Illumination Entertainment болон Topps хамтран спортын ертөнцийн алдартнуудыг алдартай хүүхэлдэйн киноны баатруудтай хослуулсан өвөрмөц цуврал картуудыг зах зээлд гаргажээ.
Topps компани NBA болон MLB-ийн шилдэг тамирчдыг “Минион” хэлбэрт оруулан “Minionfractor” нэртэй цөөн тооны тусгай картуудыг бүтээсэн нь цуглуулагчдын дунд өндөр эрэлттэй байна. Өнгөрсөн сард худалдаанд гарсан 2026 оны Topps Chrome Updates Basketball цувралд Никола Йокич, Шэй Гилжеус-Александр, Стефен Карри, Карим Абдул-Жаббар, Купер Флагг гэсэн таван тоглогчийн Минион дүртэй картууд багтсан бөгөөд нэг бүрийг нь ойролцоогоор 95 ширхэгээр хэвлэжээ.
Ховор тоо ширхэгээс шалтгаалан эдгээр картуудын үнэ хоёрдогч зах зээл дээр огцом өсөж, 100 гаруй карт хамгийн багадаа 1,000 доллараар зарагдсан байна. Стефен Карри болон Шэй Гилжеус-Александрын ердөө таван хувь хэвлэгдсэн паралель картууд 50,000 доллараас дээш үнээр борлогдсон бол дахин давтагдашгүй “one-of-one” картуудын үнэ цаашид зургаан оронтой тоонд хүрэх хүлээлттэй байна.
Fanatics Collectibles-ийн дэд ерөнхийлөгч Клэй Лураскигийн тайлбарласнаар, спортын ертөнцийн хүчтэй өрсөлдөөн, сэтгэл хөдөлгөм мөчүүдийг Минион баатруудын хөгжилтэй зан чанартай хослуулах санааг гаргасан байна. Illumination Entertainment компани уг төслийн хүрээнд өөрсдийн санал болгосон тамирчдын жагсаалтыг Topps-д ирүүлжээ.
Энэхүү хамтын ажиллагаа нь зөвхөн сурталчилгааны чанартай бус, цуглуулагчдын анхаарлыг татахуйц, үнэ цэнийг хадгалах зорилготой гэж талууд онцоллоо. Topps компани өмнө нь Диснейн баатруудыг MLB-ийн дүрэмт хувцастай картуудад ашиглаж амжилтад хүрсэн туршлагатай бөгөөд Минион картуудын амжилт нь ирээдүйд илүү өргөн хүрээтэй хамтын ажиллагааг эхлүүлэх боломжийг харуулж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Anyone familiar with the Minions could easily envision one of the lovable yellow characters pulling off the “night, night” pose made famous by two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry after either committing or thwarting a crime.
The thought channelled a Gru “lightbulb” moment for Illumination Entertainment to reach out to Topps with a crazy idea: smash the Minions together with some of the best players in the NBA and MLB to create a unique, fun collection of trading cards.
As a result, the mashup has produced some of the more surprisingly sought-after sports cards within the latest Topps Chrome Baseball and Basketball releases. Topps transformed star athletes like Curry, Aaron Judge and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander into Minions as part of a short-printed (far fewer produced than most other cards in the set) “Minionfractor” insert sets.
The interest in the cards has been undeniable since the release of 2026 Topps Chrome Updates Basketball last month. Only five players were turned into Minions for that release (Nikola Jokic, Gilgeous-Alexander, Curry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Cooper Flagg) and they’re some of the rarest inserts in the set, with only about 95 printed for each player, according to analysis done by The Athletic’s Corey Merriman.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a Minion. (Photo courtesy of Topps)
Because of those limited numbers, there have been more than 100 Minionfractor cards — primarily the NBA cards — that have sold for at least $1,000 on the secondary market, according to online card sales database Card Ladder. The most expensive Minionfractors, parallels of the Curry and Gilgeous-Alexander cards limited to five copies produced of each, have sold for more than $50,000. The one-of-one parallels have yet to sell publicly but for a player like Curry or Flagg, they could be six-figure cards when they do. A one-of-one Flagg Garbage Pail Kids card from Topps’ 2025 Bowman Basketball release recently sold for $288,000, making it the most expensive Garbage Pail Kids card of all time.
“We’ve been experimenting a bunch with non-sports properties crossing over into sports and they just make for some really interesting, creative, fun cards,” said Clay Luraschi, Fanatics Collectibles’ senior vice president of global product development. “When you think about the Minions in particular, they playfully create havoc. That’s what they do. And if you think about that, it mirrors sports in a lot of ways. The intense moments, the craziness behind sports, the outcome, the nuttiness of it all. And we just felt like these characters would just be perfect for a mashup and the athletes that we portray on cards.”
According to an Illumination source familiar with the details of the collaboration who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, the company approached Topps with a list of players they wanted to utilize, including Nikola Jokic, who showed up for a Denver Nuggets game in 2024 dressed as Gru and subsequently appeared in a promotional video for Despicable Me 4.
“We’re always trying to find ways to really surprise the audience,” the source said. “We’re obviously seeing the collectibles industry working so well. So we reached out to Topps, who’s having huge success in the space, to try to create something that would surprise our audience and that would be taken seriously by collectors.
“Normally what happens with studios is people are trying to market something specifically that would be very promotional. There would be a pack of Minions and descriptions of who they are in the movie and there wouldn’t be that scarcity element. We wanted to do something different. We want to create cards together that will be taken seriously and that can be a part of the conversation of collectibility.”
Predictably, Topps has taken notice of the prices the Minionfractors are commanding on the secondary market. And so has Illumination.
“This is really a kind of test in the marketplace to see if there’s something bigger that we could do with Topps in the future with the IP,” the source said. “So we’ve been watching the value, which is just amazing. We didn’t think it was going to get anywhere as close to this. We thought people would love them, people would collect them and maybe reach $10,000. I think it just proves you can create something clever with multiple IPs together.”
Topps’ Aaron Judge and Nikola Jokic Minionfractor cards. (Photos courtesy of eBay)
Topps often plays a balancing act when deciding on a mashup of sports cards with other IPs so as to not make an insert or short-printed card that collectors might frown upon. Another recent success has been putting classic Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck in MLB uniforms on rare insert cards across several MLB and Disney card releases.
“It’s got to be a property that makes sense with the sports properties,” Luraschi said. “It has to be a property that’s globally recognized. It has to be something that’s fun, right? It can be seen as serious, but also tongue in cheek at the same time. It has to be something that can generate collectibility, something that can tell a story not just in that one year, but over multiple years and that can also pivot within the storytelling, if that makes sense.”
Topps went with differing approaches for the Minions inserts in the company’s MLB and NBA products. The MLB Minions cards mirrored the poses of players like Judge, Juan Soto and Paul Skenes off their original cards. For the NBA versions, Topps went a bit more playful with the images.
“I think the context in which they’re matching them up has to make sense,” Luraschi said. “Obviously, they don’t have to make sense in the real world, ’cause they’re not real. But there has to be a if it did happen, it would have to happen in the Minions world.
“So that’s important that there’s a storyline that can be told behind it. What you don’t see that’s behind the card, the Minions cards, are these stories that we’ve created in our head on how the Minion got onto the NBA court and took on the persona of Curry. If you just play that out in your head, it’s hilarious. So that all has to ‘make sense.’”
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