Panini is an Italian company that produces books, comics, magazines, stickers, trading cards and other items through its collectibles and publishing subsidiaries.
[5] Through Panini Digital the company uses voice-activated software to capture football statistics, which is then sold to agents, teams, media outlets and video game manufactures.
Benito and Giuseppe Panini were operating a newspaper distribution office in Modena, Italy in 1960, when they found a collection of figurines (stickers attached with glue) that a Milan company was unable to sell.
[25] In May 2006, Panini partnered with The Coca-Cola Company and Tokenzone to produce the first virtual sticker album for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
The album was viewable in at least 10 different languages, such as Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.
[35] In July 2010, Panini acquired a licence to create an official sticker collection for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London 2012.
[13] Some of Panini's releases in 2019 included collections of movies Avengers: Endgame[39] and Toy Story 4,[40] and the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup.
[42] In January 2009, the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced Panini would become the exclusive trading card partner of the league beginning with the 2009–10 season.
[44] Panini signed an exclusive agreement with five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers as its official company spokesman and global trading card ambassador in 2009.
Bryant's special affiliation to Panini goes back to his time growing up in Italy where he collected Italian football stickers.
[45] This subsidiary holds official licences for NBA, NFL, NASCAR, WWE, FIFA, The Collegiate Licensing Company, Disney, DreamWorks and Warner Bros.[46] Panini also has exclusive partnerships with Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc., the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In January 2021, Panini America signed an exclusive multi-year trading card deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
[47][48] Later in August 2021, Panini America also partnered with the UFC to release NFTs, commemorating big fights, milestones and moments.