Topps SPAC Merger Collapses After Loss of MLB Trading-Card Deal

Topps Co.’s plan to go public in a blank-check merger has been derailed by new exclusive contracts that Major League Baseball and its players’ union signed with a different trading-card company.

Topps, the leading baseball-card company since the 1950s, had reached a deal in April to become publicly traded through a merger with Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corp. II , a special-purpose acquisition company. SPACs are shell companies that raise money on public markets and then merge with a private business to make the target company publicly traded.

The deal fell through by mutual agreement after MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association both reached new exclusive licensing deals with Fanatics Inc., an online sports-merchandise retailer, starting in the coming years. Makers of sports trading cards rely on such deals for the rights to use players’ images and teams’ logos and trademarks.

With the deal’s collapse, Topps will remain private, it said. The SPAC merger had been announced in April and would have valued the combined entity at about $1.16 billion.

“Topps expects to be able to produce substantially all its current licensed baseball products through 2025, pursuant to its existing agreements,” the company said Friday.