby is treating it like appointment television.
The Rookie PREM1ERE Patch Autographs are the chase of the year. These 1-of-1 cards feature actual patches worn by players the very first time they stepped onto an official NFL regular-season field. The patch is removed after the game, authenticated, and embedded into a card. You're not chasing a jersey swatch from some mystery practice session. You're chasing a moment — a real one. First-year talent like Jaxson Dart, Cam Ward, Cam Skattebo, and TreVeyon Henderson are featured.
NFL Honors Gold Shield Autographs take the same concept to the veterans. The gold shields worn at the base of the collar by 2024 AP award winners — Josh Allen (MVP), Saquon Barkley (Offensive Player of the Year), Jayden Daniels (Offensive Rookie of the Year), Pat Surtain II (Defensive Player of the Year), and Jared Verse (Defensive Rookie of the Year) — were pulled from their jerseys, authenticated, and placed into 1-of-1 autographed cards. These aren't replicas. They're pieces of a season's worth of greatness.
The autograph checklist is stacked. Tom Brady's first pack-pulled licensed autograph since 2021 is in this product. Barry Sanders. Josh Allen. Drake Maye's first NFL-licensed auto, period. The checklist spans rookies, veterans, and legends in a way Panini football hadn't done in years.
The parallel rainbow is massive. Teal, Pink, Aqua, Blue, Green, Purple, Gold, Orange, Black, Red, FrozenFractor, and the 1-of-1 Superfractor. Collectors who love the chase of building a rainbow have plenty to run toward.
And for the retro crowd — the Tecmo Super Bowl inserts designed to look like the classic 1989 video game are easily the most creative insert idea in football cards in years.
What This Means for Your Collection
The return of Topps to football isn't just about nostalgia, though there's plenty of that to go around. It's about competition returning to a market that got a little comfortable. Topps Chrome is already one of the most active brands in baseball and basketball — rookie chrome autos consistently rank among the most traded cards on the secondary market.
With the NFL license now firmly in Topps' hands and a product designed from the ground up with game-worn memorabilia, on-card autos, and a rookie class that includes names collectors are already buzzing about, the football card market in 2026 looks more exciting than it has in a long time.
The game hasn't changed. But who's printing it sure has.
Shop the new Topps Football releases at IfItsSports.com — because the Biggest Little Card Shop in the Hobby doesn't sit out a play this big.