Bowman is a brand of baseball cards created by Topps Company, Inc. that focuses on featuring prospects, rookies, and young Major League talent. Bowman baseball cards have been produced annually since 1949 and are the official Minor League Baseball licensee, giving them unique access to photograph and provide information on prospects yet to reach the Majors.
Topps has owned the Bowman brand since 1956 when they acquired Bowman Gum Inc., the original creator of Bowman cards. However, Topps did not start regularly producing new Bowman sets each year until the early 1990s. Prior to that, Bowman sets would come out sporadically, usually featuring a specific theme rather than being a true “annual” release. In 1992, Topps revived Bowman as a yearly brand focused on prospects to help fill the period between their flagship Series 1 and 2 releases each season.
Today, Topps produces several different Bowman Baseball card products each year under the Bowman brand and logo. The flagship is considered the annual Bowman Draft set, which comes out in late spring/early summer and features the recently drafted amateur players from MLB’s First-Year Player Draft in May/June. These sets photograph and provide stats and bios on the top prospects just starting their professional careers. Additional major Bowman releases include Bowman Chrome in the summer, which focuses on glossy refractors and parallels of top prospects, and Bowman’s Best in the fall, a high-end set featuring prospects and young stars.
Topps also produces international Bowman sets targeting collectors outside of the United States. These include Bowman Draft International, Bowman Scouts Edition (international amateur players), Bowman Sterling (high-end international prospects), and Bowman’s Best international variants. Many international Bowman products are exclusive to certain European, Asian, and Latin American distributors and markets.
In order to photograph, acquirestats and information, and sign licensing agreements for each year’s Bowman releases, Topps works directly with all 30 Major League teams as well as many Minor League affiliates. As the exclusive MLB/MiLB licensee for prospect cards, Topps has scouts and representatives attending practices, games, and signing events throughout each season to gather fresh content for their Bowman sets featuring tomorrow’s baseball stars.
All Bowman cards are designed, approved, and manufactured by Topps at their main production facility in East Rutherford, New Jersey. While the company does not publicly disclose exact print runs, Bowman sets are considered “mainstream” releases by Topps standards and have print runs and distribution comparable to flagship Topps Series 1 and 2 but generally below specialty high-end sets like Topps Chrome. Cards are primarily distributed to retailers like Walmart, Target, hobby shops, and online sportscard marketplaces.
As the exclusive owner of Bowman branding and photography rights, Topps carefully protects the Bowman brand and guards against unauthorized use of their prospect content. While Topps produces the official Bowman releases each season under the MLB/MiLB license, other unlicensed third-party companies may on rare occasion attempt to create their own “unofficial” sets featuring available prospect photographs from the public domain internet. But Topps remains the sole authorized creator, producer, and distributor of licensed annual Bowman baseball card products focusing on prospects and young talent.
In summary, Bowman baseball cards have been produced since 1949, but it was not until Topps revived the brand in the early 1990s that they became the annual staple focused on prospects they are today. Topps exclusively owns the Bowman brand and through their MLB/MiLB licenses has unique access and relationships that allow them to photograph, design, approve, manufacture, and distribute the array of Bowman sets each season that provide baseball card collectors with the earliest looks at tomorrow’s future MLB stars still making their way through the minors.
