Let me start by saying I have no problem with having "The exclusive home improvement store of MLB" or "The exclusive soft drink of whoever." That is all marketing and really has no impact on me. However, this deal announced in today's NY Times article has significant impact on card collectors: Topps Gets Exclusive Deal With Baseball, Landing a Blow to Upper Deck. In short, Major League Baseball has elected to license the rights to team logos, etc only to Topps. While other companies (e.g. Upper Deck) can still license player likenesses, etc from the MLB Players Association and display those images on a trading card, they would not be able to put the logo of say, the Atlanta Braves on there.
This is disappointing because of the great leaps forward the competition brought to the trading card industry in the late 80's. Topps dominated the market for years with their flimsy cardboard, poor quality images, and stick gum that becomes a wet sock in 30 seconds. Donruss entered in '81 and Fleer in '84 (I think) and the card stock improved. Then came Score in 1988, ushering in an error of better card stock and images. Upper Deck came in around the same timeframe and took things up another knotch. Today, you see cards with photographic quality images, colors, etc. I enjoy collecting these ards today and am concerned that things would not have improved so quickly were it not for competition.
By no means am I saying that today's situation is perfect. In 1987, you were able to hand collect an entire set of Topps or Donruss cards by simply going to the local drug or toy store and buying packs. Today, there are sets that are nearly impossible to complete because of the inclusion of very limited edition cards. It's fun to try to get those, but they really shouldn't be considered part of the set but more as special promotion cards.
But I digress. While today's market isn't perfect - giving Topps an effective monopoly will not make it any better.