With a new season of football comes a new batch of trading cards for collectors and young fans to get their hands on. Some of these cards will no doubt be used by kids in their bicycle spokes, but others should be carefully added to collections.
Upper Deck will debut its 2014 football cards on April 16 and some of the top rookie prospects will be among them. The trading card company has been busy signing deals with high profile players including Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater, Michael Sam, Blake Bortles, Derek Carr, Ka’Deem Carey and Sammy Watkins. Signing sessions have already begun as Upper Deck acquires hard-signed signatures for the company’s popular Lettermen autograph trading cards.
“It is going to be a historic year for football rookies with so much talent and hype surrounding the draft, so it was critical for our athlete relations team to lock in deals with this new crop of rookies,” said Brandon Miller, Upper Deck’s collegiate sports brand manager. “The next few weeks will be some of the busiest of the year for our football team, but it all pays off when we hear how excited our customers are when they open up new Upper Deck packs.”
Football fans will find 200 different rookie cards in the 2014 Upper Deck Football set from first-round superstars to sleepers. Beyond the regular Star Rookie cards, fans can find short-printed photo variation rookies, glossy rookies numbered to just 10 copies and autographed rookies.
Also returning are Predictor cards which became popular in the 90s. These cards offer collectors exclusive prizes if the player on the card is the first player picked at their position in the draft. These trading cards will be extremely rare, with an average of one card per 1,440 packs. Predictor cards will be for the QB, RB and WR positions.