Not sure how I feel about this…

I’m not sure how I feel about the poster sets Topps just released today.

The timing just feels … inappropriate.  As if last week someone at Topps had the following conversation:

• Exec A:  “Oh, Yogi Berra just died, sad.”
• Exec B:  “Yeah, I liked that guy.  We have a contract with him.  Well, since he’s in the news, let’s think about how can we capitalize?”
• Exec C:  “Let’s print a 10-card set of sepia-toned posters of him with some of his famous Yogi-isms.  Then we can sell them for $30 bucks each, or $88.88 for the gold ones numbered to 8.  8 was his number you know.”
• Exec B:  “Phenomenal idea, let’s do a jumbo card set as well.  We do a ton of those anyways.  It can’t be hard to add those to the printing press.”
• Exec C:  “A nickel ain’t worth a dime any more.  But this idea will be worth $40,163.31 of revenue.”

Topps obviously has a contract to use his likeness, and Yogi (and now his estate) was surely paid for that.  So they have every right to do this.  And on some level, it’s kind of like putting a tribute card in a set, which would be something I’m all for.  But that’s including a tribute in a product that was already scheduled.  This is creating a product that, at the very least, appears to be capitalizing off the timing of someone’s death.  Which is off-putting to me.

I do really like the posters, I just wish the idea had been thought of 5 years before Berra died or 1 year after his death.