The NFL, Fanatics, TikTok, and parent company ByteDance are all named in a new federal antitrust lawsuit accusing them of working together to squeeze independent sellers out of one of sports collecting’s fastest-growing corners. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Minnesota-based memorabilia seller David Allan Skalsky and his company, QCBRIPNSHIP LLC, which ran a livestream business called Quad City Breaks.

Skalsky alleges the four defendants coordinated to push independent sellers off TikTok’s marketplace unless they agreed to sell Fanatics’ merchandise exclusively.

“The object of the conspiracy was to exclude independent memorabilia sellers from TikTok unless they agreed to sell Fanatics’ merchandise exclusively,” Skalsky wrote in the complaint.

These independent sellers go by the name breakers in the hobby world. They go live on TikTok, crack open sealed boxes of sports cards and memorabilia in real time, and the customers who bought into slots watch the whole thing unfold and get whatever pulls out of the pack.

Skalsky claims his business was generating as much as $200,000 a month before repeated account bans beginning in 2024 wrecked it. The complaint gets specific about how that pressure allegedly played out.

According to the filing, Steve Halupka, identified as TikTok Shop’s US Sports Collectibles Team Lead, texted Skalsky that his account would be reinstated if he signed an exclusive contract with Fanatics. A separate individual identified as Ceruti allegedly told Skalsky he would coordinate with Halupka at TikTok to get the account restored once that deal was signed.

Skalsky argues the underlying premise, that Fanatics is the only lawful seller of this merchandise, doesn’t hold up. The First Sale Doctrine allows anyone who buys a genuine item legally to resell it, trademark and all, without needing permission from the brand.

There’s a financial relationship at the center of this that the lawsuit leans on heavily too. The NFL holds a substantial equity stake in Fanatics and was reportedly the single largest investor in a $1.5 billion funding round the company raised in 2022. That dual role, licensor on one hand, financial stakeholder on the other, is exactly what Skalsky’s complaint says creates the incentive for the alleged scheme in the first place.

Skalsky’s argument goes beyond what happened to his own business too. He says the whole market got hurt when independent sellers were pushed out.

“Defendants’ conduct harmed not only plaintiff but the competitive process itself by eliminating independent sellers from the livestream memorabilia marketplace, reducing consumer choice, suppressing output of competing products, increasing barriers to entry, restricting alternative channels of distribution and concentrating market power in Fanatics-controlled entities,” Skalsky wrote.

Jeremy C. Shafer of Banner Legal represents Skalsky and is seeking financial damages, restoration of his TikTok account, cancellation of the disputed exclusive arrangements, and a court order blocking the alleged practices going forward. Representatives for TikTok, the NFL, and Fanatics did not respond to requests for comment.

This isn’t the first time these three defendants have faced this exact accusation. Ohio-based GFC & Supply Inc. filed a nearly identical antitrust suit against the same companies back in October 2025, alleging the same core conspiracy to monopolize the breaker market.

That earlier case is part of a much bigger legal picture surrounding Fanatics right now, one that’s produced mixed results for the company so far.

Fanatics Has Faced Growing Legal Pressure Over Its Market Position in Sports Collectibles

Fanatics has been in this position before, with outcomes that have gone both ways. Panini sued the company, arguing its exclusive licensing agreements locked competitors out of the trading card business, and a judge let the core antitrust claims move forward as recently as March 2025. Separate class actions, filed under Scaturo & Jones v. Fanatics, have accused the company alongside the NFL, NBA, and MLB of conspiring to monopolize the broader collectibles market.

Fanatics and the NFL haven’t lost every round, though. A federal judge dismissed a different antitrust case against both companies over merchandise restrictions in July 2025, following a similar dismissal the year before in a related MLB case, evidence that this legal terrain remains genuinely contested rather than settled in either direction.

The stakes keep growing regardless of how individual cases land. The collectibles market has only gotten bigger since the pandemic, when TikTok’s livestream breaking scene first exploded and never really slowed down, meaning more money is riding on who controls that channel with each case that gets filed. Sellers across the hobby are watching Skalsky’s case as something bigger than one man’s dispute, with the earlier GFC & Supply lawsuit still working its way through the same court likely to shape how this one unfolds next.