[1] In 1888 Yale player Henry W. Beecher was included as the only football player in a set of 50 cards distributed in packs of "Old Judge" and "Gypsy Queen" cigarettes by Goodwin & Company.,[2] becoming the first American football card ever.

[1] The first entire set of cards to focus on American football players was printed by the Mayo Cut Plug Tobacco Company, which released a 35-card set in 1894,[3][4][5] featuring players from the schools that became the Ivy League.

[1] They were used to promote other items in addition to tobacco products such as Spalding's sporting goods, breakfast cereal, ice cream, doughnuts and gum.

Two years later, Upper Deck obtained licenses from the NFL to produce trading cards.

[8] In 1992, SkyBox International (a company founded only three years prior) produced its first set of football cards.

Donruss, a company that had been in the non-sports trading cards market since 1961 manufacturing products related with movies or TV shows, released its football set in 1995, remaining in the business until March 2009 when Italian Panini Group purchased assets of the industry's second-oldest trading card company, Donruss, and formed the new subsidiary, "Panini America".

[9][10] In 2015, Panini signed a long-term contract with the NFL that secured the company exclusive trading card and sticker rights of the league.

"[14] In January 2014, football cards from the collection of Jefferson R. Burdick, including ones dating to 1894, were displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The design featured horizontal and vertical cards, with a colorized photograph of the player and a black and white field or action pose behind them.

The college logo is placed in the upper right hand side of the card, and an All-American shield on the lower left.

The set was a huge hit, and helped transition Topps into the football market for years to come.