When Upper Deck was awarded an exclusive collegiate contract, we all knew cards would change. However, we are three products into the April 1 change; there has been one noticeable difference: the lack of action photos. When I first heard of the exclusive deal, I was expecting cards to return to their early 2000s form. That would be action shots with some blurred out of airbrushed logos.

Sage Autographed, Press Pass Portrait Edition, and Panini Prestige are almost exclusively non-action headshots of the 2010 rookie class. While unique in concept, it has been a change for the hobby. It does make sense as to why companies have done this. With no helmet on, there is less, if anything, that would need to be edited out depending on how the photo is cropped. That saves time, money, and effort for them. I feel though, that if they are going to do a “portrait” photo, it should be vertical, like Press Pass PE. The Prestige and Sage cards just do not seem as appealing.

Currently, the next product that should include rookies in college uniform will be Donruss Elite. There are no current mock ups of what we can expect the rookies to look like. With Elite’s history, I hope they look back at 2001 and 2002 Elite to see how to do action shots. I feel a fourth product of headshots would hurt sales more than a card with airbrushed logos.

While collegiate cards in general sell for less than the ones than their NFL counterparts, I am also curious to see how much of a premium UD products will carry compared to these products that contain no logos. It may end up that there is not much of a difference since there are less college collectors in general.  Upper Deck is banking on their exclusive contract to give them a premium and still be competitive with Topps and Panini NFL cards.

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