The Bubble-Gum Trust

A monopoly is a monopoly to the Federal Trade Commission, be it in oil, steel--or bubble gum. So in 1959 the FTC began unwrapping the sticky case of Brooklyn's Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., tycoon of the baseball trading cards that now sag the pockets of every acquisitive American boy (and tomboy) between the ages of five and 15. Last week FTC Examiner Herman Tocker capped 4,000 pages of testimony with a 113-page opinion finding Topps so tops that its competitors are overcome with "a sense of futility."

Tocker says that "the world's largest manufacturer of bubble gum" ($14 million a year) got that way by totally dominating the promotional gimmick of enclosing five baseball players' pictures with every 5-c- slab of Baseball gum. With $5 binders, Topps persuaded more than 6,500 minor leaguers to sign over the use of their names and pictures under five-year contracts that became effective at $125 per year when the rookies reached the majors. By 1961, says Tocker, the Topps bubble covered more than 95% of all major leaguers, shutting out virtually all Topps's rivals in the $1.3 billion confectionary industry.

Tocker found Topps innocent of illegalities "per se," attributing its success largely to the "inefficiency" of its competitors. Even so, the law "does not excuse monopoly by reference to any qualifying conditions." Its object is equal business opportunities. This Topps prevented, said Tocker, by "regimentation of the baseball card-buying public." For example, it issued check lists to exploit the kids' appetites for complete sets of its 576 numbered cards. As Tocker sees it, Topps has thus "monopolized a part of trade or commerce within the meaning of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act."

Tocker, whose ruling is not final, proposed an FTC order limiting Topps to two-year contracts and renewals. Calling the opinion "ludicrous," Topps wilt appeal to the full Commission, can proceed (if necessary) from there to a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and on to the Supreme Court. Cries a top Topps executive: "Should enterprise be punished and ineptness rewarded?"

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