Underneath the surface of what actually happens at a sporting event, there lies another world, a cut-throat world where money, drive, ambition, and skilful negotiating can be the difference between having it all or missing out: this world revolves around collectibles and memorabilia. All joking and overstatement aside, these little keepsakes and mementos can be big business, from Super Bowl ticket stubs to Olympics pins to the reason for today’s word, Panini World Cup stickers and albums.
More than just adhesive player photos to add into little books, these simple souvenirs have blossomed into the must-have tokens of World Cup fandom, but before exploring the reasons why, perhaps we need to explore the word sticker.
Sticker, simply put, is a combination of the word stick and the suffix -er, essentially meaning ‘one who/which sticks.’ Probing a bit deeper, the verb stick originated from the Ancient Greek stizein, meaning ‘to puncture or (loosely used) attach’, and coming to us via the proto-Germanic stik-, meaning ‘to pierce’.
First appearing in English in Richard Taverner’s On Saynt Andrewes Day Gospels (circa 1542), the initial meaning reflects a person or a thing which sticks to something else in a loyal manner: “Such a sticker by Christ in all his temptations was this holy Apostle Saint Bartholomew.”
Opposed to the original figurative understanding of our word, in 1862, in The United States Congressional Serial Set, specifically in the Report of the Committee of Election on the case of Kline vs. Verree, our word was first used to indicate our now-typical understanding of the word, stating that: “In very many instances the ‘sticker’ was a smooth piece of paper pasted over a fold in the ballot, with no corresponding fold in the ‘sticker’, showing that the ‘sticker’ had been placed upon the ballot at some time after it had been folded.”
For Panini, having partnered with FIFA since 1970, stickers provide a cheap and fun way to unite collectors with those who enjoy the game as well as those who appreciate football nostalgia. Still, for a global game, the numbers are a bit staggering. Though we are now dealing with regular physical stickers and albums as well as digital version, during the last World Cup, a whopping 195 million virtual packets of cards were opened and over 243 million stickers were swapped.
As for Russia 2018, earlier this month, pre-tournament numbers were averaging 50K-60K downloads a day and over 1.5 million users. Still, for many, including Panini America CEO Mark Warsop and, likely, legions of fans, nothing can replace the tactile joy of flipping through an actual album and seeing the stickers, reliving the effort, and telling the stories of World Cups past.
