Hasbro Starting Line Up

Is it for sure NFL is dead? I know they were supposed to be released last year but I kinda was holding out hope they were just delayed.

I hadn't thought about this before, but do you think Hasbro even tried to offload these figures to their home courts? $50 retail is indeed ridiculous, but they probably could have moved a bunch of units at $30 where each of these guys plays.

Or not. But certainly a more prestigious drop location than TJ Maxx (which is where I bought mine - no shade).

Posted by: @grumpymatt

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Is it for sure NFL is dead? I know they were supposed to be released last year but I kinda was holding out hope they were just delayed.

I don't think there's been an official announcement, but I wouldn't expect there to be.  Hasbro probably just wants to sweep this under the rug and not point out the failures of the NBA line.  I guess there is a slight chance that it isn't dead but I wouldn't count on it.

Posted by: @schizm

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I hadn't thought about this before, but do you think Hasbro even tried to offload these figures to their home courts? $50 retail is indeed ridiculous, but they probably could have moved a bunch of units at $30 where each of these guys plays.

Or not. But certainly a more prestigious drop location than TJ Maxx (which is where I bought mine - no shade).

That seems like a no-brainer.  Even if they gave them a discount that allowed for a lower price point than $30 but not as cheap as Ollies, I think they would have done well.  I can't imagine Luka figures not selling out at AAC for $20 each.  Same for all of the others, especially if they opened one up and put in a little display case, posed.

They marketed to adults at a super-premium price on a web site that only hardcore collectors would ever find them.  None of us have much idea how much general interest there actually is--including Hasbro.

If they try again with the NFL or whatever it needs to be at $20 to $25 at mass retail.

Could there be just that big of a gap between sports fans and action figure collectors? I'm not a sports follower at all, so I guess I'm talking a bit out of my butt, but from my personal experience there seems to be a tier system of interest (which I'm sure applies to many fandoms). You have sports fans, then you of that about half that like to collect memorabilia of their fav teams (usually jerseys, hats, flags etc), then of that subset, maybe half of that will collect just about anything with their team. Back when those Fox Sport robots where out, I was with a buddy at the mall where there was a sports memorabilia store that had a few of these. He was the kind that would get signed footballs that had the team logo, clocks, beer mugs, you name it. The robots, didn't even register on his radar  

The original Starting Lineup line was very successful, and sports fans do buy things like bobbleheads.  I think the McFarlane figures were also successful, right?  I think sports fans are willing to buy figures, assuming they're priced reasonably.  These weren't priced reasonably.

And I think we haven't had any sports figures for a while because it's probably a licensing nightmare.  You'd have to get the league to use their uniforms, the individual players to use their likeness, then even the shoe company if you wanted to use real shoes.  

@handsome and don't forget tattoo licenses from the artist, which is apparently why the figures were all missing their tattoos.

finally!!! after months of going from mashalls, then to ross, and then to tj maxx i finally found lebron james at tj maxx.

best of all he's was marked down to 6 bucks!

overall good figure, the poa could be better, i though these had the drop down hips, good likeness.

it's sad this revival was such a crash and burn from the start because hasbro got greedy, unless the it was the nba that made hasbro charge such a crazy price on these.

I have to bump this because are you freakin' kidding me!? They had these players in the pipeline?

I have very casual knowledge of current NFL and can recognize barely half of those names, but I would've been all over the other waves, including hated rivals like Montana, Rice, Emmet, and Chipper.

All the legends lineups sound great. Have any images of the MLB or NFL players ever surfaced? I just search google for a bit and didn't see anything.

@grumpymatt 

The football players look to be on the thin side. I have to assume those are bucks for QB's and/or WR's. 

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I'd say it's definitely Kittle on the far left and Watt on the far right.   Probably Josh Allen second from the right.   My best guess on the other two would be Burrow and Mahomes

I had the same thought, PC.

There's some odd athlete selection on that list (Kittle, Lamb, Hurts, and Iverson are wild pulls), but I still can't believe Hasbro fumbled this line so badly. The crazy price, NFTs, and no tattoos killed this line before it could get off the ground. This should've been an easy win at $25 a pop.

I feel bad for the folks who wanted this line. I'm not a sports guy, but I thought the figures where well put together and seemed to have pretty good likeness to the players.  I wonder if releasing a player from each major league in the first wave would have worked instead of just NBA. Who knows. If the baseball guys ever got made, I could have used them as the Baseball Furies from the Warriors.