Starting Lineup Figures Are Back! And Already DOA
The lack of new sports figures over the last year or so has been excruciating. My favorite teams in the NBA and NFL finally have exciting young players so, of course, now McFarlane loses their sports figure licenses. The pain of that was slightly alleviated earlier this year with the announcement that Hasbro was bringing back the Starting Lineup line from my childhood.
Unfortunately, as details have begun to emerge, it seems that the line is destined to go away again.
This is a launch that should have been a layup for Hasbro. Instead, it’s an air ball that has both sports fans and toy collectors shaking their heads. Lets break down some of the questionable decisions around Hasbro’s recent botched announcement.
The Price…
Looking at these things, what would you guess that they would cost? Probably the $22.99 or whatever a Marvel Legends or Black Series figure is going for, right? How about $50? $50 for one of these?! Fuck off. Look, I get that the world is on fire and inflation is killing us, but you cannot put that price tag on these and expect them to succeed. To collect this entire wave you will have to pay $400. That’s insane. I’m an action figure collector, an NBA fantastic, and I’m also lucky enough to have disposable income, but even I’m not going to consider any of these for that price. Even if there’s a legend’s wave in the future with some of my all-time favorites like Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson, or Grant Hill, that’s not happening.
I have so many fond memories of going to Toys R Us and buying Starting Lineup figures. That was even my entryway into some sports. I couldn’t have named a hockey player aside from Wayne Gretzky back in those days, but I liked the figures so much that I’d collect them and look for them to pop up on Sportscenter highlights.
Kids aren’t going to have that option with these at that price point.
The Look…
I don’t like that Hasbro tried to go with a realistic representation with these but I understand that’s a personal choice. I dug the simplicity of the older line where the only difference between Charles Barkley and Mookie Blaylock was their jerseys…but that’s me.
However, If I wanted a Lebron James with lots of articulation and lifelike features, I can spend a little extra for a Mafex figure. Plus it seems silly to me that Hasbro went through the effort of getting Nike involved for the sneakers and such but that these players are missing their tattoos. If part of that $50 price point was to pay for Nike’s likeness, I would have preferred that they pay that to the tattoo artists and given these players generic shoes. But again, that’s just me.
The Rest…
Okay, so they have messed with the iconic design of the figures, they’re overcharging for them, but how else could they mess up this re-launch? Oh, I know, NFTs!
Each figure from the Starting Lineup line will come with a Panini digital NFT card that has various levels of rarity attached to it. Surely they could have passed this by enough focus groups to know that including NFT’s in any way was going to create backlash.
Between that and these figures selling through Fanatics, I don’t know that this could have been botched more than it has been. Hopefully Hasbro is able to pivot on the fly and save this line, but it seems doubtful.
